How I Met Your Mother

Kids, Stella Zenman was the girl

I thought I'd spend the rest of my life with.

Until she left me at the altar,

smashing my heart to smithereens.

So when I ran into her seven months later,

there was only one way to deal with her.

Stella!

Great to see you!

You, too.

And Tony!

Hey. Hey!

What a nice surprise.

"What a nice surprise"?

No, a nice surprise would be if a safe fell

from 40 stories and smushed them both.

I mean, you didn't let them have it?

No, we had a nice friendly chat,

then they went their way and I went mine.

Ted, you blew it.

He blew it, right?

Well played, sir.

Bravo.

What?! You see, Robin,

Ted played it cool,

which is exactly what he should have done.

As a matter of fact, I'd say on a scale ranging from...

: And I kept this sweater of yours...

...and sometimes I just sit in the bathtub

for hours just, you know, just sniffing it.

...all the way to...

This is my new fianc?.

She's basically Stella,

except she's French and,

as you can see, she's got enormous cans.

Enchant?

Enchant?

...I'd say you nailed it.

I'll do you one better.

You, sir, got Stella thinking.

"Gosh, Ted seemed so cool today.

Did I choose the wrong guy?"

Give it a week; you'll get her back.

And her front.

: Oh.

Oh, did you just feel that?

I think we just had a "what up" quake.

I don't want her back.

Or her front.

I just want to move on.

And this was an important step towards that.

To moving on.

And you know, I really meant it.

But still, that night, my mind began to wander.

I made a terrible mistake.

I know.

I'm a better person than you are.

You totally are.

Let's get back together

and have way more sex than before. Deal!

Hello, Ted.

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No, come in. It's not weird at all.

Ted, Teddy Ted Ted Ted.

I knew it was wrong to steal somebody's fianc?.

I mean, I grappled with it.

I was up nights.

And not for the good reason.

Well, sometimes for the good reason.

I mean, Stella and I

hadn't seen each other in five years,

so, as you can imagine, the beginning,

it was just fast and furious.

Lamps breaking, furniture moving.

You see this bald patch?

Yeah, Tony...

Anyway, we moved on.

Me, Lucy, Stella-- we were gonna move to L.A.

I was gonna become a screenwriter.

Then we bumped into you,

and you just looked so... sad.

Sad? No.

I-I think what you're calling sad was actually

a jovial nonchalance.

Ted, you looked awful, okay?

Like a little dachshund puppy with a bad back

that's got to pull itself around on a cart.

Why are you here?

Look, Ted,

I know I can come across pretty tough,

but I can't bear to have hurt someone the way I hurt you.

I think fate put me

on that corner to make this right.

Obviously, I can't fill that giant crater

that Stella left in your heart.

I've been dating.

Like, a lot.

And then I heard you got fired.

I transitioned into small business ownership.

It's the backbone of the economy.

No, it's not.

Ted,

my family's got a lot of money.

And I want to use that money

to make this right with you.

Tony is rich?

Oh, Ted.

Oh, Ted, tell me he wrote you a check.

Tell me he wrote you

a big, fat check.

A check so big

it doesn't take its shirt off when it goes swimming.

Ha, that is a big, fat check.

A check so big, if you had sex with it,

you wouldn't tell your buddies.

That is a big, fat check.

A check so big that when you sit next to it on an airplane,

you find yourself wondering

whether the check should have bought two seats.

That...

Is a big, fat check!

Yeah! He didn't write me a check.

Ted, I want to offer you a job.

A job?

Every year, my family gives

a lot of money to Columbia University,

so I got some pull.

How would you like

to design...

My heart leapt into my throat.

A new library?

A new student center?

...your very own curriculum

as a professor of architecture.

Huh?

No, thanks.

What do you mean, "No, thanks"?

Ted, you would be

a great professor, okay?

You are knowledgeable, you're a good talker,

and when you need to,

you can grow a very handsome neck beard.

I'm not gonna be a professor.

Teaching architecture is what you do when your career

has totally bottomed out and you need to pay the bills.

Hey, hey, hey!

Small business owner.

Backbone of the economy.

I'm not gonna take that job, all right?

I'm gonna be just fine.

New topic.

Okay, new topic.

I just got a $200 speeding ticket today.

Oh, that sucks, dude.

You couldn't talk your way out of it?

You can't talk your way out of a ticket.

I've done it.

It was-- what was it?--

it was 1998.

So where's the fire?

There's no fire.

Actually, uh, you know, there is a fire

at this barbecue I'm headed to.

Nothing special.

Burgers, ribs.... brats.

Son, do you have any idea how dangerous it is to be...

Did you say brats?

Yeah, brats.

My mom marinates them

in Belgian beer for two days. No big.

Funny thing was, I could've

sworn that one of those thick, succulent,

hickory-smoked brats had some writing on it.

Weird. Anyways, what were you saying?

What-what did it say?

The brat?

It said "Property of Minnesota State Trooper Jorgensen."

You a... you a brat man, Officer Jorgensen?

You going to this address? Mm-hmm.

Follow me and lean on the horn.

We're gonna be running some reds.

Well, duh.

I would've done that, too,

if I'd have been going to a barbecue.

Damn, I was.

See, it's all about sizing up your opponent.

I could tell that the officer was a brat man

because, well, he was out of breath just from

walking to my car and he had mustard on his holster.

Marshall Eriksen!

Manipulating an officer of the law with your sausage.

Mm-hmm. That is very hot.

You think I can't talk my way out of a ticket?!

You think I can't

talk my way out of a ticket?

I am Barney Stinson,

master of manipulation.

If I can talk a stripper into paying me for a lap dance,

I think I can talk my way out of a ticket.