- Leonard tells Penny about how he and Sheldon became roommates and what happened to the elevator.
- After Leonard and Sheldon have a heated argument about what Sheldon sees as Leonard making a major breach in the roommate agreement, Leonard takes refuge at Penny's apartment. Despite the seriousness of the argument, Leonard assures Penny that Sheldon was much more difficult to live with when Leonard first moved in. Leonard recounts to her his first meeting with Sheldon seven years earlier when Leonard answered Sheldon's advertisement looking for a new roommate. He also recounts Howard and Raj's first encounters with Sheldon, what happened to the now broken elevator which was working when Leonard first moved in, and why Leonard decided to stay despite Sheldon being such a difficult and unusual roommate.—Huggo
- Penny is about to do her toenails because she has her father's feet, when she hears Leonard and Sheldon fighting over the thermostat setting. Leonard comes over to Penny's apartment and asks if he can sleep on her couch. When Penny remarks that Leonard is nuts for living with Sheldon, he tells Penny the story of how he first met him seven years ago when Sheldon was much worse.
Leonard starts out with explaining how, back in 2003, he had just started at Caltech and he needed a room for rent. The elevator was still working in the apartment building and he sees Sheldon's previous roommate, Sebastian (Steven Yeun), leaving and warning him about Sheldon being crazy. He does not heed this warning, thinking the previous roommate was the crazy one. After Leonard mistakenly knocks on his future transvestite neighbor's apartment door by mistake (who also considers Sheldon to be the crazy one), he eventually meets Sheldon. Sheldon first quizzes Leonard about his job and his science fiction character (Kirk or Picard) preferences before he allows him to enter.
At this point, Sheldon's apartment is quite empty, having only two lawn chairs instead of the couch and armchair, although the lawn chair Sheldon sits on is in almost the same position as his present-day "spot"; the TV is balanced on cinder blocks. Sheldon gives a series of interview questions to verify whether or not Leonard is a good and worthy roommate to have and then gives him a tour, which includes showing him his future room with the message "DIE SHELDON DIE" painted in angry red script on a wall by the previous roommate, which Sheldon says that Leonard might want to repaint. After working out seemingly countless pages of the roommate agreement, Leonard has to promise to drive Sheldon anywhere anytime he demands, what to do if one or both succumbs to a zombie plague and the apartment's flag, Leonard moves in.
Penny cannot understand how Leonard decided to stay with Sheldon, and has no sympathy for him, following which Leonard tells her about when Sheldon kicked Joyce Kim (Ally Maki), Leonard's new girlfriend, out of the apartment as Leonard had given him notice about her visit as per the roommate agreement. Penny is surprised, and she asks why he still stayed after that. Leonard tells her it turned out to be a good thing as Kim was a North Korean spy and Leonard had been working on classified rocket fuel for the government: Joyce Kim was trying to seduce Leonard for information, which, due to Sheldon, proved unsuccessful as she then defected back to North Korea. Penny now knows half of the story now: Leonard stayed with Sheldon because the latter protected him from going to prison for treason.
Leonard mentions that the other part of his story has to do with the elevator's destruction, and he continues: Sheldon comes home from work and he meets Raj and Howard who work at the university too, for the first time; they and Leonard are playing a video game. Sheldon finds that Leonard has replaced Sheldon's lawn chairs with the sofa (sold to Leonard by their neighbors who moved, for $100) that is currently in the apartment. Soon, after a lot of switching spots, Sheldon finally claims his "spot" on the couch. After the other guys leave due to Sheldon's annoyances, they go to Howard's place. Sheldon then sits in his spot and joyously say, "Oh, yes!"
Leonard discovers that Howard has designed a rocket, which he claims could break the sound barrier if he had the proper fuel. Leonard volunteers the fuel he'd had in the apartment (which he was going to show to Joyce Kim) and they went back to mix some. However, Sheldon notices that Leonard did not adjust the fuel for Howard's rocket size correctly. Leonard finally cracks and unloads a tirade, yelling at Sheldon for his constant arrogance. As he rants, the fuel starts smoking, prompting Leonard to panic. Leonard takes the canister outside, thinking he can confine the smoking fuel to the elevator, but Sheldon knows precisely how long he has until it explodes, so he pushes Leonard out of the elevator before stepping out himself and closing the door. Within seconds, the fuel explodes, rendering the elevator inoperable. Leonard explains his continued friendship with Sheldon by pointing out that Sheldon saved his life and didn't rat him out to the landlord, the police, or Homeland Security.
While Penny gets a little annoyed at the fact that he is the reason that she has to use the stairs every day, Leonard asks her what she was doing seven years ago. While she lies to him about doing community service and studying hard, it is revealed to the audience that she was with an old boyfriend, relieved that a pregnancy test she'd taken was negative.
Leonard goes back to the apartment and apologizes to Sheldon for his argument over the thermostat; however, when Leonard turns the TV on and tries to watch Babylon 5, a whole new fight starts, greatly amusing Penny.
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