How It All Goes Down
- Isidore returns to his apartment still clutching the margarine. He thinks the girl is a wee-bit out of touch.
- An hour later, he's at work picking up an electric cat. The cat's as sick as, well, a dog, and its mechanisms make it look like a sick animal in death throes.
- The realistic workmanship is so phenomenal that Isidore can't locate where to plug in the recharge cords before the mechanism shorts out.
- En route to the office, Isidore listens to the Buster Friendly show, where Friendly is announcing his big exposé later in the evening.
- At the Van Ness Pet Hospital, Isidore brings the cat to his boss, Sloat, and the two compare Wilbur Mercer and Buster Friendly.
- Sloat says the cat wasn't a fake but a very real, and now very dead, one. So that's why Isidore couldn't find the plug.
- Milt Borogrove, another employee, defends Isidore, noting that he doesn't think Isidore can really tell the difference between authentic and fake.
- But Sloat's upset at the waste of life and takes it out on Isidore, forcing him to call the owner to tell him the news.
- Terrified of communication by vidphone (us too, Isi), Isidore calls only because he does not want to lose his job.
- Mrs. Pilsen is distraught over the cat's death and worries about telling her husband. She chooses to have an electric replacement of Horace built to trick him.
- Sloat notes that the death of an animal can really affect an owner before telling Isidore he did very well.
- Milt also gives him props and passes on instructions for what to do next. Isidore is elated as he goes to work.