Helen, Martha, and Alice wake up one morning to find that it's the first warm day of spring. Helen and the dogs, once Helen is dressed, go outside, then T.D. and Alice show up. They all go to the playground and try to ride the carousel, but it's stuck. Helen suggests that they play "kick-up", which is a game she invented but due to it raining on the same day, they never got to play a whole game.
However, when she tells her friends to get the equipment, nobody can agree on who has the ball. They agree that whoever had it last took it home, but disagree on who it was. Helen thinks it was T.D, and she remembers what happened the previous year — they were playing the game (whose objective was to keep the ball in the air using anything but one's hands) in a rain shower, when T.D. called a timeout because he saw it was about to rain hard, then it did, so everyone went home, T.D. with the ball.
T.D., however, remembers it differently — according to him, it wasn't raining at all to begin with, but there were puddles from the previous day's rain. The puddles bothered T.D.'s friends, but not him, then he called a timeout because he thought it would rain. His friends, however, designated him the "Puddle King" and told him to keep playing, so he passed the ball to Martha, but when it rained, everyone took off, leaving her with the ball.
Helen doesn't believe she could have called T.D. the "Puddle King" and then forgotten, then Alice and Martha reveal that they both remember it differently from Helen and T.D. Martha then tells what she thinks happened — it wasn't raining at first, there weren't very many puddles, and she was the only one scoring. Then, T.D. called a timeout, but everyone else just ignored it, Martha kicked the ball to Alice, and that's when it started raining.
Alice then reveals that she remembers it differently from all three of them. She claims that everyone was playing well, but she broke her racket. T.D. called a timeout because of the impending rain, then when it rained, everyone ran off without the ball.
In the present, Skits remembers something — while everyone else was running off, he tried to get the ball back, but pushed it under the carousel. In the present, the dogs check, and Martha retrieves the ball from under the carousel. However, just before they can play, it rains.
This episode provides examples of
- Bait-and-Switch: T.D., when he's first seen, exclaims, "Spring!". It seems as though he, like Helen, Martha, and Alice, is glad that it's the first warm day of spring, but it turns out that he's found a spring that O.G. was looking for.
- Buffy Speak: Martha wonders if they should tell a "carousel-fixer" about the carousel being stuck.
- Chekhov's Gun: At the beginning, the carousel is stuck. At the end, it turns out to be because the ball is lodged under it.
- Dramatic Irony: At the end, the kids and dogs remember a lost kite. Martha says she thinks the kite is a hundred miles away, but then we see that it's in a nearby tree.
- Flashback: Several scenes take place during the first game of "kick-up".
- Last-Second Joke Problem: The carousel is unstuck, and the kids have their ball back... only now it's raining.
- Mondegreen Gag: Martha mishears "details" as "the tails".
- Mystery Episode: The episode is about trying to figure out who had the ball last after the game of "kick-up".
- Noodle Implements: In one gag, O.G. is said to have been looking for a spring. It's never revealed why (though, since he likes to build things, he probably wanted to use it to build something).
- Overly Narrow Superlative: Helen describes herself, Alice, T.D., and Martha as "the four best kick-up players on Earth". However, she then points out that (since she'd just invented it and Skits wasn't playing) they were the only kick-up players on Earth.
- Plot Allergy: Alice is implied to have hay fever, as she sneezes right after smelling the flowers.
- The Pratfall:
- In T.D.'s flashback, Alice slips in a puddle and lands on her behind.
- In Alice's own flashback, she lands on her behind, but it's different from T.D.'s since there was no puddle.
- Slipping into Stink: Subverted in Martha's flashback, when Alice looks like she's about to fall into a mud puddle, but she falls near it instead.
- Speak in Unison: When Helen suggests playing the year's first game of "kick-up", Alice and T.D. say, "YEAH!" both at once.
