OLDER TED: Kids, this is a Thanksgiving story.
Thanksgiving in New York is a wonderful time,
It's a time for giving of yourself, for thinking of your fellow man,
A time when the unforgiving city becomes a little kinder,
Well, I just ralphed.
- How much did you guys drink last night? - Not how much, what.
The Thanks-tini,
a fun and delicious new novelty drink I invented.
Cranberry juice, potato vodka, and a bouillon cube.
Tastes just like a turkey dinner.
It's like Thanksgiving in my mouth.
You want a good holiday drink? Try his Kwanzaa-politan.
(CAR HORN HONKING)
The shuttle's here!
He hasn't been back home to Minnesota since Christmas.
- He's a little excited. - Baby, we're holding up the shuttle.
Do you have everything you need? Toothbrush, pajamas, underpants?
Underpants.
So, Lil, Marshall's family.
Whole weekend with the future in-laws. You excited?
- Yeah, no, it'll be fun. - Lily, you just said, "Yeah, no."
Did I? No, I love Marshall's family.
- But, yeah, no, it'll be great. - You just did it again.
Yeah, no, shut up.
Wait, so you're not going home for Thanksgiving?
- No, I have to work on Friday. You? - I'm Canadian, remember?
- We celebrate Thanksgiving in October. - Oh, right, I forgot.
You guys are weird. You pronounce the word "out," "oute."
You guys are the world's leader in handgun violence,
your healthcare system is bankrupt,
and your country is deeply divided on almost every important issue.
Your cops are called Mounties.
So, probably hanging out with Barney, then?
No. Barney's got his own Thanksgiving tradition.
Thanksgiving in a strip club. Who's in?
The Lusty Leopard has a surprisingly good Thanksgiving buffet.
Plus, they do this thing. Heather dresses up as a Pilgrim,
and Misty dresses up as an Indian, and they share a meal together.
- Oh, Barney. - I'm sorry. Native American.
I think I'm gonna go to a homeless shelter, serve food.
- That's awesome. - Yeah.
I thought I'd just spend the day giving back, you know, doing some good.
- Canceling out Barney. - Exactly.
- Where are all my underpants? - Did you check your suitcase?
No.
Let's go.
OLDER TED; And go they went,
All the way to St, Cloud, Minnesota, Marshall's hometown,
And as Lily stepped into her fiancé's boyhood home,
she received a big welcome,
Hello! We're home!
(ALL EX CLAIMING)
A very big welcome,
You see, at 6-foot-4, Marshall was the runt of the Eriksen clan,
- Great to see you. - Hey, you, too.
Wow, I forgot how tall you guys are.
- Where's my almost daughter-in-law? - Here I am!
Over here!
Well, you got yourself a great little bride here, Son.
- Yeah. - That's great.
All right, now, no farting around.
Put your skates and your pads on, boys. Game on in five minutes.
Yeah. All right.
- Oh, you gonna play hockey? - Hike, hut!
- With a basketball? - Well, it's a combination of the two.
- We call it "bask-ice-ball." - We invented it.
It's the most dangerous and awesome sport in the world.
Bask-ice-ball? Not ice-ket-ball?
"Ice-ket-ball"?
- Just sounds weird. - Yeah.
- It's bask-ice-ball, okay? And I'm the best. - Oh, you wish.
Oh, well, maybe that's just 'cause you haven't seen me play.
(ALL HOOTING)
I don't know, honey. It's not really a sport for a girl.
Well, that's funny, 'cause your brother throws like a girl.
(ALL JEERING)
Marcus.
- This is gonna be great. - I know. I'm so psyched we did this.
Man, look at all these people.
Giving up their Thanksgiving to help their fellow man.
These have gotta be the best people in New York.
Excuse me, guys, coming through.
- Barney? - Well, hi, guys.
- What are you doing here? - Oh, just the Lord's work.
- But you're Satan. - Guys, okay, look.
I don't advertise it, but I volunteer here.
I think it's important to help the less fortunate.
I'm the Angelina Jolie of incredibly hot guys.
This is a joke, right? You don't actually volunteer here?
