The episode begins with Manny (
Rico Rodriguez) starting his birthday speech to a table filled with angry family members. The episode then goes 30 minutes earlier showing Claire (
Julie Bowen) hurrying everyone to get to the party on time. This prompts a contest between Claire and Phil (
Ty Burrell) to see whose route is quicker. Phil rides with Alex (
Ariel Winter) and Haley (
Sarah Hyland), and Luke (
Nolan Gould) with Claire. In Claire's car, Luke asks Claire why she is separating from Phil misunderstanding Claire's earlier statement of the two parents were "separating". Claire reassures Luke that they are fine and just going separate routes. Claire then starts asking Luke why he wanted to go with Phil instead of her. She stops the car to have a talk with Luke which makes her sadder, but Luke makes her happy by telling her that she is fun too but he wanted to be with Phil because he thought Phil needed him more than Claire does and that her route is faster than Phil's. In Phil's car, while he tries convincing the girls the race is not a waste of time, the car's wheels go out. After fixing it, Haley and Alex tell him that they do not want to go to family camp. This causes Phil to cry which in turn causes Haley and Alex to cry. This saps Phil's motivation to beat Claire, but Haley and Alex eventually restore his motivation to win. Meanwhile, Mitchell (
Jesse Tyler Ferguson) and Cameron (
Eric Stonestreet) are walking through the mall looking for a present for Manny. While there, Cameron stops to help an elderly man named Donald (
Norman Lloyd) to convince an old lady named Helen (
Norma Michaels) to take him back, despite Mitchell's protests that they are running out of time. Cameron is initially delighted to help before realizing Donald is an adulterer. Cameron and Mitchell soon continue their fight about Mitchell not being spontaneous but in the middle of the discussion, Mitchell takes part in a
flash mob with a bunch of people to "
Free Your Mind". Mitchell initially thinks Cameron will be happy, but Cameron becomes angry that Mitchell kept it a secret from him. They soon have another fight in their car. In the Pritchett house, Gloria (
Sofía Vergara) and Jay (
Ed O'Neill) have a fight over Gloria's habit of losing everything and currently losing her keys. Jay initially believes he is right before finding the keys in his pockets, but instead of apologizing to Gloria he secretes the keys in her purse. In the meantime, Manny becomes depressed after Jay informs him he never truly acted like a kid. He tries to live his life as a kid before the party with bad
prank calls and mixing sodas. He then opens his old Christmas present (a flotation device) and putting it in a pool. A furious Gloria angry at Manny not wanting to go his own party shoots the flotation device with a
BB gun Jay gave him. In the car, Jay finally tells Gloria the truth making her furious. After all the family members see that they are about to arrive late, they race to the restaurant, coming close to crashing into each other. The scene then goes to Manny finishing his speech saying that he has enough time to act like a kid, as his older family members still do, leading to everyone reconciling with one another. ==Production==