The Pancake Batter Anomaly

Scene: The living room of the apartment. Leonard and Sheldon are playing the three dimensional chess game from the original Star Trek series. It is Leonard’s move. He takes his time, moving round the board and checking things from various angles. Finally he tentatively makes a move. Sheldon moves almost immediately.

Sheldon: Checkmate.

Leonard: O-o-o-o-h! Again?

Sheldon: Obviously you’re not well suited for three-dimensional chess, perhaps three dimensional candyland would be more your speed.

Leonard: Just reset the board.

Sheldon: It must be humbling to suck on so many different levels.

Penny (knocking and entering): Hi guys.

Leonard: Hey!

Penny: Did you get my mail.

Leonard: Yeah, right here. How was Nebraska?

Penny: Oh, better than North Dakota! (Pause) I guess that joke’s only funny in Nebraska.

Sheldon: From the data at hand you really can’t draw that conclusion. All you can say with absolute certainty is that that joke is not funny here.

Penny: Boy, it’s good to be back.

Leonard: How was your family?

Penny: Ugh, it was the worst trip, everyone got sick over the weekend.

Sheldon: Sick?

Leonard: Here we go.

Sheldon (running to opposite side of the room): What kind of sick?

Penny: Oh, the flu I guess.

Sheldon: I don’t need you to guess, I need you to know, now when did the symptoms first appear?

Penny: Maybe Friday.

Sheldon: Friday, was that morning or afternoon?

Penny: I… I don’t…

Sheldon: Think woman, who blew their nose and when?

Leonard: Sheldon, relax, she doesn’t have any symptoms, I’m sure she’s not contagious.

Sheldon: Oh please, if influenza was only contagious after symptoms appear it would have died out thousands of years ago. Somewhere between tool using and cave painting, homo habilus would have figured out to kill the guy with the runny nose.

Leonard: Penny, you’ll have to excuse Sheldon, he’s a bit of a germophobe.

Penny: Oh, it’s okay, I understand.

Sheldon: Thanks for your consideration, now please leave.

Leonard: You’d better go before he starts spraying you with Lysol.

Penny: Okay, well, thank you for getting my mail.

Leonard: No problem. Welcome home. (Sees Penny out. Turns to find Sheldon spraying the air with Lysol.)

Sheldon: What?

Credits sequence

Scene: The kitchen

Leonard: What the hell are you doing?

Sheldon: I’m making petrie dishes to grow throat cultures.

Leonard: With lime jello?

Sheldon: I need a growth medium, and someone polished off the apricot yoghurt. Here, swab my throat.

Leonard: I don’t think so.

Sheldon: Leonard! If I’m going to get ahead of this thing I need to find out what’s growing in my throat.

Leonard: Sheldon, you are not sick. This is, but you are not.

Sheldon: We have no idea what pathogen Typhoid Penny has introduced into our environment. And having never been to Nebraska I’m fairly certain that I have no cornhusking antibodies.

Leonard: Sheldon, don’t you think you’re overreacting?

Sheldon: When I’m lying comatose in a hospital relying on inferior minds to cure me, these jello cultures and my accompanying notes will give them a fighting chance.

Leonard: I’m going back to bed.

Sheldon: Wait. (Handing him a measuring jug) Put this in the bathroom.

Leonard: What for?

Sheldon: I need to measure my fluid intake and output to make sure my kidneys aren’t shutting down.

Leonard: I mix pancake batter in this!

Sheldon: No, that measuring cup has always been for urine.

Leonard: You had time to make a label for everything in this apartment, including the label maker, but you didn’t have ten seconds to make one that said urine cup?

Sheldon: It’s right here on the bottom.

Leonard: Huh. I guess I owe the Betty Crocker company a letter of apology.

Scene: Sheldon’s bedroom. Sheldon wakes up and coughs. Picks up an electronic thermometer and takes his temperature.

Sheldon: Oh, dear God. (Shouting) Leonard! Leonard, I’m sick!

Cut to Leonard entering living room in panic, stumbling and trying to put on a pair of trousers.

Sheldon (voice off): Leonard! Leonard I’m sick!

Leonard grabs jacket and leaves through front door.

Sheldon (entering, wrapped in duvet): Leonard! Leonard! Leonard. Leonard, my comforter fell down, and my sinuses hurt when I bend over. Leonard? (Bends to get phone) Ow!

