Oh, except that this is PPTH, so we immediately cut to Mickey in the process of dying in the middle of his ear test. Which he passed! Silver lining!

After the break, we're back in the meeting room. Mickey is doing much better, thanks to some medicine for his skyrocketing blood pressure, which caused the near-death experience. Hadley says that since Mickey got worse at PPTH, that rules out House's coke-lacing diagnosis. Foreman says that means they can "stop the Bloodhound Gang routine and go back to being doctors." Um, since when did the Bloodhound Gang deal with drug dealers? Wasn't that more about kid-friendly issues? Since, you know, they were on a kid's show? Although there were some references to elder abuse in "The Case of the Cackling Ghost" if I recall correctly. House seems to agree, and the Cottages get to diagnosing. Except for Foreman, who is distracted by a nice new watch on Hadley's wrist. Uh oh! Is she a drug dealer too? She comes up with a diagnosis of Carotid Stenosis that is sure to be wrong and House orders her and Taub to test for it. That leaves Foreman and Chase behind to have an awkward conversation where Foreman asks Chase how much he makes.

Apparently the answer was more than Foreman, as he runs to Cuddy's office to demand a raise. Cuddy totally blows him off, rudely texting away on her phone as she says they can discuss this in August. Foreman says he's making less than the other Cottages and now that they know it, they'll never respect him. I don't think they respected him in the first place, though. Cuddy says she can't discuss her employees' salaries. Also, doesn't PPTH have an HR department for stuff like this? I think the Dean of Medicine should really be considered too important and busy to deal with petty shit like this. Then again, there are only six people who work at PPTH, so she might as well. "It's not fair," Foreman whines. Cuddy says salaries aren't about fairness, and since Foreman isn't hirable anywhere else, he should take what he can get.

Taub and Hadley return to House's office to say the test for Carotid Stenosis came back negative, of course. House is too busy listening to the bug he planted in Mickey's room, hoping Mickey will reveal where they can find his stash and thus what is making him sick. Yes, he's still stuck on the coke-lacing diagnosis no matter what the Cottages say, and only agreed with Hadley's diagnosis because it gave him an opportunity to plant a bug in Mickey's room while they took him off to test for it. I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that Mickey doesn't have health insurance, so I'm sure he'll appreciate the extra thousands of dollars House's little ploy just tacked onto his bill. Which there's no way he'll be able to pay anyway, which is why Cuddy has to implement these cost-saving measures that ultimately screw Foreman over. Anyway, the bug quickly fires back some nasty loud feedback and House decides to give up on it and lie to Mickey that they'll test his blood for weeks until they find the toxin they're sure he's been poisoned with. Unless he tells them the truth now, in which case he'll save a lot of time and money.