Sector T137 is scheduled for adjustment, and a Clerk is supervising a canine Summoner to ensure real estate salesman Ed Fletcher is inside Sector T137 during the process. An 8:15 bark to summon a Friend With A Car is needed. Unfortunately, the bark is a minute late, bringing an Insurance Salesman, causing Fletcher to leave for work late. Arriving at Sector T137 after it's been de-energized, Fletcher enters a terrifying gray ash world. Escaping white-robed men, he flees across the street back to the everyday energized world outside Sector T137, fearing he's had a psychotic episode. The Clerk is brought to the top-level Administrative Chambers to explain what went wrong to the Old Man, who decides to personally deal with this unusual situation and orders Fletcher "brought up here". Complicating matters further, Fletcher has told his wife Ruth about the experience. With Ruth accompanying him for moral support, Fletcher returns to his workplace to prove he has not experienced a full psychotic breakdown or seen behind the fabric of reality as he still fears. Things seem normal at first, and Ruth leaves, but he soon realizes people and objects have subtly changed. Panic stricken, he runs to a public phone to warn the police, only to have the phone booth ascend heavenward with Fletcher inside. Meeting the Old Man, Fletcher first thinks he is dead, but is informed he is only visiting; that a correction was being made, it was a very serious error, he was not changed, and his revealing to others what he saw is a grave threat. "The natural process must be supplemented-adjusted here and there. Corrections must be made. We are fully licensed to make such corrections. Our adjustment teams perform vital work." In this instance, the adjustment is to bring about a chain of events that will lessen Soviet-Western Bloc war tension. Fletcher is allowed to return without being de-energized and adjusted, on the condition that he tell no one the truth he has learned, and convinces his wife that everything he has already told her was due to a temporary psychological fit. The Old Man threatens him that should he fail doing so, he will have a terrible fate when they meet again; and he adds that every person eventually meets the Old Man. On his return, Ruth catches him lying about where he spent the afternoon and demands he tell her the truth, while he tries to stall her long enough to come up with a story she will believe. A bark is heard and a vacuum cleaner salesman rings the doorbell. While Ruth is distracted by the salesman's demonstration, Fletcher escapes to the bedroom, where he shakily lights a cigarette and gratefully looks up, saying, "Thanks ... I think we'll make it-after all. Thanks a lot."