Joe comes home after working 50 straight weeks - he's overworked and underpaid. All he wants to do is spend two weeks laying in a hammock in the back yard, listening to the radio, and finishing reading a book. His wife has other ideas. Spending their vacation in the back yard was OK during the war, but now, she wants to go places.
Joe tries to talk her out of it, first blaming inflation. The wife, Alice counters, "Oh, inflation, half the people don't know what the word means." She then suggests cashing in their war bonds - the ones from the first world war. She then picks up the paper, which is conveniently opened to an ad for a department store offering to plan your vacation - with no cost or obligation.
When Joe gets to the department store, he gets the free vacation planner. The salesman first pressures Joe to buy a flashlight. And then a raincoat. And a tent, a canoe, golf clubs, polo mallet, life raft, and a fountain pen that writes underwater - to write his will if the life raft doesn't work. And in typical Joe McDoakes fashion, just about anything that can go wrong, does.