Barney, we need you out front. There is a logjam on the stuffing line.
- Can you show them how it's done? - I'm on it.
- Wait, so, this is real? Barney does this? - Every Sunday, all year long.
He's our best volunteer.
That's 'cause I was trained by the best, Kendall.
Anyway, we're psyched to be here, Kendall.
What do you need us to do?
- Go home, we're full. - ROBIN: What?
We're volunteers, we're unpaid help.
Can you ever really have enough unpaid help?
On the biggest volunteer day of the year? Yeah, you can.
- Come on, we just wanna help out. - Kendall. They're cool.
Fine. But I'm not promising anything.
Wait here, we'll let you know if we need you.
Okay, well, I better get back out there. There's a lot of food to give out.
And a lot of smiles.
I almost forgot.
I know it's early,
but you are a future Mrs. Eriksen.
Oh, thank you.
Well, it'll go great with my...
I just love it.
Okay, Lily, we're putting you on salad duty.
Oh, I make this great frisée and endive salad
with a coriander lime vinaigrette.
But this is an American holiday.
Lily, now that you're going to be a Mrs. Eriksen,
I'm going to let you in on a secret recipe:
The Eriksen Family Seven Layer Salad.
Seven layer salad?
Six cups of mayonnaise? That can't be right.
Oh, no, dear. Sixteen cups. Mayo's in that cabinet.
Oh, my God, there is some serious bask-ice-ball going on out there.
Dad totally nailed Marcus in the face with a snowball, which is a foul,
'cause you only get one snowball per possession,
so I nailed him in the shin with my skate, and then I totally dunked it.
Yeah, you were sitting pretty, till I whacked you with that mallet.
Hey, gorgeous.
You having fun?
Yeah, but I kind of miss you. Could you stay in here for a little bit?
Yeah, yeah, yeah, no problem. It's halftime.
Halftime's over. Get your butts out here. Come on.
And I hope you like the taste of skate, dorko.
- Go. - Thanks, baby.
Isn't this great?
Can't you see why everybody from my high school stays in this town?
Hey, Marvin! You're the dorko, dorko!
(SIGHS) Man, it's amazing out there.
I've done so much good today, I've got, like, a soul boner.
Man, the way the faces of the less fortunate light up
when you give them a hot, nutritious meal,
is there a better feeling on earth?
Yesterday, you said the best feeling on earth was getting your toes sucked.
Then you requested a high-five, with your foot.
Hey, Barn, what do you say you let us sub in for you
scoop stuffing for a little bit?
You wanna scoop stuffing your first day out?
Hello, NFL, can I be quarterback this Sunday? Dude.
Okay, I finished the Gummi Bear layer of the salad.
What's next?
Potato chips, of course.
So, Lily, when are you gonna start thinking about having a baby?
Baby? You know, I hadn't really thought about it.
At all.
OLDER TED; Actually, Aunt Lily was lying, It was all she'd been thinking about,
You see, remember when she said,,,
Well, I just ralphed.
At that point, she was five days late,
This was day six,
Yeah, I mean, I'm way too young to have a baby, right?
Oh, are you kidding?
I was younger than you when I had Marcus.
Beautiful 15-pound boy.
Not much bigger than this turkey right here.
Oh, boy.
OLDER TED; Now, if Lily was already uneasy about joining the Eriksen family,
imagine how she felt
about possibly having a 15-pound Eriksen growing inside of her,
That's a big baby, Judy.
- The doctor thought he was twins. - (TITTERING) Twins.
Twins.
This is crazy. When did it get so hard to do charity work?
I do charity work all the time.
Remember when I said I'd find you a girlfriend?
Delightful. How's that little project coming along, anyway?
I'm working on it.
I'm gonna introduce you to that girl you've been staring at.
What? That's crazy. I haven't been staring at any girl.
Have you met Ted?
Hi, I'm the aforementioned Ted, and this is... Gone.
- I'm Amanda. - Hi.
- So, what do you do here, Ted? - Well, I've been... Nothing. I do nothing.
Well, if you wanna do something,
you and your girlfriend can help sort through these donations.
