Plot
Lisa has the mumps and has to spend a few days home from school. While Marge teaches Lisa sewing, Homer goes to the mall to buy some magazines for her. There he sees and purchases some $125 shoes known as the Assassins, which he saw his neighbor Ned Flanders wear earlier. However, Santa's Little Helper promptly destroys the shoes, angering Homer. Marge shows Lisa a patchwork quilt, which is a family heirloom. Lisa makes her own contribution to it, but then Santa's Little Helper rips it up. When Homer discovers that Santa's Little Helper has also eaten his cookie, which Homer had bought earlier, he wants to get rid of the dog, but Lisa convinces her parents to keep him and take him to an obedience school first.
Santa's Little Helper does not do well at the obedience school as Bart is unwilling to use Santa's Little Helper's leash as a choke chain suggested by the school's instructor Emily Winthrop. The night before the final exam, Bart and Santa's Little Helper play, thinking it will be their last few hours together. This bonding breaks down the communication barrier, allowing Santa's Little Helper to understand Bart's commands, and consequently pass the obedience school. Lisa marks the occasions by starting a new quilt to replace the one destroyed.
Read more about this topic: Bart's Dog Gets An F
Famous quotes containing the word plot:
““The plot thickens,” he said, as I entered.”
—Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1859–1930)
“We have defined a story as a narrative of events arranged in their time-sequence. A plot is also a narrative of events, the emphasis falling on causality. “The king died and then the queen died” is a story. “The king died, and then the queen died of grief” is a plot. The time sequence is preserved, but the sense of causality overshadows it.”
—E.M. (Edward Morgan)
“If you need a certain vitality you can only supply it yourself, or there comes a point, anyway, when no one’s actions but your own seem dramatically convincing and justifiable in the plot that the number of your days concocts.”
—John Ashbery (b. 1927)