Assets Ogling
Who is an Authority on Everything? Sheldon Cooper
Penny craned her neck, staring at her butt in the dress she was wearing, one that made it seem twice as large as it actually was. Of course the dress would over emphasize that area, she thought with dawning horror, the friend she had borrowed it from needed all the emphasis she could get. Here she was, an extra in a club scene on a bona fide television show, one with actors she recognised, and her ass looked like two pumpkins smooshed together, what with the pleating effects of the ruches.
Seriously. Pumpkin ass.
She was ready to throw her shoe against the mirror and break down into sobs, drag out the ice cream and tequila for a pity party, and gorge until she broke out of the seams of the stupid thing.
What she really needed was a second opinion.
Good thing she knew someone who liked to state their opinion on everything.
"Ok guys, this is a serious question, because the camera adds ten pounds and I want to be an extra, not an extra wide load, but does this dress make my butt look big?"
She turned around, pausing to highlight the issue before continuing the three-sixty to face them again. Never would she have thought that she'd deliberately allow Howard to comment on any body parts, but she was desperate and while she usually had a good sense of how clothing looked on her, when she started to consider retiring back home and going on a food eating contest circuit, there wasn't anywhere to go but up.
"Yes," Sheldon said simply and went back to eating his food while the other three were still somewhere in the drooling/head shaking phase.
Penny boggled at him, her eyes widening with an implied threat. "Are you saying I have pumpkin ass?" she demanded, tone low and threatening him to tread very carefully with his answer.
"The shape of your posterior falls above the means for woman your age and weight. In addition, the ruching of your dress gathers the material in such a way that your curves are visually enhanced by drawing the eye to proportional extrinsic curvature of your buttocks, as defined by the n-dimensional Euclidean space. I believe the question you were really asking was whether it is noticeable, which it is."
"Huh?" Penny asked.
"What?" Howard responded in a shrill voice, the first of them to react. Penny wasn't sure, but it probably because his brain was already there. "Did you just tell Penny that she has a great ass?"
"Mathematically speaking," Sheldon demurred, still eating lunch.
"Are you just going to let him?" Howard asked her. "If I told you that your ass was so fine, I would write a song about it, you would hit me, but Sheldon tells you that you," here Howard did a cupping motion with his hands, giving Sheldon a horrified glance, "have a perfectly shaped round butt and you're just going to stand there?"
Penny shrugged, a small smiling hovering on her lips. "I can't argue with the numbers, can I?" she asked.
Leonard finally seemed to recover, picking his jaw up off the floor with great difficulty. He made a squeaking noise like Raj for a moment and then cleared his throat. "You look great, Penny," he told her in a strangled voice.
Sheldon shot them all exasperated looks. "Penny didn't ask to be coddled. She is self-aware enough of her own body image that she understands that the lens of even a professional video camera, coupled with the aperture and focal length, can distort the final image into the illusion she is more rotund." While she was still reeling from that word, he turned to her. "I would consider your blue dress, unless you are an extra for a Sir Mix-A-Lot video, then carry on."
"Thanks Sheldon," Penny responded, the scathing sarcasm tripping from her lips automatically before she could remind herself that he wasn't being deliberately mean, he was just answering the question she had asked. And really, she knew she could rely on him for an honest answer, she just hadn't expected him to bother answering her question seriously.
He nodded his head at what he took as gratitude, and Penny actually felt her frustration eke out into a more bemused reaction. She leaned over, and before he could recoil away, planted a quick kiss on his cheek. "Appreciate the tip, sweetie," she said before sauntering away, a little added sway in her step.
She had thought she was delusional the first time she noticed him checking her out, but this was the fourth time the idea that he might be crossed her mind. Once she could brush off, twice she started to watch for it, but now the seed was planted that if there was an authority on what her butt looked like, it might weirdly be Sheldon Cooper.
And Penny realized she had subconsciously already known that, had it in the back of her mind as a possibility when she went searching out a second opinion. She might actually be encouraging it now. Changing dresses was easy, so why hadn't she?
Next Up: Penny decides turnabout is fair play
Brain Hugs everyone! Did anyone get some really great Black Friday deals? (the event has migrated up to Canada, half of us are weeping in joy and the other half are horrified at the prospect)