"Are you still zany?"

"Only our hairdresser knows for sure!"

'Yakko wasn't in the mood to deal with his siblings' nonsense. Wakko was locked in his room with a bag of Cheetos, insisting that he wouldn't come out for anything. And Yakko had tried anything: candy, toys, videotapes of sitcoms from the eighties and nineties (there was no accounting for taste). . . . Nothing had worked.

Now he had resorted to pleading and cajoling. "Come on, Waks, it's not like you're going to get a bath!" There was a muffled cry of horror, and he knew that he'd made a mistake by even mentioning it. Now there was no way he'd get the kid out of his room. He let his forehead hit the bedroom door with a thunk. "Dot, a hand?" he shouted, standing up straight and craning his neck to see the half-open door of the bathroom, which she'd disappeared through ten minutes ago.

"I'm busy getting ready."

He rolled his eyes and hit the door with his head again. "We have to go now!" he snarled, glancing at his watch. "Both of you, get in here!"

There was silence from Wakko's room, which wasn't surprising. Dot sighed heavily, and he heard the water turn off. A few seconds later, she was by his side, sullen but cooperative.

For now.

"Get in the car, Dot," he said. "We'll be out in a minute."

She crossed her arms, all three feet of her quivering with indignation. "You will not! You're never there when you say you will be! I'll be waiting out there forever! And it's hot! I wilt in the heat and you know it!" He started to interrupt, but she had built up a good head of steam and was on a roll. "You just want me to look terrible so that if there are any cute guys at the hairdresser's they won't want to talk to me! Admit it, you're always undermining me like that!"

"Well, Dottie, despite the plethora of attractive single guys at 'Fun Fun Kiddy Hair Snips Plaza'" — it was Scratchy's choice, and no matter how often Yakko reminded the good doctor that he was almost fourteen and his brother and sister were eleven and ten, respectively, he couldn't convince anyone to change their salon — "that's not what I'm doing. It's what I should be doing, since you're still just a kid, but I'm not. I'm trying to get us all to an appointment so that Plotz doesn't skin us alive." His foot started tapping.

Dot looked at him suspiciously. "So? You hate getting your hair cut. And you hate obeying Plotz. And you hate being on time! What's gotten into you?"

He shrugged, drawing circles on the carpet with his toe. "Ahhhhh . . . I just want to get this over with," he said. "That's all."

That wasn't all. The truth was something he didn't want his sibs involved in. It was private. It was, frankly, kind of embarrassing. It was something they would find hilarious and disgusting.

Dot still didn't seem convinced, but she shrugged. "Wakko's not coming out," she said. "I mean, not without a little motivation." She trailed off, watching her older brother with cunning eyes.

He sighed. "Twenty bucks?"

She laughed and said, in her most adorable voice, "What do you take me for? Just because I'm cute doesn't mean I'm dumb, big bwother." She batted her eyes and him and held out one hand, palm-up.

"Fifty bucks?"

She took the money. "You know, I hear there's a new Brad Pitt movie coming out . . . He's pretty cute." She frowned and added hastily, "Well, not as . . . oh, forget it. You know what I'm gonna say."

He stared at her, his mouth dropping open. Was this conniving little monster really in elementary school? How was that possible? Still, he had a very special appointment to get to, so he nodded and mentally steeled himself for two full hours of wavy locks and digitally-manipulated abs.

Once the deal had been made, she lunged at the door and began slamming her fists against it furiously. "Wakko, WAKKO!" she cried. "There's a clown in the house! We have to get away — we have to drive!"

There's no way he's going to fall for that, Yakko thought. Waks isn't that — He was interrupted by a shrill shriek as the door flew open and the middle Warner sibling broke through two walls and a door on his way to the car, where he huddled in the trunk.

Yakko watched as Dot brushed the flecks of plaster off her skirt with a smile. "Meet Joe Black," she said. "Don't forget."

"That's fine. Whatever. Just get into the car." As he ushered her out the front door, he was blindsided by a mallet that knocked him off his feet and turned his vision red for a few seconds. "What was that?" he demanded, leaping to his feet and rubbing the bump that had formed on his temple.

She smirked at him, a smug expression that Yakko preferred on his own face. "That was for calling me Dottie."

His hands were shaking as he hopped out of the passenger's seat and bounced into Fun Fun Kiddy Hair Snips Plaza, ignoring Dr. Scratchansniff as he tried to hold him back. This was the day he'd been waiting for all month. This was the best day of his life, and there wasn't a soul in the world he could tell about it. They would all laugh at him, make kissy faces, and sing that infernal tree song.

Why? Because Yakko Warner was in love with his hairdresser, Karen.

Ah, Karen. It was a perfect name, though he never dared to call her that the first time he saw her. No, he preferred a greeting that came more naturally to him.

"Hello, nurse!"

