When Esme has a friend coming over one evening so she makes reservations for Jerome and the Baudelaires to have dinner at Café Salmonella at 7:00. I know you wouldn’t want to eat at a restaurant that shares a name for a food disease. But before they go, she has them change into pinstripe suits she bought for them from the “In” Boutique. Not surprisingly, the children fake enthusiasm for their gifts despite being miserable since they knew they could’ve got stuff they actually wanted. Even worse, the clothes are in adult-sized which obviously don’t fit them and look ridiculous in them, especially for Sunny who’s buried in hers (this isn’t the case in the TV show). But Violet decides that they shouldn’t act like spoiled rich kids akin to Carmelita Spats since they now have a home, food, and should be safe from Count Olaf as the doorman promised. So they decide to suck it up.

I selected Irving Berlin’s “Blue Skies” for this part. The original version is an upbeat song about how all the bad things go away when one’s fallen in love. And it’s been a classic for decades. In this version, I have Esme tell them to wear the pinstripe suits she gave them as well as the Baudelaires complaining about them.

“Pinstripes”

Esme:
I’ve got a friend who’s coming tonight
Got to have you out before he swings by
Before you go to Café Salmonella to dine
Change in these suits I’ve bought you to shine

Pinstripes
From In Boutique
Got to have pinstripes
To look chic

Pinstripes
Make you look right
Got to wear pinstripes
For tonight

Klaus:
Why do we have to wear these ill-fitting suits
When the Squalors could buy better books
This one isn’t even in my size
I’m merely twelve, not twenty-five

Pinstripes
Not for us please
To eat where its name is
A food disease

Violet:
Maybe we’re being a bit out of whack
Maybe we’re acting a bit like Carmelita Spats
We got a home, food, and away from the Count
But Duncan and Isadora are certainly not