Rules: Shenny at the Movies
1. One chapter long – Yes
2. Up to 2500 words – No (Sorry)
3. Must be able to recognize the characters – Yes
4. Deadline January 1st, 2016 - Yes
Please note that all acknowledgements and disclaimers appear at the end of this story.
The Laureate
"Mrs. Hofstadter, you are trying to seduce me. Aren't you?"
"Sheldon – I'm not trying to seduce you," replied Beverley.
Jack and Beverley Hofstadter were in town to celebrate Sheldon's incredible achievement of winning the Nobel Prize for Physics. He had won the award for his paradigm-altering research that reconciled the black hole information paradox with his theory of string-network condensates. Cal-Tech was throwing a party in his honor at the Taft Hotel before he left for Oslo, Norway the following week.
Beverley asked the Nobel winner to accompany her up to her hotel room in order to retrieve her purse. She persuaded him to allow her the distinction of driving him home after the party.
"Sheldon, I'm twice your age. You've known me for a long time. I'm not trying to seduce you."
Sheldon felt embarrassed for thinking otherwise and was reassured by her answer. He started to walk towards the hotel room door when Mrs. Hofstadter spoke again.
"Would you like me to seduce you? Is that what you are trying to tell me?"
"I…."
"Sheldon, I'd sooner not drive you home. I think I'll go to bed instead. Will you come here a minute and unzip my dress?"
"I'd rather not."
"You won't. Come on. It's hard for me to reach."
Sheldon walked over and unzipped the dress.
"Thank you. What are you so scared of? Haven't you ever seen anybody in a slip before?"
"Yes, I have. But, I just… Look, what if Mr. Hofstadter walked in right now?"
"What if he did? Aside from a pro forma consummation of our marriage, Leonard's father and I only had intercourse for the purposes of reproduction. We both have done papers on it. Mine from the neuroscientific point of view and his from an anthropological. Mine was the only one worth reading. Perhaps your shock will be mitigated by the fact I haven't had intercourse with him in thirteen years and have been responsible for my own orgasms since 1982. Sheldon, I want you to know I'm available to you…"
As the words came out of her mouth, Beverley let her slip fall to the floor.
"Oh my Christ!" Sheldon exclaimed.
"…If you want to sleep with me. Do you understand what I said?"
"Let me out!"
"Because I find you very attractive. I notice an immediate lowering of my inhibitions whenever I am around you, and I would like you to seriously consider ravishing me - preferably while we eat cheesecake. What do you think?"
Beverley walked over to Sheldon and kissed him passionately.
"Oh Jesus!" he thought. His eye began to twitch.
"Sheldon, I am a trained psychiatrist and you are exhibiting the same selective behavioral tics that Leonard had when he learned to masturbate."
"Madam, I myself have more nervous tics than a Lyme disease research facility. Good day."
Sheldon knew he had to get out of there before he folded like an energy based anobo protein in conformational space… or a cheap suit.
He ran out of the hotel room and down the stairs. Just as he reached the lobby, he bumped into Jack Hofstadter, Leonard's father.
"Is anything wrong? You look a little shaken up," Jack asked.
"No. No – I'm just a little worried about my future. I'm a little upset about my future. I won the Nobel Prize based on my past research in string theory, but now I've changed my field of study to dark matter. I foresee the inevitable 'What has Cooper done lately?' questions."
"Come on. Let's have a nightcap together."
Sheldon and Mr. Hofstadter went to the hotel bar.
"Scotch?" asked Jack.
"Virgin Cuba Libre please."
"A what?"
"A Virgin Cuba Libre. It's rum and coke without the rum."
"So just coke then?"
"Yes."
"Sheldon, how long have you and I known each other? 15 years?"
"Quite a while."
"In many ways I feel as though you were my own son, so I hope you won't mind my giving you a friendly piece of advice."
"I'd like to hear it."
"Sheldon, I think you ought to be taking it a little easier right now than you seem to be. Sow a few wild oats. Take things as they come. Have a good time with the girls and so forth. I bet you're quite a ladies' man."
"Oh no," Sheldon said.
Just then, Beverley Hofstadter walked up behind them at the bar.
"You look to me like the kind of guy that has to fight them off," said Jack. "Leonard has told me stories about you and several grad students. What about that Fowler woman? Didn't she stalk you and lick your stapler? Yes, you look like the kind of guy who has to fight them off indeed. Doesn't he Beverley?"
"Yes, he does," she purred.
"Say that again."
