- When Ted signs up with a matchmaking service, he learns that love is not a science. Marshall and Lily confront a creature living in their apartment.
- Barney takes Ted to matchmaker Ellen Pierce, but while Barney gets thrown out, Ellen promises to find a woman for Ted within three days. This promise has disastrous results: the woman that suits him the best has already a boyfriend. Lily and Marshall have problems with some sort of cockroach or mouse that is in the apartment and they cannot get rid of.—123
- After Robin does an on-air report on her, Barney drags Ted to a matchmaking service owned and operated by Ellen Pierce, whose business claim to fame is a 100% success rate. She quickly kicks Barney out as she can see that he only wants to use women instead of find a life partner. In Ted, however, she sees potential. She convinces him that he does need her services as after doing the calculations, she states that there are only eight available and truly compatible women in all of New York City for him. However, after a five day search (two days longer than her standard search time), Ellen admits that her computer found no matches for him, except for a dermatologist named Dr. Sarah O'Brien. The problem: Ellen previously set Sarah up with another man, the two who are still dating. As Ted sees in Sarah's file that she indeed is the perfect woman for him and the computer states that he is more compatible with her than the guy she is dating, Ted does whatever he can to meet and hopefully convince her to date him instead. Meanwhile, Marshall and Lily are scared about a creature they see in their apartment, the creature which they can't agree if a mouse or a cockroach. When they get a closer look, they come to an agreement on what it is, which their friends find incredulous.—Huggo
- Robin (Cobie Smulders) does a story on "Love Solutions", a matchmaking service boasting a 100% success rate, and she and Barney (Neil Patrick Harris) recommend Ted (Josh Radnor) try it out. He is not interested, believing it to be "giving up," but Barney tricks Ted into going anyway.
Ellen Pierce (Camryn Manheim), the woman in charge of the matchmaking service, sees immediately that Barney is only seeking a one-night stand with a desperate woman (the alias he wrote on the registration form, "Jack Package," gives him away), but promises she "can work with" Ted.
Ted is skeptical, but Ellen calculates that out of all the women in New York City, there are only eight whom Ted can date (9 Million people in NYC, 4.5 Million women, 482000 of women within 5 yrs of Ted's age, 48% of those are already in a relationship, half of them are not intelligent enough and so on, remove the ex-girlfriends, relatives and lesbians and that leaves us with 8 women precisely); facing this daunting statistic, Ted readily agrees to try it. Ellen promises success within three days, but after five days and no results, Ted wants to go back to find out what the problem is. Everyone tells him not to "Ted out" about it (explaining that Ted's name is also a verb, which means to over-think).
Still, he returns to Love Solutions, only to find Ellen, alone and despondent, telling him he is not matchable. She says that a good match needs a compatibility of 7.0 or higher. But all Ted can get is 5's and 6's. Ted spies one that is a 9.6/10 match, but she has already been matched. Undaunted, Ted finds out she is a dermatologist and makes an appointment to see her (Sarah O'Brien), only to find that she is engaged and will be getting married in a few days. He tells her that if things change, he'll be available; she calls him up, but only to inform him that he has a cancerous mole on his back and advises him to get it removed surgically. He blurts out that they are a 9.6, and she tells him to not believe in matchmaking statistics. She says that when you fall in love a 8.5 is equal to a perfect 10. Ted returns to Love Solutions, and finds that Ellen has become distraught over believing to have failed in finding Ted's perfect match. However, Ted still has hope he will find "the one", and she can help him keep searching, no matter how long it takes.
Meanwhile, Marshall (Jason Segel) and Lily (Alyson Hannigan) discover an unusual creature in the apartment. When they first see it, Lily thinks it is a cockroach, while Marshall thinks it is a mouse. Either way, it scares them so bad they run to the bar and Lily drinks heavily to forget. When they spot it again they try to kill it with bug spray and a phone book, but when the phone book starts moving, they run off again.
Having gotten a better look, they now describe the creature as having six legs, antennae, and an exoskeleton, but also has tufts of fur, whiskers, and a tail, and roughly the size of a potato. Marshall and Lily call it the "cockamouse." Robin is skeptical of them (she says that they saw something totally normal, but have built it up in their heads like the Loch Ness monster.. Marshall totally believes in Nessy), but eventually they catch it, and Marshall takes it to the Columbia University Biology department, but discovers it has escaped and is still at the apartment. Robin finally sees the creature and throws a drink at it, as the only way she can think of subduing it is by trying to get it drunk. Marshall arrives and throws it out the window, and to their surprise the "cockamouse" flies away.
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