A girl scout leaders guide

Ted’s wedding day didn’t go according to plan after Stella took off. But Ted insisted he’d come out of it stronger and wasn’t thinking about her anymore. “That’s what time does, I guess,” he told his friends after thanking them for getting him through it. Lily reminded him the wedding was yesterday. Ted went to play Kool & the Gang on the jukebox while Barney mused that Stella might have made the right choice. Barney thought Ted, too, had pulled off “the greatest train dodge since ‘Stand By Me’ — well, not the first kid, but the rest of them.”

Two weeks later, his friends were mad that he wasn’t letting them help him out. Marshall wanted Ted to explode. The group talked about where to eat, but Ted shot down every suggestion because it was either too close to Stella’s gym, her office or her mother’s house. Ted had made a map of New York City with all the places he could go because they were out of Stella’s radius. Ted said that he and all Ohioans avoid confronting awkward situations until they go away.

Lily remembered a tapas place someone told her about that was in “the white zone.” They went there and she couldn’t remember who told her — until she did… after Stella walked in.

Ted panicked and the whole group hid under their table while Stella waited for her take-out order. Lily gave Ted a hard time for hiding from Stella, but he told her there was someone she’d hide from, too: “Gasser.” He was a kid named Mike Sasser who she sat next to in ninth grade. She blamed him for passing gas in class when it was really her, and he was made fun of so much that he had to move to a different school.

Barney, too, gave Ted a hard time for hiding from Stella and claimed there wasn’t anyone he’d hide from, until Ted mentioned Becca DeLucci, a woman in a federal prison who Barney used to visit, conjugally. During his last visit, he messed things up by flirting with another inmate during one of his visits and getting her caught in a fight. Barney said he now gets letters from her, saying she’s going to get him the day she gets out of prison and hang his eyes from her rear-view mirror.

They checked to see if all was clear and Stella appeared to be gone, so they took their seats again when, sure enough, she re-emerged.

They all hid under the table again — except for Barney, who was hiding under another table where a group of ladies were having dinner. Robin said she wouldn’t want to speak to the last person she’d want to see walk into the restaurant — her dad — walked in. She talked about how he always wanted a son and that her full name is actually Robin Charles Scherbatsky Jr. She had a lot bottled up that she wanted to say, but didn’t have a chance. Ted realized that while all of his friends were also haunted, it wasn’t too late for him. He was going to talk to Stella. But by the time he came out from under the table, Stella was gone. He tried to chase her out of the restaurant, but her cab pulled away as he ran outside.

They all jumped into another cab and followed Stella’s. Ted said he wanted to talk to Stella like an adult, but Marshall wanted him to get mad. Marshall told Ted that Stella hated “Star Wars.” It didn’t work.

But when they realized that Stella was going home to Tony’s apartment downtown, Ted got angry. He pieced together that she moved to New York to be with Tony but she was going to make him move to New Jersey. Ted got mad, he yelled, he pulled the window crank off the cab door.

Lily told Ted to really think about what he was going to tell her. Ted said he knew exactly what he was going to tell her. We saw Stella get out of her cab and Ted walked up behind her and told her she picked the wrong guy and that she was going to regret it. “All you’re going to do is go in there and start your crappy, disappointing life that is not going to be nearly as happy as the one you would’ve had with me.” He told wasn’t trying to win her back, but wanted her to know that she was making a huge mistake. She said, “I know.” But that was only what he told his friends he was going to tell her.

Ted got out of the cab ready to say all of that, but then… “It all just went away,” old Ted said, after he saw Stella come home to Tony and her daughter Lucy. That was when he decided to let his anger go. “And that, kids, was the perfect ending to a perfect love story,” old Ted said. “It just wasn’t mine. Mine was still out there, waiting for me.”

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