Future Ted: [v.o.] Kids, for a brief period when I was seven, my best friend was a balloon. It was the classic story: boy meets balloon, boy and balloon become friends, boy loses balloon when Mom sets out hot dogs in the backyard.
Young Ted: No!
Future Ted: Decades later, boy's new best friend finds out about the whole thing and never lets him live it down.
Ted: I hate you so much.
Future Ted: The whole thing taught me a lesson. If you love something, you can never let it go, not even for a second, or it's gone forever.
Young Ted: Well, at least I still got my hot dogs. No!
Future Ted: It was a lesson that took me nearly 30 years to unlearn