Man: [on the phone] Hello, you've reached the Tandy Tech Support Hotline.
Sheldon: I need help. I think I have a virus. I was playing this game, and then suddenly...
Man: [on the phone] Current wait time is 28 minutes.
♪ So tie a yellow ribbon... ♪
Adult Sheldon: It wasn't bad enough I had to wait, I also had to listen to rock and roll.

Adult Sheldon: Like a virus, heartbreak can also spread. Once it does, it's hard to contain. In some cases you can try to reboot and start over. But it makes you appreciate those early days, when your hard drive was clean... and the world was full of possibility.

Adult Sheldon: As long as humans have been on Earth, they've had to contend with viruses. And as long as I've been on Earth, I've come up with fun ways to avoid them.
[flashback:]
Dr. Linkletter: I've heard so much about you. [offers hand]
Sheldon: Apparently not how I feel about shaking hands.
Adult Sheldon: I wear personal protective equipment...
[flashback to Sheldon putting on mittens at the dinner table]
[flashback to Sheldon wearing an astronaut suit in his bubble:]
Mary: You come here right this instant.
Adult Sheldon: ...and I was social distancing before it was cool. But in the early '90s, a new type of virus became prevalent. One that no amount of hand-washing could stop. A computer virus.
Sheldon: Oh, no.
Adult Sheldon: But let's back up and begin this story in a simpler time, before an insidious infection had upended my life.

Adult Sheldon: The next morning, I patiently waited for my father to leave for work.
Sheldon: Are you leaving for work?
George Sr.: Yeah?
Sheldon: [stares intently at George] See you. Bye.
George Sr.: Bye. [exits]
Adult Sheldon: I leapt into action. My heart was pounding. I don't know what kind of bladder control professional spies have, but this first-timer needed to pee pronto.

Mary: What's it say?
George Sr.: Okay. Not so bad. We owe four dollars and 22 cents.
Sheldon: What?
Mary: That could've been worse.
George Sr.: Yeah, tell me about it.
Sheldon: Let me see that.
George Sr.: I'm gonna wash up for dinner.
Sheldon: You realize they're wrong. My return was flawless.
George Sr.: I-It's four dollars. Forget it.
Sheldon: But they're saying I made a mistake.
Mary: You also got us a nice refund. You did a great job.
Adult Sheldon: I appreciated my mother's love, but what a boy really craves is the unconditional approval of a government agency.

Sheldon: I don't get why people think that the social aspect of education is so important.
Missy: Maybe 'cause the education aspect is so boring.
Sheldon: But that's the whole point of school.
Missy: Eh. I'll stick with being popular.
Adult Sheldon: I'd like to point out that one of us has a Nobel Prize. All the other one has is a loving family and friends, which I also have. Boy, did I win!

Adult Sheldon: While not the lab work I hoped to be doing, it did feel good to be part of an actual experiment. A tedious, menial part that could be performed by a monkey. Or worse, an engineer.

Adult Sheldon: Behind every great scientist, there were often unsung helpers toiling away in the background. Presenting... "Great Lab Assistants in Scientific History" When Alexander Graham Bell needed an assistant, it was Thomas Augustus Watson who answered the call. [laughs] Get it? "The call". [snickers] Madame Curie's daughter Irène was also her lab assistant. Irène was so dedicated, she died of radiation poisoning. Unlike her sister Ève, who selfishly lived to 102. Lastly, Émile Roux was assistant to Louis Pasteur. When they worked on the rabies vaccine, Roux kept a loaded gun in the lab to shoot Pasteur in the head if he got infected. He never had to, but it's fun to know he would have.
Dr. Linkletter: No, Sheldon. You can't be my lab assistant.
Sheldon: Maybe you weren't paying attention. I'll start over. Behind every great scientist, there was a dedicated as...