She had been waiting for him, along with the women in charge of Wakko and Dot; even though they were fifteen minutes late, the hairdressers were in an almost militaristic state of readiness. There were no other customers in the salon, and each woman was armed with a pair of scissors, a tub of soapy water, and nerves of steel. Plotz had chosen them for their Flamiel-like determination, and despite the Warners' best efforts to drive them crazy, they hadn't wavered. Sure, they'd made Wakko's hairdresser cry after they dyed her skin green, but by the next month she had dressed in a Hazmat suit. They were impossible, unflappable, infuriating.

And in the case of Karen Snippowitz, extremely beautiful.

In his typical manner, he had attached himself onto her torso like a monkey and planted a sloppy kiss on her lips. "Hello, Yakko," she replied, as if all of that was perfectly natural. Peeling his limbs off of her, she plopped him into the tub, fully clothed. "Same cut as usual, then?"

"Whatever you think would look best," he said, trying his best to look like a blushing schoolboy (which, in fact, he was). He peered up at her through his eyelashes and tried the line he'd been working on for weeks: "I trust you, Karen."

If he'd expected that to cause her to leap into his arms, he was sadly mistaken. "Sounds good. Let's get started, then."

Yakko sighed, both at the horrible flowery smell of the shampoo she was grabbing and the rejection. He had hoped that battle would have resulted in a greater victory. As she rubbed the disgusting pink sludge into his fur, he thought, Of course you realize this means war.

Despite what Buster or Plucky or any of his friends at Acme Loo would say, Yakko didn't love Karen because of her appearance. Sure, she was beautiful, with a body like Hello Nurse's but even more ridiculous proportions, and she had teased red hair that always smelled like mint, and her eyes were so huge and purple he was convinced she was half-anime, but none of that really mattered. What mattered was that she respected him, treated him like an adult instead of just a stupid kid, and he really felt that she cared about what he had to say.

The most important thing, however, was that she wore tube tops and miniskirts. Even in winter.

He had realized how madly in love with her he was almost a year ago. Before then, she had just been that horrible lady who chewed gum all the time and always made him take a bath and sit still. However, when he was sitting in the washtub on the floor, contemplating whether he wanted to pretend to vomit on her or try out his new hand buzzer, he overheard a conversation she was having with the others about superheroes. Dot's hairdresser, a squat older woman with blue hair, insisted that Spiderman was the greatest because he was "such a nice young whippersnapper." (Okay, he didn't remember that part very well; why would he listen to old people? It was probably close to what she'd said, anyway.)

Karen had listened for a while as Dot and Wakko argued between Wolverine and Superman before chiming in. "I've always liked Catwoman," she'd said. "I mean, Michelle Pfeiffer and Halle Berry? You just can't beat that." And then she had stood up to go get something.

That moment: the most profound and insightful words Yakko had ever heard, followed by a perfect angle of eyeball-to-miniskirt, had been all he'd needed to realize that this was the gum-chewing woman he was meant to marry. And so the chase had begun.

"You've been quiet today," Karen said. She had finished washing him and was trimming the fur on the back of his neck. "And I haven't heard an explosion yet."

"You probably won't." Wakko was too busy sulking about the clown trick, and Dot actually wanted the appointment to go well, as she was supposed to go over to Babs' house later. As for himself, he had been on his best behavior over their last several appointments. Sure, he'd play a trick or two on the other hairdressers, just to keep the ruse up. But he made sure that his Karen was left alone. He knew that she was impressed with his maturity and manliness. "It's just one of those days, I guess."

She chuckled, making his fur stand on end. "Better watch out," she said. "If you're not careful, someone might think you've lost your zaniness. And then what would you do?"

He froze. "Exsqueeze me?"

Karen moved on from his neck and turned her attention to his ears. "Hold still," she said. As he settled obediently, she continued, "That's just what I mean. When I first met you, you never would've sat still like that." She snapped her gum. "I haven't gone home with gum in my hair in months, no one's cried in over a year, and when was the last time you cut something off and had to stick it back on? Soon Plotz won't need us to wrestle you into place."

Oh no. Was he about to lose the love of his life? Could this really turn into a Shakespearian tragedy so quickly? He whirled around, causing her to accidentally cut off half of an ear. She groaned, reaching into the water and fishing it out. "Don't move." Pressing the severed ear against the stump, she waited a few minutes for it to reattach.

While he had her there, he began talking as quickly as he could. "We're still zany!" he insisted. "We drive Scratchy nutso, just ask him! Besides, didja see that ear thing? We're wild! It's just been an off couple of months. Work and all . . . You know, it's hard, being a successful actor at such a youthful and sprightly age." She flicked his ear to make sure it was properly stuck and continued trimming. "Sometimes we get tired, lonely. Us stars are people too, you know."

"Mmm-hmm." She didn't appear to be listening, and as "Born to Run" came on the radio, he knew that he'd lost her. Karen was a nice girl with a delightfully strange idea of what "proper work attire" meant, but she was from New Jersey, which meant that Yakko would have to play second fiddle to the Boss.

