Buddy smokes with a Meerschatz pipe, which he claims Alan Brady gave him. Rob goes home brooding about this favoritism. When he comes down with the flu and no one at the office seems to miss his contributions, his insecurity skyrockets. However, that week's show may shed a different light on matters.
This episode includes examples of the following tropes:
- Brick Joke: Rob gargles the soup Laura brings in, thinking it's salt water and wanting to convince her he's fine. When he returns to work, Sally gives him soup, saying that Laura claimed he likes to gargle with it.
- Delayed Reaction: After Rob sneaks out, Ritchie comes into the room with a dollar bill to ask Laura if he can keep it. She agrees. Then he asks if he can still keep it if he tells the secret. When she asks what secret, he says that Rob snuck out to go to the office. It takes the still-sleepy Laura a minute to react.
- Early-Installment Weirdness: Rob calls Laura "Laurie" throughout the episode.
- Innocently Insensitive: Buddy accidentally exacerbates Rob's insecurity when he tells him how well everything is going. He just means to reassure Rob that he can take all the time he needs to recuperate.
- Just Fine Without You: When Rob comes down with the flu, Laura forces him to stay in bed, despite his protests that he needs to go to work. Buddy and Sally come up with a hilarious sketch without him. Mel even scolds him sharply when he tries to come to work sick. By the end, Rob is convinced he's about to be fired and decides to call Alan to resign after that night's show. At the end of the show, Alan calls Rob...to tell him he needs to hurry up and recuperate, complete with an SOS note from Buddy and Sally.
- The Scrooge: Buddy admits that he got the pipe at a corner store. When someone asks if that means Alan Brady didn't give it to him, Buddy quips that it pains Alan to give him a paycheck.
- Senseless Phagia: The flu causes Rob to lose his sense of taste temporarily. Trying to pretend he feels all right, Rob swallows the liquid Laura gave him. He comments that chicken soup was just what he needed...only for Laura to tell him that was salt water for gargling. Later, he tries it again, the opposite way...and ends up gargling soup.
- "Shaggy Dog" Story: Rob's entire bout of self-doubt turns out to be for nothing. When he returns to the office, Buddy gifts him a Meerschatz pipe, which he got down at the corner drug store. He got his own there as well; he just made up the story about Alan giving it to him to make the others jealous.
- Shout-Out: When Rob fails to escape from Laura's grip, he calls her Gorgeous George.
- Sick Episode: Most of the episode focuses on Rob battling the flu and his insecurity simultaneously.
- Soup Is Medicine: Laura gives Rob chicken-rice soup while he's sick.
- Suddenly Shouting: When Laura takes in Ritchie's comment about Rob going to work, she shifts abruptly from the quiet tones she was using to avoid disturbing her husband to shouting.
- Working Through the Cold: Defied. Rob tries to go in to work, regardless of how horrible he's feeling. However, Laura forcibly keeps him in bed. When he sneaks out while she's asleep, Mel pulls rank and sends him home before he can jeopardize Alan's health. All the time, the others keep telling Rob that he should stay home until he recovers.
- Your Television Hates You: A book version; Rob gets pressed into reading Ritchie a book. Declining to read Hansel and Gretel again, he selects a book about a brave Native American chief. Unfortunately, the book happens to mention peace pipes, aggravating Rob's hurt feelings.
