The Cooper Neglect Theory
A/N: Have I told you guys how awesome you are lately? Thank you again for all the support. This chapter contains very mild swearing, a joke about a lady of the evening and innuendo of a sexual act. If that doesn't spook you, read on.
Chapter 10: The Human Resources Hysteria
The events of the past week tumbled in Sheldon's mind like the blocks of his Giant Jenga game.
Accusations of sexual inappropriateness in the workplace, the embarrassing Sheldon After Dark entries, and the "help" he received from the so-called Council of Ladies, all keeping him from his secure feeling of normalcy. There were only two bright spots in his universe. The first, as always, was Amy. She said she would never leave him and somehow that made the rest almost bearable. The second was Bakersfield Comic-Con coming up this weekend.
As he lay there in bed trying not to imagine what Alex and the HR lady thought he was guilty of, he thought back to the last few days.
It was the last evening of winter break when Amy came over for dinner, just the two of them. She noticed a large freight box in the living room. "Sheldon, what's in the box?"
Sheldon gave her that playful boyish grin that made her toes curl in her orthopedic shoes. "Leonard and I found a company that makes giant-sized Jenga blocks. It should have been here a week ago, but there was some nonsense about it being overweight and being delayed at the package carrier. But it's here now and I can't wait to play it." He stroked the box lovingly.
Lucky box. Amy thought with just a touch of envy. Things had been good between them the past few days. She was pleasantly surprised that he had admitted that he missed her when they had their most recent misunderstanding. She had missed him too, but she was more in touch with her feelings towards Sheldon than she felt he was towards her. She knew she loved him, but was unsure if Sheldon was to that point yet. Maybe one day they would be at the same place at the same time. Her musing was interrupted by a knock on the door and the arrival of the food.
After dinner Sheldon could barely contain his excitement. "Amy, I would be honored if you would play the inaugural game of Giant Jenga with me tonight."
Amy loved playing all manner of games with Sheldon. She was still using the memories of the recent Tiny Twister game late at night with Gerard. "I'd love to. But shouldn't we invite Leonard to play the first game? After all the set is half his as well."
Sheldon waved her concern off with a flick of his wrist. "He's still worn out after lugging the box upstairs. No he won't mind." He went to get tools to open the box.
The set was impressive, a mighty tower of fresh smelling pine. Sheldon went to his room to get the final touch. As he grabbed the hard hat from its box he was struck by a thought. He fidgeted with the hat in his hand as he pondered what to do. Then with his lips in a firm thin line, he knew what his mother would expect of him when a lady was placed in danger.
He rejoined his girlfriend in the living room and presented her with the hard hat. "Amy I neglected to buy you a hard hat when I bought mine. So it's only fair that you should be the one to be protected from head trauma."
Amy looked at the hat that he had pressed into her hands. "Sheldon, I think it's overly cautious to wear a hard hat when playing a game." She tried to hand it back to him.
"As I told you when you were sick, I care about your well-being. If you were to get hit on the head and were injured…" His normally confident exterior slipped just a little and Amy saw a tiny bit of…fear.
Amy decided to play along. "You win Sheldon. How do I look?" She plopped the helmet on her head and opened her arms with a flourish. She twirled on the spot, feeling silly about being forced into wearing the hat.
Sheldon needed to answer the question. How does she look? Pretty? Alluring? Mesmerizing? "Safety conscious."
Amy tilted her head at Sheldon. I guess I'll take it. "Thank you Sheldon."
It didn't take long before Amy was standing on tiptoe to reach the top-level. The tower had become taller than even Sheldon, and truth be known she did feel a bit safer with the hard hat. Those wood blocks were solid. She bent down to shimmy a piece out from close to the base. She was so intent on dislodging the piece that she didn't see the top starting to sway dangerously towards her.
Sheldon did and in a split second several thoughts ran through his mind. The first was that he was just about to win the game. The second was that a heavy stack of lumber was about to fall on his Amy. The third was even with a hard hat, being under a falling pile of wood was going to hurt. The fourth and final thought before leaping into action was that he could not just stand by and let that happen to her. He enveloped her crouching form right as the first blocks fell. He felt her jump as he wrapped himself around her and then felt the heavy weight of the blocks bounce off of his back and head. He was right, it did hurt. As the last block fell he straightened up, bringing Amy upright as well in his arms. He realized what he was doing and quickly let her go.
