George, having depleted his savings while unemployed, turns down borrowing from Jerry and rooming with Kramer, and has no choice but to move back in with his parents. Helping George move, Jerry tests first-hand George's claim that his mother Estelle never laughs. Jerry and Kramer turn down Estelle's bologna sandwiches, and George despairs when his friends must finally leave him.
Jerry and Elaine go to dinner with Kramer and his girlfriend Leslie, a "low-talker" who speaks indistinctly. Kramer touts Leslie's new fashion design, a puffy stereotypical pirate shirt, believing that it will be trendsetting. Elaine mentions that she set up Jerry to perform at a Goodwill benefit to clothe the disadvantaged, and also to promote the benefit on The Today Show. However, all she and Jerry can do is nod along and agree with Leslie's inaudible replies when Kramer steps away.
Meanwhile, George is trapped at dinner with his parents, as Estelle nags him to take a civil service exam, and Frank reminisces about his silver dollar collection. Desperately excusing himself, George bumps into a woman, who admires his hands and scouts him as a hand model. George immediately becomes conceited and overprotective of his hands, making a fuss when Kramer pranks him with a joy buzzer, and wearing two oven mitts out.
After George leaves, Kramer unveils the puffy shirt for Jerry, because he unknowingly agreed during dinner to wear it on The Today Show. Kramer does not take no for an answer, since Leslie has secured many orders conditioned on this publicity stunt.
George becomes a prima donna at home, pampering himself with a manicure as Estelle caters to his demands, and even walking out on his parents' asinine bickering. At George's photo shoot, he is heralded as the successor of Ray McKigney, a legendary former model. He is warned about Ray's autoerotic fixation on his own hands, which spiraled into a masturbation addiction that locked his hands permanently into claw grips, unable to even feed himself.
At The Today Show, Jerry fumes at the indignity of the puffy shirt, while Elaine is horrified that he will make a mockery of the benefit. Failing to get Bryant Gumbel off his case over the shirt, Jerry reaches his limit and excoriates the shirt on air. Leslie rages, now perfectly audible, at Jerry's betrayal. George, scoring a big check and a date from his shoot, cavorts jubilantly to meet Jerry. After taking off his protective gloves for Elaine, he mocks whoever made Jerry wear the puffy shirt unaware Leslie is in the room. She reacts by shoving George headlong into the dressing table, forcing him to brace his fall on a clothes iron that Kramer forgot to turn off. As George burns his now exposed hands, his scream echoes throughout 30 Rockefeller Plaza.
George, with both hands bandaged, is jobless once more, and cannot feed himself; Jerry is humiliated by hecklers with pirate jokes during the benefit show; Goodwill fires Elaine from benefit planning; and Kramer has callously dumped Leslie after her career was ruined. With all the puffy shirts donated to Goodwill, Jerry meets panhandlers wearing them, and sees the shirt in a better light.