Clearly, he would have to do something drastic to get her attention. If only he'd memorized some poetry, or a song . . . and his siblings weren't ten feet away. . . .

"Listen, Karen?" When she only hummed in reply, he realized he would just have to say it. Maybe she wouldn't hear him the first time, so he could have a practice run. "I know we have a work relationship, but I —"

The bell over the front door tinkled, and all Yakko could hear was incoherent grunting. Like magic, Karen was broken from her Springsteen spell, jerking like she'd just woken up. "Taz!" she cried, her purple eyes lighting up and growing until she looked like a Powerpuff Girl. "I can't believe you came to visit me!" With a lack of professionalism that Yakko found appalling, she dropped her scissors on the floor and threw herself into his arms. The sight of that perfect goddess of a woman wrapped up in the amorous embrace of the Tasmanian Devil was enough to make him feel ill, and he considered hurling on her scissors.

She returned to him after "Taz" had left, helping him out of the tub and handing him a towel. "Sorry about that, Yakko," she said, giggling. "We just started dating last week. I know it's a little weird, but he's just so . . . wild."

"Wild," he repeated numbly. The love of his life, the only love he could ever foresee having, was dating someone else? His life really was becoming a Shakespearian tragedy, right before his eyes. He would need years of therapy to recover from this. He would need thousands of bags of gummy bears to recover from this. He would need to leave the country. Date a French girl. Yeah, a French girl. . . .

Suddenly what she'd said registered. "You like him because he's wild?" He had spent ridiculous amounts of effort refraining from throwing shampoo bottles and flooding the salon to make a swimming pool and not responding to her every word with "Goodnight, everybody!" He had slaved over this woman, obsessed over his need to act like a grown-up! And all for nothing, because she wanted a guy who was wild? "Wild as in zany?"

She shrugged, and he could tell she was ramping up to blow a bubble. "Yeah, I guess." As the bubble formed and grew larger, he felt his face turn redder, his body swell with fury, and one hand steal behind his back. With his index and pointer finger he pulled out something long and thin, and once the bubble was big enough to completely obscure her face, he reached forward with his needle and popped it.

It exploded all over her, and she yelped. "Yakko, that's not funny!" she yelled, though her words were muffled by the thick film of pink that covered her mouth, eyes, nose, hair, and even ears.

He stepped back, surveying his handiwork. "I don't know," he said casually. "Do you think it's funny, sibs?"

He knew that Wakko and Dot had no idea what was going on, or why he'd decided to wreak havoc today of all days, but the younger Warners were nothing if not loyal, and burst out laughing on cue. Dot snatched a razor and pushed her hairdresser into a chair, shaving the blue curls off her head with three quick strokes and painting "Special Friend" on her pate with dye. Wakko, cheered by the mayhem, stuck his head under the sink and filled himself with water until he swelled like a balloon — or Karen's bubble. He grew larger and larger, until everyone was squished against the walls of the store by the sheer size of his body. Once he was as full as he could possibly get, he wriggled around until he was facing Yakko. "Couldja?" he said, gargling tap water as he spoke.

Yakko looked down at the needle in his hand and smirked.

Water exploded through the windows, threw open the door, and sent everyone, Warner and hairdresser alike, spinning into the streets. Once it had drained into the Burbank sewers, Yakko helped his siblings to their feet and strode over to where Karen was sitting up, dazed and with hair still pink from the gum. "I think we're still plenty zany," he said, hooking one arm around Wakko's neck and one around Dot's. "See you next month."

As they walked away, Wakko exclaimed, "That was awesome!"

"Though Plotzie won't be too happy," Dot commented, giving him a suspicious look. "I thought you were trying not to make him mad."

He shrugged. "We've been good for a while. I think we deserve to let loose." His eyes landed on a bus, which was pulling away from a stop ten yards or so in front of them, and he started sprinting, dragging Wakko and Dot by the scruffs of their necks.

"Where are we going?" Dot shouted.

"France!" was his reply. "I've got a lot of lost time to make up for!" He turned back to Wakko and winked. "Besides, I hear there are a lot of nurses in Paris."

A/N: Now, if anyone has been keeping up with my other A! story, A Little Glimpse of Leg, you might remember that (and these are very, VERY minor spoilers, so I don't feel bad posting them here), from the ages of 15-18, Yakko was especially wild and out-of-control, to the point where it became impossible for Plotz to handle him and his siblings. I'm not saying that one silly little encounter with a Mary-Sue — and yes, her Sue-ism IS intentional. I thought it'd be funny — could be the motivation in his character, but this is supposed to be a bit of a growing-up piece. Or, you know, Yakko's rejection of growing up. Lots of little things can influence one's willingness to get older and more mature, and this might be one of them. This isn't really important to my other story, but as it occurs in the same universe, I thought people might enjoy my take on the connection. Thank you for reading, and for reviewing if that's how you feel inclined.