Kids, in a sophomore year of college,
when Aunt Lily came back from spring break,
Uncle Marshall surprised her at the airport.
And she surprised him with a six-pack of locally brewed beer.
Fort Lau-ger-Dale! Get it?
And with that, a ritual was born.
For the next 11 years, whenever either of them would fly anywhere...
Minne-Cider! Get it?
The reunion was always commemorated with a chauffeur sign
and a six-pack from wherever they'd been.
Aspen Yards Ale!
Get it?
- Actually, no. - Me, neither.
I was hoping you would.
But then, one night in January of 2009,
the unthinkable happened.
- I'm not picking her up. - What?
Lily doesn't want me taking a cab all the way to the airport
just to take a cab all the way back, you know?
But the six-pack thing.
That stuff was fun when we were younger,
but we've grown past that.
As we mature, the relationship matures with us.
But...
I mean, you guys are such an inspiration to the rest of us,
how you're so devoted and connected.
I look at you guys,
and that's all I want in the whole world.
There's two college girls outside, and they look easy!
So, Arizona... You know, I've always wanted to see
what an Arizona driver's license looks like.
I already ran that play, bro. They're 21. We're good.
Thank God. So... what brings you guys to town?
- Our band's got a gig. - You're in a band?
- Hey, maybe we'll come see you play. - Excuse us for a sec.
What the hell is the matter with you?
- We're not gonna go see them play. - Why not?
If we see them play,
we're no better than the bleach-blonde bimbos
who flash their boobs at a Van Halen concert.
Yeah, but don't those girls get to have sex with Van Halen after the show?
If you want to have sex with Van Halen, do it on your own time, Ted.
We are not the maybe-we-can-come-see-you-play guys.
We're the other guys, the older guys
who never showed up and whose approval they now crave.
- So we're their dads? - Exactly.
It's a big meeting, so I don't think we're gonna make it.
Maybe next time, kiddos.
But if you guys want to meet up after your show,
- maybe we could exchange numbers... - Excuse us for a minute.
Ted, have you gone completely insane?
We don't want their phone numbers.
I don't know what I was doing. I guess I panicked out there.
When you exchange numbers with a chick
you give them the ability to call and cancel.
If you set a date without a number, they have to show up.
Check and mate!
The only digits I need are these.
Honka.
Are you still their dad?
So, why don't we just meet here tomorrow night around 10:00.
I think it's supposed to snow.
What do we do if there's a blizzard?
Either way, we'll be here.
"Snow" problem.
Excuse us just one last second.
What is the problem now?
Nice one.
All right, we'll see you tomorrow night.
- Totally. - Awesome!
"Totally. Awesome!"
Man, these college chicks sound stupid.
- Totally. - Awesome.
So, here's the thing, tomorrow night,
dress to move. It's gonna be a mess!
I still think we should've gotten their numbers.
You always assume something is gonna go wrong.
Ted, I promise you, nothing is gonna go wrong.
It's starting to snow.
Kids, the blizzard of '09 was a monster.
It snowed for three days straight,
which led to three amazing stories.
I'll start with me and Barney.
It's pretty nasty out there. I don't think they're coming.
Of course they're coming. They have to.
If I can land just one of these girls, I'll have party school bingo.
Come on, Ted. You're the only one here.
Sorry. What's party school bingo?
Every year, Playboy releases a list of the top party schools in the country.
I take the top 25, and I make up
a bingo card.
All I need is Arizona Tech, which is crazy.
In league play, that would normally be designated a free space.
So... how many people are in on this party school bingo thing?
It's just me.
So what's the point, then?
The point is to get five in a row.
And what do you get when you get five in a row?
I get bingo.
Thanks for coming by.
I monkeyed around with the thermostat for about an hour
before I realized it was the intercom.
Yeah, I heard you swearing downstairs.
Hey, so... Lily's flight's coming in tonight
you're really not gonna go pick her up?
Like I said,
as we mature, our relationship matures with us.
Yeah, well, if I know your wife, she's gonna get you that six-pack anyway.
Puget Stout.
A most exquisite Seattle microbrew.
And speaking of six-packs...
- What are you doing? - I'm going to the airport.
How could I be so stupid? Of course she's bringing me a six-pack!
But this time, I didn't bring him a six-pack.
Because... as we mature, the relationship matures with us.
Well, he sounds like a nice young man.
I'll bet he surprises you and picks you up anyway.
Where's my beer?
We said we weren't gonna.
I have beer.
A six-pack and you're an appropriate height for me.