Leonard (voice on phone): Hey.

Sheldon: Leonard, where are you?

Leonard (running down stairs): I’m at work.

Sheldon: At six-thirty in the morning?

Leonard: Yes.

Sheldon: On Sunday?

Leonard: Yes.

Sheldon: Why?

Leonard: They asked me to come in.

Sheldon: Well, I didn’t hear the phone ring.

Leonard: They texted me.

Sheldon: Well, as I predicted, I am sick. My fever has been tracking up exponentially since 2am, and I am producing sputum at an alarming rate.

Leonard: No kidding?

Sheldon: No. Not only that, it has shifted from clear to milky green.

Leonard: Alright, well, get some rest and drink plenty of fluids.

Sheldon: What else would I drink? Gasses? Solids? Ionised plasma?

Leonard: Drink whatever you want.

Sheldon: I want soup.

Leonard: Then make soup.

Sheldon: We don’t have soup.

Leonard: I’m at work, Sheldon. (A woman enters the apartment building with a barking dog.)

Sheldon: Is that a dog?

Leonard: Yes,

Sheldon: In the lab?

Leonard: Yes, they’re training dogs to operate the centrifuge for when they need dogs to operate the centrifuge for blind scientists, I have to go.

Scene: Howard’s bedroom. The phone is ringing.

Howard’s Mother (voice): Howard, it’s the phone.

Howard: I know it’s the phone, Ma, I hear the phone.

Howard’s Mother: Well who’s calling at this ungodly hour?

Howard: I don’t know.

Howard’s Mother: Well ask them why they’re calling at this ungodly hour.

Howard: How can I ask them when I’m talking to you! (Into phone) Hello.

Leonard: Howard, it’s Leonard, code Milky Green.

Howard: Dear Lord, not Milky Green!

Leonard: Affirmative, with fever.

Howard’s Mother: Who’s on the phone.

Howard: It’s Leonard.

Howard’s Mother: Why is he calling.

Howard: Sheldon’s sick.

Howard’s Mother: Were you playing with him?

Howard: For God’s sake, Ma, I’m twenty six years old.

Howard’s Mother: Excuse me Mr Grown-up. Whadda-ya want for breakfast.

Howard: Chocolate milk and eggoes please!

Leonard: Howard, listen to me.

Howard: Hang on, call waiting.

Leonard (voice): No, don’t, don’t….

Howard: Hello.

Sheldon: Howard, I’m sick.

Howard (imitating his mother’s voice): Howard’s sleeping, this is his mother. Why are you calling at this ungodly hour?

Sheldon: I need soup.

Howard: Then call your own mother. (To Leonard) It was Sheldon.

Leonard: I tried to stop you.

Howard: It’s my own fault, I forgot the protocol we put in place after the great ear infection of ’06.

Leonard: You call Koothrappali, we need to find a place to lay low for the next eighteen to twenty four hours.

Howard: Stand by. Ma, can my friends come over?

Howard’s Mother: I just had the carpets steamed.

Howard: That’s a negatory. But there’s a Planet of the Apes marathon at the New Art today.

Leonard: Five movies, two hours apiece. It’s a start.

Scene: The Cheesecake Factory.

Waitress: Homeless crazy guy at table eighteen.

Penny: No, just crazy. Sheldon, what are you doing here?

Sheldon: I’m sick, thank you very much.

Penny: How could you have gotten it from me, I’m not sick.

Sheldon: You’re a carrier. All these people here are doomed. You’re doomed!

Penny: Shhh! Sheldon, what do you want.

Sheldon: I want soup.

Penny (over Sheldon’s strange throat clearance): Why didn’t you just…. (louder throat clearance) Why didn’t you just have soup at home.

Sheldon: Penny, I have an IQ of 187, don’t you imagine that if there were a way for me to have had soup at home I would have thought of it?

Penny: You can have soup delivered.

Sheldon: I did not think of that. Clearly febrile delirium is setting in, please bring me some soup while I still understand what a spoon is for.

Penny: Okay, what kind of soup do you want.

Sheldon: Well, my mother used to make me this split pea with little frankfurter slices and these home made croutons.

Penny: We have Chicken Tortilla and Potato Leek.

Sheldon: Can I get any of those with little frankfurter slices and home made croutons?

Penny: No.

