The Big Bang Theory recap: 'The Athenaeum Allocation' 

Johnny Galecki, Jim Parsons, Kaley Cuoco, Scott Halberstadt, Simon Helberg, Kunal Nayyar, Frank Pacheco

Life isn’t fair. For Bernadette and Howard, it’s the delicate dance of figuring out who will stay at home with the kids and who will go back to work. For Sheldon, it’s the unlikelihood of having his wedding ceremony on Mars.

At least they’ve figured out a day for the nuptials and are celebrating with a unique Save the Date card featuring an MRI of Sheldon and Amy’s brains kissing. How adorable. But seriously, Amy is ready to nail down the venue because May 12 (and I presume the season finale) is right around the corner.

Luckily, Amy has a brilliant idea and suggests she and Sheldon marry at The Athenaeum at Caltech. It’s an exclusive club on campus where Albert Einstein used to spread his genius with other smart people. Sheldon is beside himself with hope, but he warns Amy that Leonard has been trying to get them in for years. The wait list is atrocious.

This surprises Amy since she’s already arranged for them to take a tour. Sheldon falls in love with every inch of the building, including the oil paintings of the dead scientists looming over the dining room. It’s unfortunate timing that Leonard and Penny just happen to be eating lunch at The Athenaeum that afternoon. Cover your eyes, dead scientists. Sheldon is about to throw down.

It seems that Leonard has been a member for years. The Athenaeum is his own private sanctuary away from his former whacked-out roommate. While Sheldon waffles back and forth on whether Leonard’s deception is substantial enough to keep him from having his wedding there, Amy calls The Athenaeum to book the venue.

She hears the worst thing ever on the other end of the line: Your date is booked. To add another layer of crap to the equation, the person who stands between Amy and the perfect wedding spot is Barry Kripke. Oh the humanity!

Kripke does not budge. He wants his wild and crazy birthday party with the dead scientists looking on. Feeling somewhat guilty, Leonard intervenes and implores Barry to change his mind. Since Barry is not a nice human being, Leonard breaks him by doing all of Barry’s dirty work. Literally. Scrubbing a few barrels of radioactive waste is just the ticket to secure The Athenaeum.

Sheldon joins Leonard, and together they knock out the grunt work. They share the good news with Amy, as well as the other conditions Barry negotiated: He has to come to the wedding, with a guest, whom they may have to pay an hourly rate, and they have to provide a microphone so he can sing “Volaré.”

Amy decides to have her wedding at the planetarium. Or at least look into the whole Mars thing.

Meanwhile, Bernadette and Howard are so smitten with their children that both want to stay home to raise them. Howard sets out to prove to Bernadette that he is the obvious choice. He invites Bernadette to go to lunch with Penny and she takes him up on the offer, confident that he will fold like a lawn chair at the first sign of a meltdown or diaper blowout.

It turns out Bernadette misses the perks of work, like an assistant bringing her coffee and a couch in her office to sleep on. Howard fails miserably and calls Raj to help him negotiate bath time, dinner time, and bed time. In the end, both admit that they want to go back to work, and the question of who will stay home remains unknown.

SHELDON: I said some unprofessional things about Barry’s work. I may have used the “S” word.

LEONARD: The lie seemed funny at first. The longer it went on, the funnier it got.

RAJ: He only drinks milk. Where are the colors coming from?