Let's go, New Lily.
I got to get some beer.
Folks, this is your captain speaking.
Looks like we're going to be arriving an hour early.
Drink up, boys. I'm closing the bar.
- It's only 9:00. - And this place is ragin'!
Guys, I'm really sorry, but I got to go set up cots in the church basement.
It doubles as a shelter on snowy nights like this.
You selfish bastard! There are two very hot girls coming here to meet us.
Can't you just leave the place open a little while longer?
- We'll keep an eye on everything. - You two? No way.
You wouldn't know the first thing about running a bar.
Serve the hotties first?
Here's the keys.
As soon as your girls show up,
you turn off the lights and you lock up.
I don't want to come back here and find this place trashed.
Seriously?
I can trust you guys.
To understand what it meant to us to get the keys to MacLaren's,
I have to take you back a few years
to the night that I uttered five little words
that every man at some point in his life will say.
- We should buy a bar. - Of course, we should buy a bar!
- We should totally buy a bar. - We should totally buy a bar.
- Our bar would be awesome. - And dude
dude... dude
dude!
The name of our bar...
Puzzles.
People will be like, "why is it called Puzzles?"
That's the puzzle.
That is
a great name for a bar!
And also, at Puzzles,
- no last call. - No last call!
Only when every single person is finished
having the greatest night of his or her life
do we stack the chairs on the table
and power down the three-story margarita waterfall.
- We should buy a bar. - We should buy a bar.
And like the other ill-advised five-word sentences
every man eventually says in his life...
I can jump that far.
I'm gonna win her back.
I can trust you guys.
We would come to regret it.
We just didn't know it yet.
You have it? Awesome... I'll be right there.
Wait a minute.
If you are getting off the plane, where is Marshall?
- And where is your six-pack? - That's the problem.
I have to get to Brewniverse in East Meadow in an hour.
- To the Town Car! - Thank you.
Barkeep. Triple Sec.
Coming right up, tap-minder.
We'll get one.
- Order up. - Order up.
We'll get one.
Thank God you're still here.
I don't know if you guys have ever seen Star Wars,
- but it's like Hoth out there. - Dibs.
It reminds me of when I used to go sledding with my dad
- before he left. - And dibs.
So... can we warm you up with a drink?
Sure...
By the way, I invited the rest of the band to come and meet us.
We were hoping to get drunk. I mean really drunk.
Like my dad used to.
Dibsity, dibsity, dibsity...
I guess we could keep the place open a little bit longer.
As long as it's just you and the band.
What kind of band is this?
We're the Arizona Tech Fighting Hens Marching Band.
Go, Hens!
And then, your Uncle Barney and I
had one of our telepathic conversations.
Dude, Carl's gonna kill us
if we don't kick everyone out of here right now.
Barney, I'm serious.
We promised we wouldn't mess the place up.
All right, I guess you have a point.
The bar is open!
Who wants a beer?
I still say this is stupid.
What happened to, "As we mature, the relationship matures with us"?
That's just something Lily read in Psychology Today.
All right, she read it in Cosmo.
All right, I read it in Cosmo.
All right, it was Cosmo Girl. Just drive, okay.
I just don't get why it's such a big deal
that one little ritual goes by the wayside.
It's not just this, okay? It's all our little rituals.
Do you know what we used to do every day the second I got home?
Man, I don't want to hear about your crazy monkey sex.
We would tell each other what we had to eat that day.
Two eggs, a slice of cheese pizza and some steamed veggies.
Everything bagel, chicken breast, some celery sticks
and a spoon of peanut butter.
- Crazy monkey sex? - Crazy monkey sex.
TMI... too many informations.
You know what else I miss? Our lunchtime phone call.
It's lunchtime, and I love you.
I reciprocate in principle.
Although with the caveat that there seems
to be a bit of a surplus here on my end.
I love you more.
Do we need to get in a room together and bang this thing out?
Those sound like agreeable terms,
although I may need to adjust my briefs.
Love you, too.
But today when she called,
I let it go to voice mail. Voice mail!
How could you?
The thing I miss most is kissing at midnight on New Year's Eve.
It was a New Year's tradition.
But you know what we did this year?
Crazy monkey sex?
All these cute, adorable little rituals... they're stupid.
Telling each other what you had to eat? You're like
children playing house.
Well
maybe you just think they're stupid
because you've never been in a relationship
long enough to develop them.
What?
You don't understand love.
Okay, you're like some robot who sees a person crying and says...
"Why is that human leaking?"
Is that right?