"Sheldon, you didn't have to do that. You could have just told me to look out. Are you injured?" Amy began to search Sheldon for wounds with the softest touch she could muster. She needed to examine him, but she knew he didn't like to be touched.
Her light touch made him shiver. "There was no time to warn you. I'm fine. The back of my head is a little tender, but that's all."
Amy circled around Sheldon and examined his head. "Bend your knees a little Sheldon; I think I see a wound." Sheldon's eyes grew large as he bent down for Amy. She continued her butterfly light touch as she parted his hair to see the area of interest. Sheldon's shiver evolved into a shudder. She found a minor scrape on his head behind his right ear. "Sheldon you have a small abrasion here. Why don't you sit down and I'll get the first aid kit." She bustled off to the bathroom. Sheldon didn't like the idea of having a wound and began to feel the room spin. Before he could faint, Amy had returned with the medical kit.
She grabbed a small packet of disinfectant and ripped open the package. "This might sting a little." She dabbed the gauze against the minor wound.
Sheldon sucked in a breath between his teeth. Amy flinched at the thought that she was the cause of pain for him a second time tonight. "Here Sheldon, let me blow on it."
Sheldon's eyes were squeezed shut as the disinfectant burned. "Amy being familiar with the field of biology you should know that blowing on an open wound will only increase the chance of…" He lost the power of speech as he felt Amy's soft cool breath behind his ear and the sting of the alcohol based cleanser disappear. For such a cool breath blowing on his ear and neck, why was he feeling so warm?
A second breath of air flowed over his ear and he promptly forgot everything of importance except for that blissful sensation.
Amy leaned around to Sheldon's face and gently smiled. "How does that feel?"
Sheldon took a deep breath and let it out in a sigh.
"Wonderful."
Amy had fussed over him all night, calling him her hero. She made him chocolate chip cookies and kept stealing little secretive looks at him when she thought he wasn't looking. But he caught most of them and he kept experiencing a feeling he couldn't quite place, but he found himself enjoying.
But then again it could be a brain parasite.
The next night he and Leonard were playing Giant Jenga, his hard hat securely in place, when Alex came to pick up his night-time recordings. He had been concerned at the last recording results he had gotten back but he hoped that Alex didn't catch on to the meaning behind it. He was reaching for the recorder when the sound of triumph crashed in the living room. He rushed out to the living room.
"Giant Jenga, I win!"
This winning feeling carried him through till the next day during breakfast at the cafeteria. There he found that his assistant was not giving him the full attention that he deserved. Instead she was mooning over Leonard's pasty, androgynistic brand of sexuality. This would simply not do. She was being a slave to her baser urges, and not a productive assistant. He had to put a stop to it. But how?
The answer struck him as he sat at his desk at home that night. His eyes had left his computer screen and wandered to the statue of Gollum on the right of the desk. When Middle Earth was threatened, Elrond called a council to plan the destruction of the One Ring. The Council of Elrond formed the Fellowship of the Ring, who ultimately were victorious in destroying it in the fires of Mount Doom. Sheldon needed a council made up of women to help with a female issue. Now if he could only find a t-shirt printer with same day service. And he needed to come up with some good pseudonyms to protect the innocent.
The girls all met at Amy's apartment and were puzzled as Sheldon handed each of them a pink shirt. He then proceeded to tell them the tale of Ricardo Shilly-Shally, Tondelaya de la Ventimiglia and Dr. Einstein Von Brainstorm.
They saw right through the pseudonyms.
Rather than giving good advice, Penny got angry at Leonard and Bernadette simply told him to talk to Alex. That was rather disappointing after such high hopes of solving his problem with Alex and spending $80 for a rush job on those shirts. If the Council of Elrond had been comprised only of women, the best outcome would have been that Sauron would have a cocaine addicted monkey in his shower and would have been talked to by Gandalf. He took back his t-shirts in disgust.