[David Hasselhoff: Cowboy Aerobics:]
Cowgirl #1: All right, buckaroos, it's time for cowboy aerobics with...
Cowgirl #2: David Hasselhoff!
Cowgirl #1: David Hasselhoff!
David Hasselhoff: Who's ready to rustle up some muscles? [both whoo] Let's saddle up and ride.
Adult Sheldon: Thanks to The Hoff, the video was a smashing success.
David Hasselhoff: Who wants a beach body like the ones on Baywatch? Which I'm also in. Check your local listings.
Adult Sheldon: Unfortunately, Mr. Lundy put all his profits into a musical about his life, entitled: Live, Laugh, Lundy. He is poor to this day.

President Hagemeyer: And this, of course, is our physics prodigy, Sheldon Cooper.
Justin: A great pleasure. [offers hand]
Adult Sheldon: I had an obligation to fulfill. So I closed my eyes and thought of science. [Sheldon shakes Justin's hand] Just like on my honeymoon.

Adult Sheldon: It turned out Gary did appreciate my honesty. The school got a generous donation.
President Hagemeyer: My, my, my. That is a lot of zeroes.
Adult Sheldon: My father got Oilers tickets from President Hagemeyer.
George Sr.: 50-yard line and free parking? Hoo-mama.
Adult Sheldon: And I got a brand-new, state-of-the-art antistatic lab chair.
Sheldon: It works.

Adult Sheldon: To figure out which school of philosophy suited me best, I decided to sample each one. The same way I determined my favorite flavor of oatmeal... Plain.

Adult Sheldon: Traditionalism is the philosophy that the best way of life is a return to the past.
George Jr.: What are you doing?
Sheldon: [shaking a jar] Making my own butter, like in olden times.
George Jr.: That's stupid.
Adult Sheldon: My arms are still sore.

Adult Sheldon: It was past my bedtime, but who could sleep with a page-turner like Meditations on First Philosophy by René Descartes? Descartes was more than just a philosopher. He was also the mathematician who invented the Cartesian plane. If you've ever enjoyed that X squared plus Y squared equals K is a circle, you can say merci beaucoup to Monsieur Descartes.

Adult Sheldon: I've always considered myself a collector of knowledge. My mind is like the warehouse at the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark. But instead of artifacts, it's just facts. [laughs] And now that I was a full-time college student, my collection was about to grow exponentially.
Professor Ericson: Welcome to the world of philosophy. Most college courses are about teaching you things that you don't know. Here, I am going to teach you that you don't even know what you think you know.
Sheldon: Oh, boy.

Adult Sheldon: The good name of Lady Science had been besmirched and it was up to me to defend her honor. I had a lot of ground to cover in one night. Thankfully, 11 years of my family's incessant yammering had given me an extraordinary ability to focus.

Adult Sheldon: Like Batman's utility belt, my briefcase was equipped for any emergency. I don't know if the Bat-pants had a zipper, but if they did, I could fix it.
Sheldon: Oh, dear.

Adult Sheldon: With only seven minutes until my freshman orientation seminar, I was in a sticky spot. Thankfully, I was armed with an even stickier solution.

Adult Sheldon: I had suffered some setbacks. But just as Edison had forged ahead on electric lighting without the help of Tesla, I was going to make it through orientation without the help of my mommy, even if she did make boo-boos stop hurting. While I had found inspiration courtesy of Thomas Edison, it was soon replaced with anger at Whitcomb L. Judson, inventor of the zipper.
Sheldon: [scoffs] Oh, come on.

Sheldon: My first bathroom attempt. Let's hope this goes well.
Mary: Let me know if you need help.
Sheldon: I think I'll be okay. It's just number one.
Mary: I'm here if you need me.
[After Sheldon closes the bathroom door:]
Sheldon: [o.s.] Mom, I can't get my zipper down!
Mary: I'm coming.
Adult Sheldon: I am not saying my mother and I had a codependent relationship.
Sheldon: [o.s.] Mom, I can't get my zipper up!
Mary: I'm on my way!
Adult Sheldon: But she did have a tendency to baby me, and boy howdy, was I okay with that.