Well, then... Robot initiating
pull-over-to-the-side-of-the-road-until- jackass-apologizes-to-me sequence.
My robot was like, a million times better.
Just so you know, the trough in the bathroom is overflowing.
There's no trough in the bathroom.
And you just came out of the kitchen.
What's in a gin and tonic?
Running a bar sucks. Let's just close up.
There's no last call.
Puzzles, go for Barney.
Good. You're still there. I'll be there in five.
Last call.
Robin, there's a snowplow coming. We have to get back on the road.
You think the only way to be in love is to have pet names.
Or leave each other stupid, little notes
or go charging off into a blizzard for no good reason.
Seriously, do you understand what's going to happen if that plow comes by?
You know what you are? You're a love snob.
There's lots of ways to be in a relationship,
and you would know that if you ever left your little love snob country club.
We're going to get buried by snow. That's going to happen.
Screw this.
I'm not going to sit here and be insulted.
We're not going to the airport. We're going home.
What just happened?
We called earlier about the Seattle microbrew.
Good thing you called when you did. I was getting ready to close up.
Storm of the century out there.
Of course, it's only '09, so storm of the century
might be a little bit premature.
Let's say storm of the year. Although, it is only January.
We're in kind of a hurry, so, we'll take the beer now.
You are a cute couple.
- Thank you. - We're not a couple.
Thank God. That would be weird.
Well
here she is. "Supersonic Tonic."
This is a keg. I need a six-pack.
A keg's all I got. We'll take the keg.
What?
Last time I had one of these in the car,
I wound up chipping dried vomit off the seat with a putty knife.
I'm sorry, Ranjit, but this is a ritual
and I am bringing him this beer.
If you could just put it in the car.
I'll give you 50 bucks.
To the Town Car.
Robin, I'm sorry.
You're not a robot.
If you are, you're, like, an incredibly advanced model,
and the human race doesn't stand a chance.
You just don't choose to
show your love through corny rituals, and that's fine.
But maybe the reason Lily and I do is because we always have,
and we don't know any other way.
One thing I do know is that
if she's there sitting at the airport alone,
I have to go get her.
Those are the rules.
Close your eyes.
I don't know how you heard any of that as me hitting on you, but...
Just do it.
Now let's go get your woman.
All right, come on.
You don't have to go home, but you can't stay here.
I've always wanted to say that.
I mean, in a bar. I say it all the time at home.
Someday we should buy a bar. And when we do,
we are never going to have last call.
Come on, Barney.
We said no last call. We've got to mean it.
Well, what are we supposed to do? Carl's going to be here any minute.
Only one thing we can do.
Dude, running a bar is a pain in the ass.
We should just stick with what we know.
- We should start a band. - Of course we should start a band!
How have we not started a band yet?
Kids, sometimes in life
the planets align, everything links up,
and your timing is perfect.
This wasn't one of those times.
Where is she?
Seattle.
What?
Her flight's canceled. It never took off.
She would've called me and...
Hey, baby, it's me.
My flight's been canceled because of some snowstorm
and they couldn't rebook me till Thursday,
so I'm stuck here for another two days.
But it's lunchtime, and I love you.
Like I said, this was a three-day storm.
I still say this is stupid.
So on Tuesday when Marshall heard that message...
She's not coming in till Thursday.
I mean, we came all the way down here, and she's not coming in till Thursday.
I feel so stupid.
Look, let's just, let's not tell Lily about any of this, okay?
Especially the part about you hitting on me.
I didn't hit on you.
Exactly.
Then on Wednesday...
Man. I can't believe you drove all the way out there.
Now you're just going to turn around
and drive all the way out there again tomorrow.
This whole thing was a sign, you know?
It's time to put that old ritual to bed. I'm not going to pick her up.
Robin really hit on you?
It was weird.
Bros, this party is awesome!
You are true friends of the Fighting Hens.
If you ever need anything,
don't hesitate to ask.
Is the flute section seeing anyone?
So, wait, you're really not going to pick her up?
So the New Year's kiss, the
lunchtime phone calls, the whole
"this is what I ate today" thing, you're, you're really letting it all go?
I really am.
Which brings us to Thursday.
A muffin, a pastrami sandwich, and a bag of chips. And
I know it's way past lunchtime, but I love you.
More and more each day, I love you, Lily.
Happy New Year.
Does this mean that I have to bring a marching band
- to the airport from now on? - Absolutely, it does.
Crap.
Go, Hens!
Puzzles.
That is a great band name.
Hey, have you seen Amanda?
Bingo!