Helen, Alice, Carolina, and T.D. are going home from school (with Martha and Skits greeting Helen) but Carolina seems out of sorts. She admits she has a problem, but on the playground, she refuses to say what it is. She says they'll think it's "silly", but they promise not to. She reveals that her birthday is next week, and last year, Jorge gave her a gift certificate instead of an actual gift, and she hates gift certificates because she has trouble deciding what to spend them on, thus she hasn't redeemed last year's one, which expires that night.
They continue to talk about the problem at the corner store, and she decides to have Helen decide for her. However, when Helen picks a skirt, Carolina doesn't like it and comes up with another idea. Meanwhile, T.D., Alice, and Martha are playing cash while T.D. expresses amazement at holding onto a gift certificate for a year. The kids and Martha fantasise about what they'd buy with a lot of money.
Carolina and Helen are sorting through some clothes with rhymes, but Helen thinks it'll take too long. She has Carolina choose a shirt blindfolded, but she dislikes it. Then, the shop closes, but she gets another idea. Helen comes home, where T.D. and Alice are visiting. Then, Carolina comes and reveals she's spent her gift certificate on... another one. She reveals that she's putting the problem off for another year (two years if Jorge bought her another gift certificate).
This episode provides examples of
- Delicious Daydream: Martha imagines being rich and buying lots of meat.
- The Ditherer: Carolina's reason for hating gift certificates is because she can't decide what to spend them on.
- Dogs Hate Squirrels: The Lorraine dogs try to chase after the squirrel when they take "squirreled away" literally.
- Fantasy Sequence:
- When T.D. asks Alice what she'd buy with a large sum of money, she imagines what she'd buy — an R.D.S. (Ronald Defence System), which is a bubble that protects her from Ronald's annoying antics.
- Then, she asks T.D. what he would buy, and he imagines buying a giant vacuum-powered tube to travel through.
- Grossout Fakeout: Martha initially thinks "splurge" means either to pee or poop, since she says that she wouldn't do that on anything as she's housebroken.Alice: "'Splurge' doesn't mean that!"
- Howl of Sorrow: Skits howls when he and Martha don't find the squirrel they think Carolina mentioned.
- Hypocritical Humour: T.D. tells Alice she can't buy her high-tech bubble device as it doesn't exist, then immediately mentions wanting to buy a vacuum tube to travel through.Martha: "And he said your fantasy was impossible!"
- Nursery Rhyme: Carolina tries choosing clothes with "eenie meenie miny mo".
- Running Gag: Martha and Skits take "squirreled away" literally, and spend the rest of the episode searching for the squirrel.
- Shaped Like Itself: The security guard says he can't close shop early because "the rules are the rules".
- Slapstick:
- T.D. has trouble balancing when standing on his swing, then falls off another swing after spinning on it.
- In Alice's imagination, Ronald falls off the couch and then into a bowl of flowers.
- Speak in Unison:
- Alice and T.D. say, "Promise" at once when promising not to find Carolina's problem "silly".
- They then say, "Food?" when guessing what Martha would buy if she got a lot of money.
- Stock Animal Diet: Martha imagines steak and sausage being among the many foods she buys.
- Tempting Fate: T.D. says he'll save all his money for a long time, only to instantly spend the money Helen gives him.