Oh, I'm not his girlfriend.
I used to be, but I just wasn't enough woman for Ted,
emotionally, or sexually.
Oh, my God.
So, Amanda, what do you need us to do?
Okay, this is important.
Go through all these boxes of food donations,
take out the really good stuff, and put it into this box.
Got it. Consider it sorted.
Hey, we're in business.
Hey, Barney's not gonna get all the glory today.
- Let's start with this one. - Yeah.
- Amen. - ALL: Amen.
Look who came to say good night.
It's little Martin. Three months old.
- Months? Three months? - He's been drinking his milk.
Oh, yeah.
Hear, hear.
And she's already pregnant again.
Well, that's 'cause those Eriksen boys' boys can swim.
They got two tails and a drill bit for a head.
- Dad, you're embarrassing me. - Don't worry about it, Son, she's cool.
- She's gonna be an Eriksen. - Yeah, well, not literally.
'Cause, you know, I'm keeping my name.
But the apron?
Well, we haven't actually decided anything yet, so we're gonna...
No, I've decided, and I'm keeping my own name.
But Eriksen is a great last name.
People know the Eriksens.
Well, sure, in St. Cloud,
but our kids aren't gonna be growing up in St. Cloud.
Right, baby?
Well, why not St. Cloud? I mean, I loved growing up in St. Cloud.
St. Cloud is a great place to have a childhood.
Well, so is New York.
(ALL LAUGHING)
What? It is. And we grew up just fine.
And we grew to the proper size, and then we stopped.
- Hey, Amanda, what's this box for? - Oh, that's for me.
- You can put it in my car. - In your car. Then you'll take it...
Home. Yeah, we get so much extra food, no one can eat it all.
Oh, truffle oil. Score.
But people donated this food thinking it was going to feed the hungry.
I know. And I'm starving.
- But, Marshall, you love New York. - Yes, I do.
But you always said that when we had kids,
- you wanted to move out of Manhattan. - Well, yeah, to Brooklyn.
Why are we even talking about this? This is, like, way down the road.
OLDER TED; But Lily knew "way down the road, "might not be so far down the road,
- I need to go to the restroom. - Lily, the restroom's the other way.
So, she headed down the road,
Lily? Lily!
So, wait. Not only have you not done any good for anyone today,
you're actually helping someone steal from the homeless?
You know, Ted, it's called Thanksgiving, not Thanks-taking.
Damn.
Barney, you need me to sign your time sheet, right?
- BARNEY: Oh, yeah, right. Thanks. - Barney.
- Yeah, what's up? - You have a time sheet?
- No one else has a time sheet. - Yeah, so?
All right, let me see that. Come on.
Hey, that's my private, personal business.
"Court-mandated community service?"
Oh, my God, you're on probation? What did you do?
That's my private, personal business.
(POLICE SIREN WAILING)
I was unfairly punished because the wall belonged to the judge's church.
You peed on a church?
I peed in an alley, which happened to have a church,
which I did not see, because I was drunk.
- You are evil. - All is right with the world again.
Okay, fine.
So a judge is making me do this, but I'm still doing it.
And kicking ass at it, BTW.
When's the last time either of you did something good, huh?
Kendall. Kendall.
Amanda is stealing Portobello mushrooms from homeless people.
Amanda. I called dibs on the Portobello mushrooms.
- Those are for the hungry. - I know. And I'm starving.
(BOTH LAUGHING)
AMANDA: Those are good mushrooms!
Mushrooms! Mushrooms! Portobello mushrooms for everyone!
Take them and run! They're very expensive!
- Happy Thanksgiving. - Happy Thanksgiving?
As in, "Check out the chick buying the knock-up test, everybody,
"wonder what must be going through her head."
Yeah, well, since you asked, a family of mayonnaise-guzzling giants
is trying to suck me into their suburban nightmare,
and there's a solid chance that I have an Eriksen,
the size of a 15-pound turkey, growing inside of me!
You know the Eriksens? You're Marshall's fiancée.
- Fantastic. - So nice to meet you.
You're taller than described.