Sheldon: Then surprise me. (Blows nose into handkerchief. Shows it to next table) Would you call that moss green or forest green?

Scene: The cinema. Everyone is wearing ape masks.

Howard: Look at this, everyone went chimp.

Raj: Well I’d like to point out, I voted for orang-utan, but you shouted me down. (Phone rings).

Leonard: Oh, hi Penny!

Penny: Hey, where are you?

Leonard: I’m… uh… at work.

Penny: You sound funny.

Leonard: I’m… uh… in a… I’m in a radiation suit. What’s up?

Penny: Yeah, well I’m at work too, and you’ll never guess who’s here infecting my entire station.

Leonard (To Howard and Raj): Sheldon’s at the Cheesecake Factory. (Into phone) Just tell him to go home.

Penny: He won’t leave, he says he’s afraid he’ll pass out on the bus and someone will harvest his organs.

Leonard (To Howard and Raj): He’s paranoid, and he’s established a nest.

Penny: Can you please come get him?

Leonard: Uh, yeah, I’d be… I’d be happy to Penny. (Holds phone up, Howard makes warning siren noises) Oh my God there’s a breech in the radiation unit (Raj joins in) The whole city is in jeopardy, oh my God, Professor Googenfeil is melting, gotta go, bye! (To Howard and Raj) I feel really guilty.

Raj: You did what you had to do. (Steals some of Howard’s popcorn)

Howard: Take your stinking paws off my popcorn you damn dirty ape.

Scene: The stairwell.

Sheldon: Thanks for bringing me home.

Penny: Oh, it’s okay, I didn’t really need to work today, it’s not like I have rent or car payments or anything.

Sheldon: Good. Good.

Penny: Okay, well, you feel better.

Sheldon: Wait, where are you going?

Penny: Um, home, to write some bad cheques.

Sheldon: You’re going to leave me?

Penny: Sheldon, you are a grown man, haven’t you ever been sick before?

Sheldon: Well, of course, but, not by myself.

Penny: Really, never?

Sheldon: Well, once. When I was fifteen, and spending the summer at the Heidelberg Institute in Germany.

Penny: Studying abroad?

Sheldon: No, visiting professor. Anyway, the local cuisine was a little more sausage-based than I’m used to, and the result was an internal blitzkrieg with my lower intestine playing the part of Czechoslovakia.

Penny: And there was no-one there to take care of you?

Sheldon: No. No, my mum had to fly back to Texas to help my dad because the house had slipped off the cinderblocks again.

Penny: Again?

Sheldon: It was tornado season. And it was an aluminium house. Anyway, the housekeeper in the faculty residence didn’t speak any English, when I finally managed to convince her I was sick, she said “Möchtest Du eine Darmspülung?”

Penny: What does that mean?

Sheldon: Based on what happened next, I assume it means “would you like an enema?”

Penny: Okay, sweetie, I’ll take care of you, what do you need?

Sheldon: Well, my mom used to give me sponge baths.

Penny: Okay, ground rules, no sponge baths, and definitely no enemas.

Sheldon: Agreed.

Scene: The cinema.

Raj: Here we go, ten and a half hours of apey goodness.

Leonard: Oh dammit, my glasses. Okay, I’m blind here guys, can you help me find them?

Howard: Sorry. (Crunching sound) Found ‘em.

Leonard: Oh great.

Howard: Sorry, don’t you have a spare.

Leonard: Yeah, at home.

Raj: Well if you leave now, you can be back before the gorillas rip the crap out of Charlton Heston.

Howard: Unless Sheldon’s there, in which case you’ll be trapped forever in his whiny hyper neurotic snot-web.

Leonard (Dials phone): Hi, Penny. I was wondering, is Sheldon still at the restaurant? Okay, that was very nice of you. Okay, gotta go, got kind of a full blown Chernobyl thing here, gotta go, bye. (To Howard) He’s home, I’m screwed. Ten and a half hours of apey blurriness.

Raj: How about Lasic?

Leonard: You want me to get eye surgery?

Raj: Would you rather go back to the apartment and deal with Sheldon, or have a stranger carve out your corneas with a laser beam?

Howard: Well?

Leonard: I’m thinking!

Scene: Sheldon’s bedroom.

Penny: Okay, nice and cosy, okay, I’ll see you later.

Sheldon: Wait. Will you please rub this on my chest.

Penny: Oh, Sheldon, can’t you do that yourself?

