Love, Waffles, Capitalism, Scooby-Doo, and a Grave in the Rain (Saturday, September 8, 1973)
- Karl wakes up on Saturday morning and realizes he's slept late—it's 10:30 a.m., and he should already be at job number two for the day. Oops.
- He's about to start freaking out and putting on his pants when he realizes it's raining and the jobs he has to do are outdoors. So, no work today. Phew.
- When he goes downstairs, he finds something very bizarre going on: His mom is making waffles, which hasn't happened since his dad died. To make things perfect, Karl runs down the street to the grocery store to get strawberry syrup and whipped cream.
- Karl and his mom have a shockingly normal morning of eating waffles together and watching cartoons. No talk about Bill or money or Nixon and UFOs. They watch Scooby-Doo and Road Runner and enjoy the normalcy of the whole thing.
- Then, things get serious: His mom tells him the story of meeting Karl's dad while wiping down the counter at Philbin's, and they talk about when Karl's parents used to fight a lot when he was a kid.
- And then, just like that, the other shoe drops, and we're back to chaos again. Karl's mom screams from the kitchen, and he comes in to find her crying about the mangled corpse of a cat outside.
- Karl goes outside to bury the cat; he can hear his mom cranking up music inside and smells pot. Yup. Things are back to normal … or whatever version of normal this is.
- After reading some more of Huckleberry Finn, Karl gets ready to head out for his AA meeting. On the porch, he runs into a stranger who has to be Bill and is carrying a dozen roses. Karl is just glad it isn't booze.
- Karl snidely tells him that his mom's suitcase is still packed and heads to his meeting.