That night was a restless one for Sheldon. He tossed and turned thinking about crazed shower monkeys, the Lord of the Rings and red-headed Mexican sailors. Towards dawn his final dream manifested itself.
He found himself sitting on his porch back home when a gentle squeak from the porch swing let him know it was occupied. He turned to see his dad gently rocking the swing, nursing a Pabst. George Sr. looked over at his son and grinned. "Well I never thought I would live to see the day that my little Shelly had women troubles." He took a big swallow from his can.
"Technically Dad, no, you didn't." Sheldon squirmed uncomfortably.
George stared at Sheldon, and then let loose a large belly laugh. "I guess your right, Son. Always smart as a whip. Well Shelly women are effing pains in the ass. They're always either cryin', pissed of at ya or trying to take your pants off. Poor things can't help it, it's those damn hormones. Hey, have I told you that joke before? How do you make a hormone?" George looked at Sheldon with barely contained mirth.
Sheldon rolled his eyes and sighed. "You don't pay her."
"Ha ha ha ha. I've told ya that one before huh?" George took another swig of his beer.
"Dad, what should I do about this?"
"Shelly back in the day I could sweet talk the ladies with a few well placed words and a twinkle of the old Cooper blues." He punctuated his statement with a waggle of his eyebrows. "Now it seems that George Jr. got most of the charm, but you still have the eyes in your favor. Do your best. And if that don't work then you can just tell that little cupcake that she's being driven by estrogen and twaddle. She'll come around. Plus it never hurts to seal the deal with a firm smack on the behind." George leered at him and saluted him with his beer. "Now go get 'em, Tiger!" He clapped Sheldon hard on the back.
Sheldon awoke exhausted thirty minutes before the alarm was to go off. He stayed up and sleepily made his way to the shower.
On the way into work, Leonard looked over to find Sheldon dozing in the car. He took a chance on turning on the radio. He arrived at the university and shook Sheldon awake.
"Sheldon we're at work, come on."
"What was that woman carrying on about asking someone to call her maybe? Anyone with a grade school understanding of grammar should avoid this woman like the plague." Sheldon was cranky and fed up with the nonsense females caused. He had come up with a plan on what to do with Alex. Hopefully the library had the right book with colorful pictures.
Alex was having a stressful day. She had made up her mind after she listened to the last Sheldon After Dark transcript that she was going to refuse to transcribe them anymore. At the best he was asleep and didn't realize he was saying such things. At the worst he was waking up and saying these things on purpose to get some sick thrill out of having her write this stuff down. Either way it was getting difficult to look the man in the eye without thinking creepy thoughts.
She could tell that Sheldon was having a difficult day as well. He looked like he was about to say something to her, but then think better of it. This went on until four o' clock when she saw the "Give Alex a talking to." memo in that slot. Unfortunately without proper guidance from the Council of Ladies Sheldon's "talking to" was mostly the nonsense he remembered his father spouting off in various states of drunkenness. This was bad enough, but the cherry on top was the half page, full frontal picture of a man with gonorrhea. She fled the room, picked up the sleep transcript and went to see Mrs. Davis in human resources.
That night Sheldon felt smug in the fact that he had placed Alex once again on the path to knowledge and away from a life of sexual depravity. Leonard entered the apartment then and asked if Sheldon had said something to Penny about Alex flirting with him. Sheldon admitted he did and the only thing that happened was that Penny got upset with Leonard. Leonard informed him that he shouldn't have mentioned this to Penny. Sheldon was finding the conversation becoming tedious. He informed Leonard that he couldn't tell a uterus from a unicycle and that with such lousy advice Leonard was almost ready to join the worthless Council of Ladies. He was going to run his theory of how drinking too much soy milk was making Leonard a big girl when his phone rang.
"Huh. That was the Human Resources Department at the university. Apparently my assistant Alex has filed a complaint accusing me of inappropriate behavior in the workplace." Sheldon appeared baffled.
"Oh my God, what did you do?" Leonard didn't believe Sheldon could sexually harass anyone even if he tried.
