"I can't have a sign for everything. Read the sign."
A Plot: Brent attempts to avoid Hank doing him any favours, because "owing Hank one" means Brent will be forced to help Hank with an upcoming project involving lots of hard manual labour. Lacey and Wanda team up to trick Brent and Hank into doing things for them.
B Plot: Karen loses her footbag and thinks Davis and others have hidden it. Despite everyone insisting that they haven't pranked her, Karen keeps asking for it back.
C Plot: Oscar finds a pair of pants on the side of the road and thinks it's a great discovery. This leads him to start picking up old junk everywhere, until Emma puts a stop to it.
Tropes Referenced:
- Ask a Stupid Question...: Hank walks into Corner Gas while Brent is stacking wiper fluid:Hank: Hey, Brent. Whatcha doing, stacking wiper fluid?Brent: That's uncanny. Are you sure you've never worked at a gas station before?
- Brand Name Takeover: Davis calls Karen's footbag a "Hackey Sack", but Karen corrects him as it's not the official Hackey Sack brand.Karen: Hackey Sack is a brand name, like Kleenex. People call it Kleenex even if the Kleenex they're using is some other kind of Kleenex.
- Brick Joke: Early in the episode, Oscar picking up trash results in a city worker named Wade losing his job and not being able to buy Christmas gifts for his kids. Later, when Emma dumps all of Oscar's findings back onto the road, Wade is re-hired and can afford to buy his kids some bikes.
- Department of Redundancy Department:Karen: It's not funny. A joke's a joke, but enough is enough. Enough jokes are enough and not funny!
- Gambit Pileup: Hank's plan to get Brent to owe him one becomes Brent and Lacey's plan for Brent not to owe Hank any more, which becomes Brent, Hank and Wanda's plan to get back at Lacey for getting Brent and Hank to do her work, which in the end was actually Lacey and Wanda's plan to get Brent and Hank to work for both of them but still be owed nothing.
- Laser-Guided Karma: After Lacey and Wanda manipulate Brent and Hank into doing favours for them in such a way that nobody owes anyone else a favour by the end of it, Wanda's car won't start when they are trying to go to a concert. Luckily Brent and Hank are around to help... but now Lacey and Wanda owe them one. Whip Pan to the two women doing the gruelling project that Brent had been trying to avoid having to help Hank with, by themselves, with no help from Brent or Hank.
- Metaphorgotten:Hank: Check and mate! The hunter has become the hunted! The fox has become the... fox who is... catching himself...
- Never My Fault: Karen continues to blame Davis for hiding her footbag even after he gets her a Hackey Sack branded one...which happens to land in a patch of grass right next to her missing one. Karen quickly pockets the original before Davis sees it and says she'll forgive him.
- Pirate Booty: Discussed. Oscar says the things he brings home are treasure, not junk, and Emma scoffs, "Treasure. You'd make a lousy pirate."
- Shaped Like Itself:
- When asked how much candy a new candy rack will hold, Brent says it's a "rack's worth", and later "a rack and a half".
- Oscar attempts to get Emma to come around to his junk-collecting hobby by bringing her back an old empty bottle of a discontinued beverage that she used to enjoy.Oscar: You used to drink that stuff like it was soda pop.
Emma: It was soda pop.
- Shout-Out: Davis debates with himself if the characters from Law & Order would use Hackey Sacks.
- Stealth Insult:Oscar: (about all the junk he's picked up) Little treasures everywhere, and nobody sees 'em. People are ignorant.Emma: Some are.
- Strange Minds Think Alike:
- At the end of the episode, another old man finds the same pair of pants Oscar found earlier, and says the exact same line: "Look at this. A perfectly good pair of pants."
- Oscar picks up what he claims is an "Indian arrowhead", which Emma says is just a rock, because it's not even pointed. Oscar claims it's the kind they use for practice so that nobody gets hurt, and Emma calls him an idiot. We then get a flashback taking place 300 years ago.Cree Guy #1: This is the crappiest arrow you've ever made. It's not even pointed.
Cree Guy #2: It's for practice.
Cree Guy #1: You're really slipping. [tosses the arrow on the ground]
Cree Guy #2: You're just leaving it there?
Cree Guy #1: Some idiot will pick it up... eventually.
- Verbal Backspace:Hank: (as Brent stacks wiper fluid) Let me give you a hand.Brent: No, that's alright, I got it. (the stack of wiper fluid collapses) Wanda's got it. Wanda?
- You Owe Me: Brent tries to avoid this with Hank.
