Transcripts/The Pancake Batter Anomaly

< Transcripts

Season 1 - Episode 11 - The Pancake Batter Anomaly
Sick5

Soft Kitty....

Scene The living room of Apartment 4A, daytime. 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. (Gestures at the many levels of the board.)
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 (Knowing what's going to happen) 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 of Apartment 4A night time. Sheldon is busy doing something scientific. There is a lot of scientific paraphernalia strewn across the table. Leonard comes in.
Leonard What the hell are you doing?
Sheldon I'm making petri dishes to grow throat cultures.
Leonard (confusedly) With lime jello?
Sheldon I need a growth medium, and someone polished off the apricot yoghurt. Here, swab my throat. (opens his mouth)
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. (opens his mouth again)
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. (opens his mouth yet again, insistently)
Leonard (annoyed) 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 (angry) 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, early morning. Sheldon wakes up and coughs heavily. He picks up an electronic thermometer, sticks it in his ear, and takes his temperature.
Sheldon (Examining the results) Oh, dear God. (Shouting) Leonard! Leonard, I'm sick!
Cut to Leonard entering the living room in panic, stumbling and trying to put on a pair of trousers.
Sheldon (Voice off) Leonard! Leonard I'm sick!
Leonard grabs his jacket and keys and leaves through the front door, closing it as quietly as possible, right before...
Sheldon (Entering, wrapped in his duvet) Leonard! Leonard! Leonard. (Drops his duvet) 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. Howard is fast asleep. The phone starts ringing.
Howard's Mother (Voice) Howard, it's the phone!
Howard (Irritated) 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! (Answers the 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 checks.
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 mom 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 aluminum 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 fiber-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 forehead.
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.

To the original text