- Leonard Hofstadter: Amy.
- Amy Farrah Fowler: You didn't know it, but your father was in the auditorium at your high school graduation and he cried because he was so proud of you.
- Howard Wolowitz: Really?
- Sheldon Cooper: Oh, that's complete poppycock which Amy made that up and it could still be the map.
- Leonard Hofstadter: Penny.
- Penny: It was a letter explaining that your Dad wasn't who he said was. Eventually his other life caught up to him and the only way to keep you and your Mom safe was to leave.
- Sheldon Cooper: I would like to change mine. The pirate's name was Peg Leg Antoine. Now it's completely different from Goonies.
- Amy Farrah Fowler: No it's not.
- Sheldon Cooper: Don't.
- Leonard Hofstadter: OK, my turn. Your Dad wrote about how family is the most important thing and that you should never throw it away like he did.
- Howard Wolowitz: Hm.
- Leonard Hofstadter: Bernadette.
- Bernadette Rostenkowski: Inside the envelope was a picture of your Dad holding you the day you were born. On the back he wrote: Howard, my son, my greatest gift.
- [Howard gets up and walks away]
- Bernadette Rostenkowski: You okay?
- Howard Wolowitz: Yeah. I'm terrific.
- Sheldon Cooper: So? Which one do you think it is, matey?
- Howard Wolowitz: Actually I don't want to know. I want all of them to be true.
- Leonard Hofstadter: Well, one of them is.
- Howard Wolowitz: That is pretty cool. Thank you, guys.
- [first lines]
- Bernadette Rostenkowski: Wha'cha doing?
- Howard Wolowitz: You said clean up. I'm cleaning up.
- Bernadette Rostenkowski: You can't just throw everything in the closet.
- Howard Wolowitz: Hey, you can tell me what to do, or you can tell me how to do it, but you can't do both; this isn't sex.
- Bernadette Rostenkowski: What if someone looks in there?
- Howard Wolowitz: They're just coming over for dinner. No-one's going to look in the closet.
- Bernadette Rostenkowski: You don't know that. What if someone's looking for the bathroom and they open that door?
- Howard Wolowitz: Could work out. For all we know, there's a toilet in there somewhere.
- Bernadette Rostenkowski: Fine, but after tonight we need to get a handle on this mess.
- Howard Wolowitz: Y'know what we should do, we should show the closet to Sheldon.
- Bernadette Rostenkowski: Hm, why?
- Howard Wolowitz: Are you kidding? He's like a savant at organizing. Did you know *everything* in his apartment has a label on it. Including his label-maker which has a label that says 'label-maker'. And, if you look really close at that label-maker label, you'll see a label that says 'label'.
- Bernadette Rostenkowski: Can't do that. We can't just ask him to straighten our closet.
- Howard Wolowitz: No, we wouldn't *ask* him. We'd just show him the closet and let the goblins in his head take it from there.
- Howard Wolowitz: What are you guys doing here?
- Leonard Hofstadter: When you left you weren't sure whether or not you wanted to know what was in your Dad's letter so we came up with kind of a cool solution.
- Howard Wolowitz: Oh yeah, what's that?
- Sheldon Cooper: It's simple really. It occurred to me that knowing and not knowing can be achieved by creating a macroscopic example of quantum superposition. The principle that a physical system exists partially in all of its possible states at once.
- Penny: We were all thinking it, really. Kind of the elephant in the room.
- Sheldon Cooper: Anyway, um, I realized if we each present you with an account of what your father wrote to you, only one of which is true, and we don't tell you which one it is, you will be forever in a state of epistemic ambivalence.
- Penny: Yeah. And he said if it wasn't epistemic, we might as well not even do it.
- Bernadette Rostenkowski: Sit down, honey.
- Leonard Hofstadter: Raj, you're up.
- Raj Koothrappali: It was a card for your eighteenth birthday. Inside it said: Happy Birthday Howard. I love you, Dad. Oh, and it was a Far Side card, The one where the frog had his tongue stuck to the underside of an airplane. Thinks it's a fly. Silly frog. So funny.
- Leonard Hofstadter: Sheldon.
- Sheldon Cooper: It was a map leading to the lost treasure of famous pirate One-eyed Willy.
- Howard Wolowitz: That's fine. That's the plot for The Goonies.
- Amy Farrah Fowler: Told you.
- Sheldon Cooper: Don't.
- Raj Koothrappali: Nice to see everyone dressed up.
- Penny: Well, this party is delightful.
- Raj Koothrappali: As is the company.
- Sheldon Cooper: This shirt is itchy and I wish I was dead.
- Amy Farrah Fowler: [after Howard's outburst of anger at Sheldon] Use me a human shield?
- Sheldon Cooper: I panicked. He looked taller than usual.
- Bernadette Rostenkowski: Sheldon, I know tonight's the night you eat Thai food so I went to the Asian market, got all the ingredients, made it from scratch.