Sheldon looked thoughtful "Hmm, let me think. Nothing. I'm a delight."
Leonard muttered "I wouldn't go that far." He was also puzzled about why Alex would file a complaint. "Well Sheldon, all I would suggest is to tell your side of the story and be completely truthful about it. I bet it was all a big misunderstanding."
Sheldon rolled his eyes. "With that last statement of the obvious you just won yourself a seat on the Council of Ladies."
Leonard muttered again. "Why do I even try?"
When Sheldon met with Mrs. Davis the next day, he kindly explained his intent on saving Alex from a life of sexual promiscuity, by making her look at disease ridden genitalia. He also explained how all women were slaves to their biological urges, including Mrs. Davis. He was expounding on how it was tied to a woman's menstrual cycle when Mrs. Davis advised him to shut his mouth. Sheldon was confused on why he was in so much trouble when his friends did so much worse things than repeating simple biologic facts. So Sheldon threw all of his friends under the HR bus.
After finding out among other things, that Raj called her Brown Sugar, Janine Davis wanted to clarify all of those involved. "Hofstadter…Wolowitz…and the last one was Rajesh Koothrappali?" She looked questioningly at Sheldon.
Sheldon realized that he had just got his friends in trouble, so he decided to do a little damage control. "Yes. No yeah, but in his defense, that wasn't racist. He also is brown."
Janine looked at Sheldon, speechless. Was this guy for real? "Doctor Cooper, I believe it is in your best interest to just stop talking now. You are digging yourself a very deep hole." She looked down to her desk and found a paper Alex had given her earlier. "Ms. Jensen also told me that she was transcribing the time that you were sleeping and that there were some disturbing words you were saying in your sleep that make her uncomfortable. She says she doesn't believe you are doing this purposefully, but it puts her in an embarrassing position. I have advised her to stop this portion of her duties and am telling you that this will no longer be considered an acceptable task for her."
Sheldon's composed and indignant attitude dropped. He was mortified. "What did I say?"
Sometimes being the HR lady was not easy. Janine cleared her throat. "She had said you had mentioned spanking, saying your girlfriends name and groaning. Then there was this latest transcript." She handed Sheldon the piece of paper.
"Amy"
"Wood"
"Feels good"
"Blow me"
Sheldon's eyebrows knitted together. "I see nothing wrong with this transcript. Amy is my girlfriend. There was an incident earlier that night that resulted from her tugging wood which resulted in my injury which led to a burning sensation that made her have to blow me."
"Dr. Cooper! I will not have you talk so graphically in my office! Ms. Jensen does not have to be subjected to you describing your manual and oral sexual gratification at the hands of your girlfriend!"
"Wh-what?" Sheldon had gone quite still, his eyes as big as saucers.
"Dr. Cooper, not another word. You will need to complete an online sexual harassment seminar, and there may be more exercises we need you to complete before we are satisfied you have understood that this behavior is unacceptable."
The rest of the meeting was a blur; with Sheldon still not sure of what he had done wrong. He went home that night riding silently besides Leonard.
"Hey Buddy, how did your meeting with the HR lady go?"
Sheldon looked morosely over to Leonard. "Apparently I have said things at night on my transcript that was construed as being sexually graphic."
Leonard could not believe that Sheldon could be sexually graphic if he studied for a month. So Leonard asked Sheldon what exactly was said during the meeting.
After laughing so hard that he had to pull the car over, Leonard agreed with Mrs. Davis and Alex that Sheldon After Dark should come to an end. He described to Sheldon as delicately as possible about how a dream of your girlfriend blowing on a wound could be misunderstood as her blowing some other place. Plus he explained what blowing even meant, which embarrassed them both. Sheldon couldn't even meet Leonard's eye until the next day.
That evening Sheldon had another dream about Amy and him playing a different game. And it was a good thing that there was no audio record of the evening.
Because this time it was anything but innocent.
A/N: In our next chapter, a Federation landing party and a member of the Borg Collective discover an alternate dimension where the women in their lives finally appreciate great literature. Feel free to send any spare reviews you have lying around collecting dust.