Bobby thinks Hank is secretly a rich miser after hearing Peggy talking about Hank's new $1000 bonus, and Bobby and Joseph steal Hank's emergency credit card to go on a shopping spree.
Tropes:
- Affluent Ascetic: Bobby gets this impression from Hank due to a series of misunderstandings about how much he actually makes, how cheap he is with everything and Connie's anecdotes about crazy things extremely rich people have done in the past, including not bringing their son to a doctor when they were severely ill, costing him his leg. As a result, Bobby thinks that if he'll ever lose his leg, Hank will make him a prosthesis out of a broom handle and a shoehorn.
- An Aesop: Bobby's skewed knowledge of how much money Hank earns and has is a result of Hank thinking Bobby is too young to know about money. After Bobby's shopping spree with Hank's credit card, Hank very nervously has to reveal that they are not wealthy and only earns enough to make ends meet. The moral is that if you want your children to be financially responsible, have a frank conversation about how money is earned and teach them how to responsibly manage it, instead of treating money as a big secret reserved for adults.
- Break the Haughty: While Bobby wasn't a complete jerk, he was very clueless about his family's money situation and acted like a snob when he thought they were loaded. In his defense, his parents should have been more open with him about their finances instead of letting him think they were rich. So when Hank catches Bobby going on a shopping spree with the family credit card, he's shocked when he finally gets a hit with the truth on the drive back home.Bobby: I know everything. I heard you talking about how you make a thousand dollars a day.
Hank: One thousand dollars a... you mean my bonus? My once-a-year bonus?
Bobby: Wh-What about your oil records? In the garage!
Hank: You mean my oil change records?
Bobby: (looks stunned) - Does This Remind You of Anything?: The way that Hank and Peggy treat finances and the subject of Bobby learning about them is similar to a squeamishness most parents have about talking to their children about sex and how the children out of ignorance, get their information from unreliable sources (like entertainment or ill-informed people) and make poor decisions based on that lack of knowledge.
- From Bad to Worse:
- Because Hank refuses to tell Bobby the truth behind their finances, he believes that they're rich, which isn't true, and thinks his dad's being cheap. When Bobby keeps pestering him about money, his idea of teaching financial responsibility is to lay out Bobby's allowance in single dollar bills and then proceed to take it all away by charging him with things he didn't have to pay for separately previously, with the last remaining 2 dollars being taken away for a set of garbage bags for Bobby to collect cans into. This, combined with Connie's story about someone who was also very cheap, leads to Bobby stealing his family's credit card and going on a shopping spree, believing that his family can just pay it back.
- Thanks to Bobby falsely believing that his family is wealthy, Joseph ends up telling his own family about Hank's "secret wealth". Nancy doesn't buy into it, but Dale being Dale, listens with interest. Soon enough, Hank's friends and John Redcorn all think he's rich and start pestering him for money he doesn't really have. Things return to normal when, after witnessing Hank and Bobby go sell the jet ski, the neighbors think Hank frittered away his fortune.
- Money Dumb: Bobby is completely clueless about how much the family's finances and what they can actually afford. However, this isn't completely his fault as Hank and Peggy are so secretive about their money that he had little way of knowing.
- Must Make Amends: Bobby is forced to do chores to work off the difference for the jet ski he bought with the family credit card. However, Bobby takes his punishment without a fuss, realizing how much he screwed up and accepting it with dignity.
- My God, What Have I Done?: When Hank shows Bobby how they aren't rich as he thought they were, combined with the discovery that he spends their entire monthly entertainment budget on his CDs, Bobby finally realizes how wrong he's been and is ashamed about spending money they don't really have.
- Out-of-Context Eavesdropping: This is what kickstarts the episode as Bobby overhears Hank saying he received a very lucrative bonus, but Bobby believes that is what Hank actually makes commonly.
- Spoiled Brat: After Hank makes Bobby return everything he bought with the credit card, he also takes the jet-ski Bobby ordered to the lake to sell it, since it's legally classified as a vehicle, it can't be returned for a full refund. At the lake, they meet with a buyer, a man who wants to buy his preteen son a jet ski, and the boy clearly looks disappointed at the fact that his father can only afford a used jet-ski at the time. The kid's entitled behavior (coupled with Bobby genuinely working hard to clean the jet ski to help make the sale) compels Hank to reconsider selling the jet ski and keep it for now since it has the same Blue Book value whether it's been used for a day or a year.
- Work Off the Debt: Bobby's punishment for the reckless spending he did is to pay off the difference between the amount the Jet-Ski cost to purchase and however much Hank is ultimately able to sell it for.
