Doug's bowling team prepares for a tournament, while Carrie agrees to babysit Mr. Kaplan's son, in hopes of furthering her career. But when Doug throws out a mercy flirt and Carrie runs into an awkward set of hands, all goes downhill.

Carrie gets tickets to an opera but Doug doesn't want to go so he has Deacon help him lie to get out of it. Carrie catches him in the lie which prompts Doug to confess to a series of lies he's been hiding. Doug then tells Carrie that the reason he's been lying is because she's too overbearing. They both agree to be "supportive" of one another but this only leads to more problems.

Carrie can't stop buying expensive clothes, and then returning them within a few days. Spence's new girlfriend is afraid of his dog and tells him to decide who he wants, the dog or her.

Carrie learns from Janet that Doug had a dog when he was 11, that they still have today, and Doug is 38! Janet admits to Carrie that the dog died, and they replaced it without Doug knowing.

When Arthur handily beats Doug in several games of ping-pong, Doug decides to test his skills on Carrie, but is humiliated when he loses once again. In a desperate attempt to keep his ego intact, he asks Arthur to train him so that he can beat his wife. Meanwhile, Spence's girlfriend, Denise, gets promoted to waitress at the bowling alley, but Spence becomes jealous of the flirting she must do to get tips.

What starts out as a valiant effort to win back the heart of Spence's ex-girlfriend, Denise, quickly goes south as Danny gets a sudden case of lockjaw and the group spends all the money they took out as cash advances from their credit cards. To Carrie's dismay, she can't buy groceries because unbeknownst to her their credit card has been maxed out by Doug. Meanwhile, Arthur fills in at the front desk of the senior center and has some words with the pudding vendor.