Missy asked Sheldon to repeat his last sentence. The entire Cooper clan was in town for Sheldon's Nobel Prize celebration party.
"I'm going to marry Penny," Sheldon said.
"Ha…Ha…well-well-well."
"What's happening?" Mary Cooper asked.
"Sheldon says he and Penny are getting married."
"I don't believe it," exclaimed Mary.
"That's what he says. Right Sheldon?"
"I'm going to the studio where they are filming Serial Apeist 2," Sheldon said authoritatively.
"Let's call her parents. We've got something else to celebrate now. We'll serve non-alcoholic beverages, of course - anything otherwise is the Devil's juice," said Mary.
"No," said Sheldon. "I think you'll want to wait on that."
"They don't know?"
"No – they don't."
"Well, when did you decide all this?"
"About an hour ago."
"Wait a minute. You talked to Penny this morning?"
"No, she doesn't know about it."
"You mean she doesn't know that you're going to the studio?"
"No. Actually, she doesn't know about us getting married yet."
"When did you two talk this over?"
"We haven't."
"Sheldon, this whole idea sounds half-baked," said Missy. Speaking from experience, she should know. Ever since Sheldon converted her easy-bake oven to some kind of high-powered furnace when they were eight, she had the singed eyebrow scars to prove it.
"No, it's not," he replied. "It's completely baked. It's a decision I've made."
"But what makes you think she wants to marry you Shelly?" asked Missy.
"She doesn't. To be perfectly honest, she doesn't like me."
Missy looked worriedly at Sheldon. She had always known her fraternal twin brother was one of God's special little people. However, having shared a uterus, she often wondered whether the nine months she spent with her legs wrapped around his head had cut off the oxygen supply to his brain. She was afraid Sheldon had finally gone cuckoo, but before she could say anything, Sheldon interjected.
"You know how dad used to say that you could only fish for so long before you had to throw a stick of dynamite in the water?"
"Yeah," replied Missy.
"Well, I'm done fishing."
Sheldon unhooked his bungee cords and hopped off the Burbank city bus at Gate 3 to the Warner Brothers studio lot. He ran past the security guards and proceeded to soundstage 25, where Serial Apeist 2 was being filmed. He found Penny in her dressing room gathering her belongings.
"What are you doing?" he asked.
"I was fired yesterday," she responded.
"Why didn't you tell me?"
"I didn't want to ruin your party. Sheldon, why are you here?" she asked.
"Because I am."
"Is it because I'm here?"
"What do you think?"
"I think it is."
Sheldon nodded.
"Penny, I love you."
"Sheldon, when you came here, what did you think was going to happen between us?"
"Marry me," he said.
"Sheldon, I just don't think it would work."
"Why wouldn't it? Penny, I've had this feeling – ever since I was young – this kind of compulsion that I have to be rude all the time. Do you know what I mean?"
"Yes, I do."
"It's like I've been playing some kind of game but the rules don't make sense to me. All the wrong people are making them up."
"Sheldon, I have to see Leonard," Penny said.
"Why do you have to see him?"
"Well, I said I might marry him."
"You WHAT?"
Sheldon Cooper was rendered speechless for the first time in his life, and the sound of his silence was deafening. After a few minutes of contemplation, he finally uttered…
"How did he do it? Did he get down on his knees? He didn't get down on his knees, I hope?"
"No, not exactly. One knee, not both."
"What did he say? I'm curious."
"Well, actually it was me that may have proposed. I told him I was tired of making bad decisions and he was a smart decision – like a bran muffin. He told me he wanted to be more like a Cinnabon, or a strawberry Pop-Tart: something to be excited about. So I told him he could be any pastry he wanted. And like that, he said he was IN. It was all very anticlimactic really, until he gave me a diamond drill bit engagement ring that he had been carrying around in his wallet ever since he dated Priya."
"Oh no. He said that! He did that? Where did all this happen? I'd like to know where it happened. It wasn't in his car, was it? Was it at the zoo? Tell me it wasn't in a TRAIN for God's sake!"
"It was yesterday at my apartment. Good bye Sheldon."
"I can see in the dark, you know. It's from all those years spelunking in caves, trying to find the bones of common human ancestors. I'll have you know I've been here quite a while."
Sheldon was startled to find Jack Hofstadter sitting in the dark in his spot on the couch in apartment 4A. Jack had been waiting for the physicist to return home.
"You know what is interesting about caves?" responded Sheldon.
"What?"
