On the way home from a family trip to Bloodbath Gulch, Homer refuses to stop the car to let Grampa go to the bathroom. Grampa’s kidneys subsequently explode, leaving him in dire need of a transplant. Homer agrees to donate one of his kidneys to Grampa.

At Moe’s, Moe, Lenny, and Carl tell Homer that he may not survive the operation. Going home, Homer is left with many doubts over the safety of the transplant. Just before the surgery begins, Homer bolts from the operating room. He winds up down at the Springfield docks. There, he decides to get a job on the tramp steamer and leave his past behind.

On the ship, Homer meets up with a group of lost souls who are traveling the seas trying to forget their pasts. When Homer tells them of how he left his father waiting for the transplant, they throw him off the ship. He finally musters the courage to go through with the procedure. But in the operating room, he once again bolts. As he runs from the hospital he’s hit by a car that falls off a transport truck. When he wakes up, he discovers that he’s broken his arms and legs—and that Dr. Hibbert took one of his kidneys for Grampa when he was unconscious.