Al decides to open a shoe emergency hot-line with help from Steve in the form of a $50,000 loan. But typically, Al's get-rich-quick scheme backfires when nobody phones in. When Marcy gives Al a second $50,000 loan to repay the original loan, the Bundys and the Rhoades join together in a downward spiral of failure when Al instead sinks the second $50,000 into his failing shoe hot-line, which results in Steve losing his job at the bank, Marcy getting demoted, and Al ending up being the loser as always.

Newly unemployed Steve decides he doesn't really want to work, so he fritters away his days with the Bundys, visiting zoos and taking fishing trips. The strain this puts on Steve's relationship with Marcy who ends up going out with Al to a local bar where they swap stories about their failing marriages. But the conversation between Al and Marcy reaches its peak when Marcy has to decide whether to use the $25,000 reward she earned by foiling a bank robbery, sustaining a gunshot wound in the process, to buy a new car or to bail out Steve, who has been arrested for "rescuing" Bosco the tortoise from the local zoo.