The Euclid Alternative

"The Euclid Alternative" is the fifth episode of the second season of the   The Big Bang Theory. This episode first aired on October 20, 2008.

Summary
Leonard is working nights at the university and can’t drive Sheldon to work. Sheldon then tries all his other possible chauffeurs, which are his other friends. This starts to become a huge burden on everyone.

Extended Plot
Leonard comes through the door and falls to the couch due to exhaustion, and then Sheldon comes and demands Leonard to drive him around to run his various errands including returning the Star Wars sheets that are too noisy to sleep on. Leonard refuses as he is far too exhausted because of working late at the university. Sheldon refuses to take the bus because they won't let him bungee cord himself to the seat since they have no seat belts.

Sheldon then tries his luck with Penny who was sleeping in because it was her day off. He then asks her a friend to do him a favor. The two set off in her car and Sheldon continually annoys Penny about her check engine light and the speed bumps she was going over on Euclid Avenue. He also gives her pointless factoids and tries to play Periodic Table game with her. Penny then ejects him from her car and he has to walk to work.

At the University and he stumbles into Leonard and Howard. He again asks Leonard to drive him, and Leonard again refuses but Howard took Sheldon's side just for fun, which he came to regret as he was forced to drive Sheldon home. Sheldon screams at Howard while riding on the back of his scooter and driving over the speed bumps on Euclid Avenue. Unsurprisingly, Sheldon gets left in the middle of the road again. This time Raj picks Sheldon up and drives him home, but after pestering Raj with a lot of requests he gets kicked out again. Sheldon arrives at the apartment, makes one final desperate attempt to ask Penny to drive him and gets the door slammed in his face.

The following morning, Sheldon wakes up to see the gang assembled in the living room waiting for him. The gang has an intervention, wants Sheldon to learn driving and because of a Rock-Paper-Scissors contest, Penny is forced to drive him to the along with Howard. Sheldon was too busy at sixteen with his work to learn how to drive. After getting his driving test, he annoys the disinterested DMV clerk with a number of questions about the mathematics and physics of the driving regulations. Finally, the clerk gives out Sheldon's without him taking the test in hopes that he leaves.

In an effort to help Sheldon learn to drive, Howard sets up a "state of the art" driving simulator. Sheldon fails horribly at it. When he crashes his vehicle, Penny hits him in the face with a pillow because Sheldon objected to the simulator not being able to replicate an airbag going off. He gives up on trying to learn to drive with the excuse "I'm clearly too evolved for driving". It seemed that his species could be a "homo novus", however, future anthropologists will have to decide what his classification is.

Because Sheldon doesn't have a way to get to the University, he decides to set up a temporary home there until Leonard finishes his experiment. However, it turns out that Leonard has finished his experiment a week ago, but purposely did not tell Sheldon. Finally the cleaning staff is terrified by Sheldon lurking around the cafeteria in the early hours of the morning.

Quotes
(Sheldon is trying to get to go to work, but Leonard can't drive him and he has to find a alternative.)

Sheldon: How am I going to get to work?

Leonard: Take the bus.

Sheldon: Oh, I can't take the bus anymore. They don't have seat belts, and they won't let you lash yourself to the seat with bungee cords.

Leonard: You tried to lash yourself to the seat with bungee cords?

Sheldon: I didn't try; I succeeded.

---

DMV clerk: See that sign?

Sheldon: Yes.

DMV clerk: Does it say "I give a damn"?

Sheldon: No

DMV clerk: That's cos I don't. Next!

Sheldon: Oh, good. I’m not keeping you from anything. Your check engine light is on.

Penny: Mm-hmm.

Sheldon: Typically that’s an indicator. To, you know, check your engine.

Penny: It’s fine, it’s been on for, like, a month.

Sheldon: Well, actually, that would be all the more reason to, you know, check your engine.

Penny: Sheldon, it's fine.

Sheldon: If it were fine, the light wouldn't be on. That’s why the manufacturer installed that light, to let you know it’s not fine.

Penny: Uh, maybe the light’s broken.

Sheldon: Is there a “check the check engine light light”? (Penny takes a drink of coffee) O-o-o-oh!

Sheldon: Well, no, no, I’m not going to go so far as to say that I represent a distinct new stage in humankind, you know, a Homo Novus, if you will, no, that’s for anthropologists to decide. But I am convinced that the reason I cannot master the plebeian task of driving is because I’m not meant to.

Critics
"This episode feels like a pit stop on the way to The Big Bang Theory becoming exactly like Two and a Half Men." - The TV Critic's Review

Trivia

 * This episode gives a rare camera view of Leonard and Sheldon's apartment, from the vantage of the hallway that's normally seen to the back right, going to the bedrooms, allowing us to see the "" in the front of the apartment normally is missing.
 * The Euclid Avenue that gives the episode its title we learn is an alternative to Los Robles Avenue, which are two parallel streets in Pasadena, CA. Also the real Euclid Avenue actually does have speed bumps just like it is depicted in the show.
 * Sheldon complains about the check engine light in Penny's car for the first time in this episode, later mentioning it again in "The Financial Permeability", "The Adhesive Duck Deficiency" and "The Plimpton Stimulation". Leonard's mother similarly makes a point of this in "The Maternal Congruence" as does Amy Farrah Fowler in The Robotic Manipulation. Penny says, "The light has been on since I bought the car," in "The Adhesive Duck Deficiency", but there is no statement regarding the light in "The Luminous Fish Effect".
 * Leonard and Sheldon's element naming game is by nature a short game, since so many elements end with the letter M, and so few start with it (only, , , , and , unless you count , which Sheldon doesn't).
 * Sheldon never quits, but in this case he "transcends the situation" and stops trying to learn how to drive.
 * The DMV worker is played by the Oscar-winning actress Octavia Spencerwho starred in movie  in 2011.
 * In this episode, it is shown that Penny is aware, before Leonard, of Sheldon having lashed himself to the seat of a bus with - this highlights the growing friendship between Penny and Sheldon.