Well, that's 30 minutes of my life I'll never get back

The heartening story for TBS this summer is that its sitcom "My Boys" has kind of hit its stride this summer, so what screener do they ship us?

"The Bill Engvall Show." And why? No idea; tonight's episode is your typically contrived yet predictable fodder that has you wondering how these writers draw paychecks.

It opens with Bill and his TeeVee wife, Susan (Nancy Travis), in bed. Susan has a look of consternation on her face. Bill is waking up. He leans over to give her a morning-breath smooch and she hops from the bed, away from his clutches; he kisses her pillow.

"Is it just me or is your face a little puffy?" Bill asks. That's the first "joke."

Turns out Susan had a dream that Bill had an affair with someone named Penelope and she's convinced it'll come true. She's like the folks in "Minority Report," punishing people before they even commit a crime. But they do manage to work in four buck-teeth jokes inside a minute.

So, Bill goes to lunch with his nebbishy pal Paul (Tim Meadows), who asks him to help make him look good when he flirts with the waitress, which he does so monumentally badly that he'll never get a date.

Whose name, it turns out, is Penelope.

Who later calls Bill's home to tell him he left his credit card at the restaurant.

Whose call is picked up, naturally, by Susan.

Penelope uses her name, not the restaurant's, in introducing herself to Susan. Which of course turns Susan apoplectic and turns Bill into blubbering mush incapable of pointing out how stupid all this is.

And the subplot is genius, too: Uber-dumb son Trent (Graham Patrick Martin), tired of his pop's panicky way of teaching him how to drive, enlists sassy sister Lauren (Jennifer Lawrence) to help him instead. They're taking nerdling little brother Bryan (Skyler Gisondo) to the post office so he can be the first in his class to own the new Albert Einstein stamp (here's where the show abandons verisimilitude - Bryan isn't covered by bruises and welts from all the beat-downs he no doubt receives as school).

En route to the post office (wouldn't a kid who spends his day on his laptop simply order the stamps online, thereby avoiding that long line of patrons clamoring to purchase the stamp that he misguidedly envisions?), Bryan notes that someone driving with a learner's permit must have an adult in the car with them and starts freaking out that they're breaking the law. Sure enough, they're pulled over by the cops (not for not stopping at a stop sign, but for stopping in the crosswalk, even though there were no pedestrians, but anyway). And once Lauren gets behind the wheel, she promptly backs into the cop car.

Oh, my sides, sore from the laughter.

Did I mention that Paul is a nebbish? And that he'll never, ever get a date? Because he won't.

- "The Bill Engvall Show:" 9 tonight, TBS.