Oh, I'm sorry I just yelled at you.
- You mind if I use your bathroom? - Don't have one.
- So what do you do when you have to... - I hold it.
(SLURPING)
- You can't fire a volunteer. - Apparently you can.
And his two non-mushroom-throwing friends.
I can't believe I told Kendall you guys were cool.
I have 40 hours left on my community service.
And now I've gotta spend it spearing trash on a freaking median strip.
Volunteer of the Year!
I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Okay?
Look, if there's anything I can do to make it up to you,
- just tell me, I'll do it. - Ted, I'm glad you asked.
- Surprisingly good. - Right? I told you so.
Public urination. Who gets arrested for public urination?
- Lily's been arrested. - Oh, dear. What for?
Public urination.
- Thanks, Pete. - No problemo, Marsh.
- You all right? - No.
I embarrassed myself in front of your family,
and now I'm celebrating Thanksgiving in probably the most depressing place ever.
Well, I'm glad that you're safe.
Hey, weird question.
Why did you drive 3 miles down Route 23
and take a pee behind a convenience store?
Okay, I'll tell you, but before I do,
promise me that we are not gonna move to St. Cloud, Minnesota. Promise.
Look it, I'm not suggesting that we move here tomorrow,
- I'm just... - Just promise!
Why do you want me to promise you that?
Because I don't fit in here. I'm not 8 feet tall,
and I don't think you can call it a salad if it has Funyuns in it!
I'm Funyuns.
And mayonnaise, and Gummi Bears, and bask-ice-ball, and I love St. Cloud.
And yes, there is a part of me that would like to move here someday.
And why are we having this discussion in a jail cell on Thanksgiving?
Okay, personal effects. One wallet, one cell phone,
one pregnancy test.
Pete arrested me before I could look at it.
- Whoa. - Yeah.
Lily, we can't let our kids play bask-ice-ball.
Bask-ice-ball is really dangerous.
Yeah, what are the rules to that game, anyway?
There are no rules. We just whale on each other.
Look, I don't wanna be exactly like my family.
And don't take this the wrong way,
but I don't wanna be exactly like your family, either.
We'll be our own family.
And we'll find our own way to freak out the people our kids bring home.
Great, now I'm crying.
Look, we may have some really big decisions to make
in about 10 seconds,
but right now, I don't care where our kids grow up,
as long as they have you for a father.
Gosh, I hope you're the father.
Just a little joke to lighten up the mood.
What does it say?
- I'm afraid to look. - PETE: It's negative!
Oh, thank God.
And, hey!
Ted, are you listening?
You're a good guy.
Wanna know why I have to work tomorrow?
My firm's designing an executive lounge for a tobacco company.
In the fight against cancer, I'm on the side of cancer.
Okay, Ted. I found a way for you to help someone, to do some good.
This is Walter. Walter is homeless.
- And Walter would like a lap dance. - Are you joking?
I never joke about the sublime art of burlesque entertainment.
No, Barney, that's insane.
Sir, would you like me to buy you a ticket to the buffet?
No, I'm stuffed. Just the lap dance would be fine.
Ted, Walter's been to three shelter dinners.
You know where he hasn't been? To heaven with Samantha.
Look, it's the one chance you've had all day to help someone in need.
Now, buy this man a lap dance.
You said you wanted to see the look of joy in someone's eyes.
You know, I don't think I'm gonna watch.
Here you go, Walter. Happy Thanksgiving.
Thank you so much. No, really. Thank you.
Happy Thanksgiving, guys.
Thanksgiving in November. Weird.
OLDER TED; So, that was Thanksgiving 2005,
To be honest, it didn't go great, But life has plenty of good parts,
It's the rough parts that make you thankful you have people to share it with,
Hey, I saw what you did for that guy. It was really sweet.
- Do you want a dance? - No, thanks.
- Do you want some yams? - No, thanks.
- I'm Amber. - I'm Ted.
Actually, I'm Tracey.
Still Ted.
OLDER TED; And that, kids, is the true story of how I met your mother,
- BOTH: What? - (LAUGHING) I'm kidding.
(LAUGHS)
End