Walter and Maude go to Massachusetts for an appliance seller's convention. When their reservations at a upscale hotel are botched, they must share a shabby motel. This is when a squabble ensues when Maude tries to confide in Walter the angst she has over not having any meaning in her life and the troubles she's been having trying to find a job because she's a woman.

Walter and Maude are planning on taking a second honeymoon to Italy, however, the day their plane leaves, Maude gets a tetnus shot which results in a rash. She immediately hotfoots it down to the doctors office where she encounters a busy preoccupied doctor who prescribes her medication but doesn't advise her on how to take it, resulting in an overdose, cancellation of the honeymoon and a possible malpractice suit.