Bill is concerned about a boy his daughter Lenore is hanging out with, Cynthia is all over Bill to do something about their problems with ants in the house, and Grandma Lucy is giving Bill a hard time as usual. Bill's newest story is instigated by the ant problem in the Fearing household. It seems that ants are attacking and killing people and Detective Sarno is put in charge of the case, only to discover that these ants have a host.

Without asking Bill first, Cynthia invites one of his writing rivals, P.F. O'Horgan, over for dinner. Cynthia and Grandma Lucy are immediately warm to the man, while Bill is still suspicious for the larger part of the evening. However, he and O'Horgan eventually warm up to each other- at least for the evening. Meanwhile, Bill starts writing a new story for a literary magazine that's reminiscent of the old tale 'The Lottery.' A blind girl in a country town starts to have horrible visions left over from when she was able see.

After Lenore tells two of her friends two different things, Bill is inspired to write a story about a man that thinks he's dating identical twins. However, one twin claims that her sister is dead and the other claims that her sister is crazy. Meanwhile, an agent from Regency Artists tries to get Bill to leave his current representative, Ann, and sign with them.