4. The Peaceful Parental Persuasion

"Now, don't you just look like a harvest missing some sunshine," Mary Cooper said as she studied the bleary-eyed figure in front of her.

Amy straightened her shoulders defensively. "I was not expecting company at six on a Sunday."

"And if you were, would you have worn something other than Paul Bunyan's pajamas?"

Amy looked at her plaid pajamas bottoms and frowned. "I did not get this from Paul Bunyan. I am a strict monogamist and, if I did engage in some polygamous tendencies, I would not flaunt my one lover's nightwear in front of my other lover's mother. I got this from Gap. My bestie took me when the monkey stole my undergarments."

"Penny always did love her neighbour," Mary mused. "Now, can I come in for some coffee?"

"Is coffee a code for awkward social occasion?"

"Not if we make the coffee Irish," Mary smiled and walked inside Amy's apartment. She sat down and patted the couch cushion next to her. "Now, dear, you have known my Shelly for quite some time."

"A year, nine months, three weeks and two days," Amy said promptly.

Mary sighed inwardly and shot up a little prayer. Talking with Amy was a little like trying to get nine-year-old Sheldon to stop buying products from men in Iranian nuclear shelters. "And you've been his ... special friend ... for a while. No, dear, I don't need the calendar count. I'm just saying that you'd have noticed by now that he is not what one might call good with commitment and socialisation."

"Depends on the social conventions. Certain Indonesian tribes would find his straightforward nature refreshing and, of course, Somalian natives did not believe in kissing until it was introduced by colonialist forces."

"Yes, but in America, most of us think that God didn't give him the sense of a billy goat."

"Again, that would depend on ..."

"Amy," Mary interrupted, "why don't you emulate Lot's wife a little and just listen to me? I know we've had our differences in the past, but I would be as blind as a one-eyed bat if I didn't realise how happy you make my Shellybean. Now, I received a rather panicky call from Leonard last night and he says that you and Shelly seem headed for some sort of drama involving your sister."

"Leonard has a tendency to overreact. Especially if seafood and melon and dairy products of any kind have been on the menu," Amy countered. "But I believe that his panic over Katie Farrah Fowler is well deserved."

"I thought Farrah was your middle name."

"It is."

"Your sister has the same middle name?"

"Yes."

"I'm from Texas, but that might be perceived as weird by others," Mary answered. "You and your sister have some difficulties with each other?"

Amy stiffened. "Says who?"

"I have three children, four nieces, six nephews and a Sunday school class," Mary replied. "I know something about sibling rivalry."

"My problems with Katie Farrah Fowler have nothing to do with sibling rivalry," Amy said, and added petulantly, "but I don't like that she always wants to play with my things."

"That sounds like a statement that somebody with a firm grasp on Freud would be able to analyse," Mary said. "Now, honey, part of what makes you and Shelly good for each other is that you have entire conversations that nobody else can understand."

"Just Howard and sometimes Penny," Amy argued. "The rest of my friends have proper degrees."

Mary bit her lip and thought of Mother Theresa. "I have never seen Shelly get along with someone this well since that time he was twelve and we had to go to Stockholm."

"If he was the kind of guy to have nightmares, he would still be having nightmares about that," Amy muttered.

"Look, Amy, the point I'm trying to make is quite simple. Your relationship with Shelly, as weird as it may seem to the rest of us, makes him happy and its going to take more than a few academic sessions with your sister to change that."

"What objective, empirical measurements did you utilise to verify your hypothesis?" Amy asked.

"Three children, four nieces, six nephews and a Sunday school class." Mary patted Amy's knee. "Just let Shellybean do his thing. He'll come back to you. And, as we've learned with my brother Stumpy, it's always better not to nag a man. Now, how about some coffee?"

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

"This is ... I've never ... Have you ... How can ..."

"Sheldon, calm down," Leonard sighed as he slumped onto the couch. It always felt like it was either too late or too early to deal with Sheldon, but six on a Sunday morning seemed like a contravention of the Geneva convention. "It's a good paper."

"Good? Good?" Sheldon repeated. "Star Trek was good. This is better."

Leonard opened his eyes and peered at Sheldon in surprise. "Something is better than Star Trek?"

"Yes. I mean, I've dealt with those poopyheads passing as students at the university before. When I took on Katie Farrah Fowler, I was expecting that I would have to begin our classes along the lines of 'our whole universe was in a hot, dense state and nearly fourteen billion years ago, expansion started'."

"Wait," Leonard sighed.

"Then the earth began to cool, the autotrophs began to drool, Neanderthals developed tools ..."

"We built a wall, we built the pyramids, I know. Sheldon ..."

"I mean, it seems as though Math, Science and History is all just a mystery to those poopyheads. But not her. Not Katie Farrah Fowler. She has a grasp of string theory that's much firmer than your precarious grasp on the basics." Sheldon glanced at the contents of the manila folder again. Katie had e-mailed him a proposal for her doctoral thesis and, when he read it this morning, he was happy to see that his original estimate of her intelligence was correct. "I have, in fact, never met someone with quite as firm a grasp on physics. Its wonderful that there's another Homo Novus around there. It gives me great hope for the future, Leonard, great hope indeed."

"That is great," Leonard echoed and hoped that Sheldon's mom would soon get here.