Gidget (Sally Field) lures her dad Russell Lawrence (Don Porter) to the beach. While there he becomes attracted to a woman named Sally Combs (Marian Collier) and the two quickly get to know one another. She is a research chemist for a food company. The two go out for dinner, leaving Gidget home alone and bored. She goes to visit her sister Anne and her husband John to talk over the situation. John, the studying psychologist, diagnoses her with "projecting into a maternal role". When it becomes well past midnight, Gidget worries something has happened to her dad. When she phones the police station to explain, they mistakenly think she is a mom looking for her kid. Policeman Joe Hanley (Harvey Korman, "The Carol Burnett Show", Mel Brooks films) finds the convertible and regretfully goes up to the 40-year-old-man and comically tells him to go home to his mother. It breaks up the date, and Russell angrily flies home, receiving a speeding ticket from Officer Hanley. At home, Gidget and her father try to explain how the other is acting.
