Where the Whiny Things Are

(Or, SpaceAnJL does something horrible to a fond childhood memory)

The night Penny put on her dancing shoes, and made mischief of one kind

or another

her boyfriend said "Babe, she didn't mean anything to me"

and Penny said "Bite me, asshole"

and stormed off to find a small apartment of her own.

That very night in Penny's apartment, a swirling vortex of entropy grew

and grew

and grew, until Penny couldn't find any clean plates or the milk and she decided to drive off and look for an all-night grocery.

She drove off through night and day

and in and out of weeks

and almost over a year to where the Whiny Things are.

And when she came to the place where the Whiny Things are, they whined their terrible whines and blinked their beady eyes and grabbed with their clammy paws

until Penny said "Back off" and tamed them with the magic trick of threatening to hog-tie the first one to creep her out too much

(Which was pretty much all of them, to be honest)

and they were frightened (and slightly turned on) and made her Queen of the Whiny Things.

"And now" cried Penny "let the Wild Rumpus start!"

("We can't do that" said the tallest of the Whiny Things "It isn't Wild Rumpus Thursday"

But nobody took any notice of him.)

"Okay, guys, I'm kind of beat" Penny said and sent the Whiny Things off to bed, and no, not her bed, thank you, what with the hair-stroking and the sleep-biting and the unfortunate after-effects of excitement and cheese fries. And Penny the Queen of all Whiny Things was lonely and wanted to be where someone loved her best of all (and not because she was hot and blonde and convenient.)

Then from out of the shadows, the tallest of the Whiny Things grumbled

"Now you've disturbed all our circadian rhythms and hopelessly disrupted my schedule, I hope you're happy"

And Penny, when she'd finished having a minor heart attack, slapped his arm and said

"Jerk! You really are a Whiny Thing, aren't you?"

"I'm not" The tallest one insisted "My mother had me tested. I just choose not to drive, so I'm forced to stay."

"Well, I can drive" said Penny "Want to get out of here?"

So Penny gave up being Queen of the Whiny Things.

"Oh, please don't go" cried the whiniest of the Whiny Things "Our babies will be smart and beautiful and I'll be socially acceptable with a hot girlfriend"

"Bestie," cried the creepiest of the Whiny Things "We haven't had a pillow fight yet, where I can behold your golden comeliness in skimpy nightwear"

("Don't even" said the shrillest of the Whiny Things to the sleaziest, who shut his mouth hastily.)

And Penny said "NO"

The Whiny Things squinted their beady eyes, and wrung their clammy paws, and whined their terrible whines -

but Penny stepped back into her chariot, and waved good-bye.

("Wait for me!" cried the tallest of the Whiny Things, dodging the clinging of the creepiest one, and flung himself into the passenger seat.)

And she drove back over a year

and in and out of weeks

and through a day

and into the night of her very own apartment,

which was still a mess.

("Good Lord" said the tallest of the Whiny Things, and started hunting for cleaning products. "I can see that I have a lot of work to do."

"Knock yourself out, sweetie." Penny picked a takeout leaflet out of the drift of unopened mail. "Thai food sound good?")