How I Met Your Mother Fodder

How I Met Your Mother: Slap Bet

Future Ted says that we learn new things about our partner all the time. Some nice (you can make crepes?) some not nice (counting partners) and some weird (Robin's afraid of the Snow White film.) Robin is afraid of malls, she says, when Barney invites everyone to the Sharper Image for their 500th store opening. Later, alone, Ted pries to get information about the fear but nothing doing.

Later yet, Barney explains that keeping a secret is good because it could delay the possible "oh" moments - moments that when they are revealed, make you say "oh" and not want to be with the person. Ted says it's good to know about things right away - he imagines being at the altar with Robin and finding out she was once a dude. Robin agrees and says in a real relationship everything is shared. Barney thinks there are lots of things Marshall has done that Lily doesn't know about. Barney throws out some examples and Lily knows them all.

Barney says Robin used to do porn-ography and that is her secret. Marshall wonders if she is married and thus is avoiding the mall. He talks about how great the Mall of America is and Lily says they're not getting married at the mall. They realize that Robin talks a lot about a friend in Canada who married young. Barney is willing to bet $20,000 that it is porn but Marshall will not go for that. Barney proposes a slap bet - the winner slaps the other as hard as possible.

Ted manages to bring up the Canada thing with Robin and it turns out that she is in fact married. This elicits an Oh moment. She says they broke up in a mall and he's in Hong Kong and that was good enough for her - and would she please not tell anyone about it. He manages to let it out as Marshall slaps Barney really hard. Ted feels like the mistress... or mastress... should he ask her to get a divorce? Lily says it's a Canadian marriage and isn't real. Marshall says he'll look into long term seperation and the law. Later Marshall tells Ted he checked the records and she is not married. Ted wonders how he will confront Robin about this and he says he will ask her a lot of questions.

He asks her lots of questions but it's a no go as she has lots of answers except what the husband's name is. She wonders how he found out and it comes out that he told Marshall. She was just testing him.

Later, Barney confronts Marshall about the lie which apparently Lily let out. He gets three slaps on Marshall for this. Ted and Robin argue about the secret when Barney stumbles in and says he knows the secret of Robin "Sparkle". Ted doesn't want to have the secret out but Barney says his friend is uploading it to myspace as they speak. Robin says it's time the secret gets out. They watch the beginning of the video which Barney assumes is porn and so he slaps Marshall. Apparently though, it was a song that she had as a hit in Canada - about going to the mall. She sang it in malls across America.

Marshall points out he got premature slappulation. Lily offers ten slaps now or five slaps which can be given out at any time. Barney takes the five but I think he regrets it. Robin says she feels that Ted knows him better now. Oh and Marshall gets his first slap in.

-- Gordon Davidescu