"Nothing. I have no personal feelings towards you, Mr. Hofstadter. I do not resent you."
"You don't respect me terribly much either, do you?"
"No, Sir."
"What?"
"No, Sir. But I don't really respect anybody."
"My wife told me you seduced her. I think you should know that we are getting a divorce."
"What happened between Mrs. Hofstadter and me was nothing. It didn't mean anything. We might just as well have been shaking hands, or reading from a Geology text. She told me once that she would rather make-out with a busboy. Other than a few brain scans, some Skype messaging, and some karaoke, our relationship has been purely platonic. Ok, I will concede that I did help her with a paper disproving quantum brain dynamic theory, but without me the whole paper would have been hokum. Our relationship has only ever been one of mutual interest and respect. Mrs. Hofstadter was going to drive me home from my party since I'm too evolved for driving."
"You mean like a Homo Novus?"
"Well, I'm not going to go so far as to say that I represent a distinct new stage in humankind. That is for anthropologists to decide."
"I am an anthropologist."
"Good, then you agree. The point is, Sir, I don't love your wife. I love Penny."
"All right, now listen to this. I think I can get you behind bars if you ever go near my wife or my son again. Leonard told me about the North Sea expedition and how you had deliberately tried to sabotage his research after-the-fact. "
"What? That's demonstrably fallacious. He did that to me in the Arctic."
"Leonard would never do that, you degenerate! I probably shouldn't do this but Penny asked me to give you this letter."
Sheldon frantically opened it and digested its contents:
Dear Sheldon, please forgive me because I know what I'm doing is the best thing for you. My father, Wyatt, would be so upset if I didn't marry Leonard. You've got to understand, he would bug me unmercifully – "How's Leonard? Why can't you get back together with Leonard? I bet Leonard never tipped a cow over on himself." All he wants are grandkids before he dies, and for them to grow up in a house without wheels. I love you, but it would never work out. Penny.
Just then, Beverley Hofstadter walked through the door of the apartment.
"Hello Sheldon," she said.
"Where is Leonard?" he replied.
"He's gone to marry the waitress slash actress with unresolved father issues. I think we have everything quite under control now. I'm sorry we didn't invite you to the wedding, but the arrangements have been so rushed," she said venomously.
"You can't stop me from seeing Penny. I'll find her."
Sheldon searched for the emergency key to apartment 4B and frantically ran across the hall. He entered Penny's apartment and found the keys to her little red Cabriolet sitting in a bowl by the front door. He closed the door and ran down the stairs. Penny's car was parked just outside the building. Sheldon unlocked the door and got into the driver's seat. It wasn't the first time he had driven an actual motor vehicle, but he was nervous nonetheless. Although he had logged a considerable number of hours on a simulator, even he would have to admit that the best computer graphics could never truly substitute reality. After he adjusted his seat - and the ONE side mirror - he put on his seatbelt and started the engine. He pulled out into traffic.
Sheldon jerked the car back and forth between lanes, all the while honking his horn. He turned onto Euclid Avenue as he drove towards Cal-Tech. Since he didn't slow down for the speed bumps, he made the point-to-point distance in record time.
Sheldon ran into David Underhill and Leslie Winkle in the photomultiplier lab.
"Any of you know where Leonard is?" he asked.
"He took off to get married. Shotgun, to be sure," replied Leslie.
"Would you happen to know where he's getting married? I'm supposed to be there."
"Just ask Kripke?" Underhill retorted.
Barry Kripke walked into the lab while the three physicists were talking.
"Kripke! Where is the King of Foreplay - I mean Leonard Hofstadter - getting married?" asked Leslie.
"Las Vegas. Coopew, I thought you of all peopwe would know that. You reawwy are a wacko."
"You don't happen to know exactly where he is getting married, do you?" asked Sheldon.
"I don't know Coopew. Maybe at the Wittwe White Wedding Chapew."
Sheldon could sense the derision in Kripke's voice. He grabbed David Underhill's phone off the desktop and scrolled his contacts list. He dialed Leonard's parent's home number in New Jersey.
"Hello, who is this?" asked Sheldon.
"This is Michael Hofstadter."
"Yes, hello. I am looking for Leonard Hofstadter. Is he there?"
"I'm afraid my brother can't be reached right now. He is at his wedding."
"Listen to me. My name is Ricardo Shillyshally. I am supposed to officiate at the ceremony. I just got in from Bakersfield and I've forgotten what church, you see?"
"I'm pretty sure it's at the United Methodist Church in La Verne, Mr. Shillyshally. But I don't think…"
Click.
