Living Room, 2030
"Kids, there was a day when five adults decided to do the impossible: spend 24 hours in New York without finding out who won the Super Bowl. Sounds easy, right? Well, let me tell you how each one ended up..."
Ted Mosby: The Voluntary Prisoner
Ted, the architect, decided the best way to avoid information contamination was to not leave the house. He'd work from his apartment, no TV, no internet, no newspapers. A solid plan.
Until Barney showed up at his door.
"Ted, I need you to swallow this key."
"What? No."
"Come on, Ted, you eat salads. It'll be out by game time."
Barney had fifty thousand dollars bet on the game. His gambling addiction was at its peak. If he didn't handcuff himself to something, he claimed, he'd look up the result.
Ted agreed because he was a good friend, and because the idea of Barney handcuffed to a radiator with no plan for using the bathroom seemed objectively funny.
"But only because you didn't think of a bathroom plan," said Ted, pocketing the key.
And so Ted spent the day in his apartment, with Barney handcuffed in his living room, complaining every five minutes.
The irony: Ted, who had isolated himself from the world, ended up spending the entire day with Barney Stinson. Until, of course, he had to go pick up his food order.
"I'm going to Quinn's. I'll be back in twenty minutes," said Ted.
"Quinn's is a sports bar. There are TVs everywhere," Barney replied.
Ted smiled. "That's why I have this."
He brought out his invention: the Sensory Deprivator 5000.
It consisted of:
• Sunglasses covered with duct tape, leaving only two small holes to see.
• Blinders made from a cereal box.
• Noise-canceling headphones (bought when Lily came back from San Francisco and he couldn't stand hearing them).
"Sensory Deprivator 5000," he announced proudly.
"Sensory Deprivator 5000," repeated Barney, not hiding his skepticism.
Ted went out into the street and walked to Quinn's like a blind spy, dodging pedestrians, lampposts, and reality itself.
He entered the bar.
"Hello!" he shouted, to hear himself. "My name is Ted Mosby. I'm here to pick up my spicy wings. In my hand is the exact money plus a generous tip. Please, take the money and put the wings in my hand. Thank you!"
The bartender looked at him, took the money, and placed the wings in his outstretched hand.
Ted left the bar victorious. His invention had worked.
He hadn't seen or heard anything.
He walked back to the apartment, triumphant.
"I did it!" he yelled, removing the headphones. "The Sensory Deprivator—!"
He stopped.
He looked at the bag of wings.
"Where's the sauce?"
There was no sauce. He had forgotten to ask for the sauce.
And then it dawned on him: to get the sauce, he'd have to go back to Quinn's. And Quinn's was full of TVs that weren't going to wait.
Ted had won the battle, but he was about to lose the war.
Robin Scherbatsky: The Cornered Journalist
Robin had the hardest job of all. She was a TV journalist the day after the Super Bowl.
She arrived at the Metro News 1 newsroom with a plan: survive. She'd navigate the treacherous waters of sports information like a fish dodging hooks.
She didn't last ten minutes.
"Robin, it's time for sports," her producer said from the control booth.
"No. It's time for weather."
"We just did weather."
"The weather is changeable. It might have changed."
Her producer looked at her like she was crazy, but Robin didn't give in. She managed to delay sports once, twice, three times. She substituted segments, improvised, begged.
"We lost Mark this week," she confessed to her colleagues. "Please, don't mention the Super Bowl. I can't know the score."
Her colleagues, moved, agreed to alter the teleprompter and avoid any mention of the game.
Robin survived her shift. She left the newsroom victorious.
What she didn't know was that the outside world was full of dangers no teleprompter could control.
Marshall Eriksen: The Kindergarten Hostage
Marshall had promised Lily he'd go to her kindergarten class for show-and-tell. And Marshall kept his promises.
What he didn't expect was to run into Doug.
"Hel-lo," said Doug, a five-year-old with a sinister smile. "I know who won the Super Bowl."
Marshall felt the ground open beneath his feet.
"I don't want to know," he said. "Please."
"How much don't you want to know?"
"What?"
"Ten dollars, and I don't tell you anything."
Marshall blinked. A five-year-old was extorting him.
"Eight," said Doug. "The offer's going down."
Marshall paid. Ten dollars for a child's silence. But Doug didn't stop there. All morning, he threatened him. Every time Marshall let his guard down, Doug would appear with a half-pronounced clue.
"The team that won... wanna know what it rhymes with?"
"No."
"Okay. But if you change your mind, it'll be fifteen dollars."
Marshall survived the morning. But when Doug, in a fit of jealousy because Marshall was "Miss Aldrin's boyfriend," tried to reveal the result, Marshall resorted to desperate measures.
"Someone peed their pants," Marshall announced loudly.
The kids looked at Doug. Doug denied it, but the stares didn't lie.
"Now," Marshall whispered in Doug's ear, "you can go to the bathroom and dry off, or I can tell everyone what you did."
Doug relented. Marshall had won the battle, but the war wasn't over yet.
Barney Stinson: The Man Who Tried Too Hard
Barney was handcuffed to Ted's radiator, but that wasn't enough.
His bookie had called thirteen times. His gambling addiction screamed from within. He needed to know.
But he also needed the spicy wings for the party that night. So he begged Ted to uncuff him. Ted refused, and Barney took advantage—slipping the cuff off the radiator easily while Ted was out, and escaping the apartment.
Lily Aldrin: The Teacher
Lily had to go to work at the kindergarten, and Marshall went with her. Lily concentrated on her work, though some reckless kids wanted to talk about the game. She managed to deflect the topic by steering the children toward other stories. Still, she was stressed all day until her work ended and she left the classroom with Marshall.
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The mission: survive 24 hours without knowing the Super Bowl score. The methods: Ted's Sensory Deprivator 5000, Barney's kidnapping, Marshall's child extortion.
Do you think they'll achieve their goal? Who do you think will fail first?
Share your opinion in the comments, follow me, and give power to this story. We need stones for the party!
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