Sheldon: Vaporub makes my hands smell funny.

Penny: But Sheldon….

Sheldon: Please, please, please, please, please, please, please.

Penny: I can’t believe I’m doing this.

Sheldon: No, no, counter-clockwise or my chest hair mats.

Penny: Sorry.

Sheldon: Can you sing “Soft Kitty”.

Penny: What?

Sheldon: My mom used to sing it to me when I was sick.

Penny: I’m sorry, honey, I don’t know it.

Sheldon: I’ll teach you. “Soft kitty, warm kitty, little ball of fur, happy kitty, sleepy kitty, purr purr purr.” Now you.

Penny (after a loud sigh): Soft kitty, warm kitty…

Sheldon: Little ball of fur. Keep rubbing.

Penny (through gritted teeth): Little ball of fur.

Scene: The living room door, a fibre-optic camera emerges from underneath. We see the scene from its point of view. Cut to outside. Raj is holding a laptop, Howard is feeding the camera under the door.

Leonard: What do you see, what do you see.

Raj: The living room appears to be empty.

Leonard: Okay, he must be in his bedroom. My spare glasses are in my bedroom, on my dresser, next to my Bat-signal.

Howard: I’m not going in there.

Leonard: Raj?

Raj: No way, Jose.

Leonard: Well I can’t do it, I can’t see anything.

Howard: It’s all right, wireless mini-cam and Bluetooth headset. We’ll be your eyes.

Leonard: Fine.

Howard: One more thing. This is a subsonic impact sensor. If Sheldon gets out of bed and starts to walk, this device will register it and send a signal to the laptop. At that point, based on the geography of the apartment and the ambulatory speed of a sick Sheldon, you’ll have seven seconds to get out, glasses or no glasses.

Leonard: Won’t my footsteps set it off?

Howard: No, you’ll be on your hands and knees. Now you’ll need to get the sensor as close as you can to Sheldon’s room.

Leonard: Well, how do I carry it if I’m on my hands and knees?

Cut to Leonard entering apartment on hands and knees, carrying the sensor in his teeth.

Howard: Stay low. Bear left. Now keep true.

Leonard: What?

Howard: It means go straight.

Leonard: Then just say go straight.

Howard: You don’t stay go straight when you’re giving bearings, you say keep true.

Leonard: Alright (Bangs head on a trunk.) I just hit my head.

Howard: Because you didn’t keep true. (Time shift, Leonard is now outside bedrooms) Okay, turn right.

Raj: The… the picture’s breaking up.

Howard: Angle your head to the right. A little more. A little more. (Leonard now has his head at right angles to his body) That’s it, now just keep true. Alright, you’re close enough to Sheldon’s room, deploy the sensor. Now turn it on.

Leonard: It wasn’t on?

Howard: No.

Leonard: Then why did I have to crawl?

Howard: Oh, I guess you didn’t.

Leonard: Okay, it’s on.

Howard: Good. From this point forward you will have to crawl.

Leonard: I know.

Howard: Hang on, the sensor’s picking up something, turn your head back. (Camera angle shows a pair of female legs.)

Penny: You rat bastard.

Howard (running down stairs with Raj): Told you the sensor would work.

Leonard: Hi!

Penny: You deliberately stuck me with Sheldon.

Leonard: Well, I had to, you see what he’s like.

Sheldon (off): Penny! Penny, I’m hungry.

Penny: Uh, it’s okay, sweetie, good news, Leonard’s home!

Leonard: No!

Penny (handing him vaporub): Here you go, good luck, bye.

Leonard: W-wait!

Sheldon: Leonard, I’m hungry!

Leonard: Wait! Penny! Take me with you! (Runs after her and bumps into pillar. Falls semi-conscious to the floor. Sheldon appears in his comforter.)

Sheldon: I want grilled cheese.

Time shift. Sheldon and Leonard are on the sofa. Sheldon is wrapped in his comforter, Leonard is holding an ice-pack to his head.

Sheldon: Do you think Penny will come here and take care of us?

Leonard: I don’t think Penny’s ever coming here again.

Sheldon: I’m very congested.

Leonard: Yeah, so?

Sheldon: Can you go to the kitchen, and get me the turkey baster labelled mucus.

Leonard: If I stand, I’ll vomit.

Sheldon: Under the sink, yellow Tupperware bowl.