Leonard's younger brother heard the line go dead. Sheldon had hung up the phone. He knew instinctively that Kripke would deliberately try to outwit him.
"Troglodyte," he thought.
Sheldon ran from the physics building and got back into Penny's car. He drove speedily eastward on Highway 210. He was hesitant to go too fast since, statistically, the police stop red cars far more often than any other color. It was bad enough that he was operating a motor vehicle that wasn't subjected to regular maintenance. The last thing he needed was a problem with the "fuzz", too.
He steered the car off the Foothill Freeway towards the La Verne exit sign. Sheldon stopped at the nearest gas station for directions.
"Where is the United Methodist Church?" he asked.
The gas attendant pointed to the right.
"Six blocks up – three blocks over on D Street," he said.
Sheldon got back in the car and tried to turn the engine over but it wouldn't start. He pumped the gas pedal but got nothing in response.
"The check engine light has been on for 9 years and TODAY is the day the thing starts making sense," he thought exasperatedly.
While Sheldon had a theoretical understanding of the workings of an internal combustion engine, he wasn't sure he was capable of performing diagnostics. Besides, there was little time. Sheldon looked down at his shoes.
"Well, these shoes WERE made for running."
And so that's what he did.
He ran.
He eventually arrived at the church, winded and exhausted. He continued up the steps to the front doors and tried opening them, but they were locked. He went to the side of the building and tried to peer in through the window, but couldn't see inside. He ran up the emergency fire escape that extended from the second floor to the ground. The door at the top was open and he went inside. Sheldon found himself on the balcony, looking through a glass window into the interior nave of the church and onto the congregation assembled below.
"Good Lord, everyone's here," Sheldon thought - Wolowitz, Koothrappali, Stuart. Amy was the maid of honor, and Bernadette was a bridesmaid. Practically everyone he had ever known in Pasadena was at the wedding including Dr. Gablehauser and President Siebert. Hell, even Captain Sweatpants and Lonely Larry were there.
The minister opened his bible as Sheldon looked on helplessly.
"Oh, Jesus – God – no," Sheldon thought.
He put his hands up against the glass as the minister began to speak.
"Do you, Penny Robinson, take thee..."
Sheldon began to bang on the glass.
KNOCK, KNOCK, KNOCK, "PENNY"
KNOCK, KNOCK, KNOCK, "PENNY"
KNOCK, KNOCK, KNOCK, "PENNY"
All the guests turned around at the sound of the disturbance.
"Is that Sheldon? What's he doing?" asked Raj.
"What do you think? He's finally gone bat crap crazy," said Howard.
As everyone looked up in the direction of the balcony, a single voice yelled out amidst all of the madness and confusion.
"Moonpie!" shouted Meemaw.
Sheldon's grandmother had made the trip from Texas to witness her grandson's Nobel celebration. Penny invited her and the rest of the Cooper family to the wedding when she found out they were in town.
Moonpie.
The word resonated in Penny's ears. She looked up at Sheldon, and then at Leonard. She ran down the aisle towards the balcony. As she did, Sheldon went down the back stairs of the church. Jack Hofstadter was waiting to intercept him in the vestibule. A fight ensued between the two men.
"You are one crazy buck," said Jack.
"I'm not crazy. My mother had me tested."
As Penny ran towards the entrance, Beverley declared crudely: "It's too late."
"Not for me," Penny asserted.
Sheldon held Penny's hand as they ran through the front doors of the church. Forthwith, Mary Cooper blocked the exit with a cross so the two of them could escape unpursued.
"Jesus still loves you," she avowed.
Sheldon and Penny ran out of the church and hopped on a bus.
"Where do you want to go?" asked the bus driver.
"To the end," Penny proclaimed. "Either that, or Lake Geneva, Wisconsin."
Sheldon and Penny went to the back of the bus where they finally had the most wonderful kiss. All the passengers on the bus turned around to look at the two dreamers as they smiled and laughed. However, as the bus pulled away, Sheldon suddenly had a look of deep concern, perhaps even one of regret.
"What's wrong?" Penny asked.
"I'm not wearing bus pants!" he replied.
The End
Addendum:
All credit goes to Chuck Lorre and Bill Prady (for TBBT), and Charles Webb, Buck Henry and Calder Willingham for the original story and screenplay for The Graduate. Most of the dialogue/ description was taken essentially verbatim from available transcripts, with some minor additions from yours truly. I do not own these stories or any of these characters.