Handlung

Waiting in Lucky Aide for Lois to end her shift, Reese and Malcolm cause trouble, which leaves Dewey unobserved and able to nick something expensive from the store. Lois tries to make a point about "doing the right thing" and loses her job in the process.

While Francis is about to have a good time acting as a honor guard for a beauty pageant, Lois stands up to the man, her boss Mr. Pinter, after Dewey steals an expensive bottle of cognac from Lucky Aide and Lois makes him return it, just to be fired. While the family struggles to get by without Lois' income, Malcolm has problems of his own, with starting puberty and mixed emotions for Julie Houlerman. Confused by mixed signals by Julie, Malcolm accidentally blurts out that he is poor, with Julie overhearing it. As Lois is trying to make a point by doing "the right thing", Francis charmingly gets closer to the participants of the pageant and Malcolm is surprised by the whole school with a food collection, which Julie organized, feeling bad for Malcolm. Francis finds out that the reason why the girls at the pageant get so intimate with him is because they think he is homosexual. Francis tries to play this card to his favor, acting as if he could be "turned" and actually gets away with it. But the "cure" turns out to be more spiritual then sexual. Lois finally gets over her pride and asks Mr. Pinter for her job back, but her former boss pushes her over the edge with degrading remarks and so Lois lets him know, what she really knows and leaves him stranded to the whim of her former co-workers, who overheard all the dirty little secrets. Which leaves Mr. Pinter leaving Lucky Aide and Lois with her former job.