- Sheldon Cooper: Ohh, you shouldn't have.
- Bernadette Rostenkowski: Oh, it's my pleasure.
- Sheldon Cooper: No, you really shouldn't have.
- [holds up bag of takeout food]
- Sheldon Cooper: I brought my own.
- Bernadette Rostenkowski: You stopped and got him takeout?
- Leonard Hofstadter: I had no choice. He kept kicking the back of my seat.
- Bernadette Rostenkowski: Sheldon, I've been cooking all day.
- Sheldon Cooper: Well, now don't you feel silly.
- Bernadette Rostenkowski: [to Howard] Show him the closet!
- Howard Wolowitz: [looking at old family photos] Check out nine-year-old Howie with cornrows. Neither race was happy to see me with those.
- Amy Farrah Fowler: If you let me pierce your brain with a hot needle in the right place you'd be happy all the time.
- Sheldon Cooper: [Cleaning the lint trap on the laundry room drier] Yech! It's like cleaning the building's belly button.
- [Sheldon is begging Leonard to let him stay and finish organizing Howard's closet]
- Leonard Hofstadter: Penny is already in the car... wait, I can go home without you? Bye!
- Leonard Hofstadter: Hey. Where have you been?
- Sheldon Cooper: Oh, Leonard. If I was prone to sarcasm, I would say I was pulling off a major heist at the museum of laundry baskets.
- Leonard Hofstadter: [to himself] One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten.
- [heavy sigh]
- Leonard Hofstadter: I meant "Golly, Sheldon, you've been gone a long time."
- Sheldon Cooper: Oh. Well, I was waylaid by Penny, Bernadette, and Amy. They made me reveal confidential information about Howard's father.
- Leonard Hofstadter: What information?
- Sheldon Cooper: I can't tell you that. I am bound by closet organizer/organizee confidentiality.
- Raj Koothrappali: Well, come on. We won't tell anyone.
- Sheldon Cooper: Sorry. Badgering me won't work. What you should have said is "It's pointless to keep this a secret, because Penny will tell us."
- Leonard Hofstadter: Fine, then that.
- Sheldon Cooper: All right, I'll tell you.
- Bernadette Rostenkowski: There's something I have to tell you.
- Howard Wolowitz: What?
- Bernadette Rostenkowski: I know what was in your dad's letter.
- [realizing who told her, he storms into the apartment]
- Howard Wolowitz: Sheldon, I swear to god I'm gonna kill you!
- Bernadette Rostenkowski: I made him tell us.
- Howard Wolowitz: Us? Who else knows?
- Penny: I know.
- Amy Farrah Fowler: Me, too.
- Leonard Hofstadter: Same here.
- Raj Koothrappali: Shame on all of you!
- Leonard Hofstadter: You know, too.
- Raj Koothrappali: Couldn't leave him one friend, could you?
- Sheldon Cooper: I can't tell you that. I'm bound by closet organizer-organizee confidentiality.
- Amy Farrah Fowler: Sheldon, that's not a real thing.
- Sheldon Cooper: Neither is the rule that you have to hold your girlfriend's hand at the movies. But that doesn't stop you from pawing at me like you're a bear and I'm a trash can full of sweets.
- Sheldon Cooper: Surprisingly, uh, the letter from your father wasn't the most interesting thing I read in the closet. Bernadette's diary has some saucy passages.
- Bernadette Rostenkowski: Sheldon, don't you dare!
- Sheldon Cooper: Well, yuh-yuh, there's nothing to worry about; your secret's safe with me.
- Bernadette Rostenkowski: That's more like it.
- Sheldon Cooper: [to Howard] Although copyright law would allow me to quote snippets in the context of a review.
- Sheldon Cooper: Howard, do you want your clothes arranged seasonally, or by color?
- Howard Wolowitz: Color is fine.
- Sheldon Cooper: That's all wrong. I'm doing it seasonally.
- Amy Farrah Fowler: We need something from you.
- Sheldon Cooper: Oh, dear. Momma told me this could happen to a young man in the big city.
- Penny: We need some information from you.
- Sheldon Cooper: Oh, I've got that in spades. Ravage me away.
- Howard Wolowitz: It's kind of ridiculous having to walk all those flights of stairs.
- Bernadette Rostenkowski: Try doing it in heels.
- Howard Wolowitz: I am.
- Raj Koothrappali: I'm here to make sure your dinner party kicks Howard's dinner party's ass. Now, the first thing we need is a theme. I'm thinking, ah, turn-of-the-century Moulin Rouge.
- Leonard Hofstadter: I'm thinking you need a testosterone patch.
- Sheldon Cooper: Penny, I have a couple of questions about your closet. Is there any reason you're keeping this dead goldfish?
- Penny: Damn. I forgot to feed him... and that I had him.
- Sheldon Cooper: Well, now, did you also have a dog? Because I found what appears to be a battery-powered chew toy.
- Penny: Party's over! Party's over!