04x03 - The Zazzy Substitution

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Scene: The apartment.

Sheldon: All right, I’m ready for my next question.

Amy: In a world where rhinoceroses are domesticated pets, who wins the Second World w*r?

Sheldon: Uganda.

Amy: Defend.

Sheldon: Kenya rises to power on the export of rhinoceroses. A Central African power block is formed, colonizing North Africa and Europe. When w*r breaks out, no one can afford the luxury of a rhino. Kenya withers, Uganda triumphs.

Amy: Correct. My turn.

Sheldon: In a world where a piano is a w*apon, not a musical instrument, on what does Scott Joplin play The Maple Leaf Rag?

Amy: Tuned bayonets.

Sheldon: Defend.

Amy: Isn’t it obvious?

Sheldon: You’re right. My apologies.

Leonard: What the hell are you guys playing?

Sheldon: It’s a game we invented. It’s called Counterfactuals.

Amy: We postulate an alternate world that differs from ours in one key aspect and then pose questions to each other.

Sheldon: It’s fun for ages eight to eighty. Join us.

Leonard: All right. I like a good brainteaser. Give it a whirl.

Sheldon: You’re in luck, this is an easy one. In a world where mankind is ruled by a giant intelligent beaver, what food is no longer consumed?

Leonard: Uh, a BLT where the B stands for beaver? I don’t know.

Sheldon: Leonard, be serious. We’re playing a game here.

Leonard: I can figure this out, let’s see. Um, well, beavers eat tree bark. The only tree bark I know that humans consume is cinnamon. So, I’ll say cinnamon.

Sheldon: Incorrect. Obviously, the answer is cheese Danish.

Leonard: What?

Amy: In a world ruled by a giant beaver, mankind builds many dams to please the beaver overlord. The low-lying city of Copenhagen is flooded. Thousands die. Devastated, the Danes never invent their namesake pastry. How does one miss that?

Leonard: This is ridiculous. You’re just making stuff up.

Amy: Is he always like this when he loses?

Sheldon: Oh, yes. You should’ve been here for the great Jenga tantrum of 2008.

Leonard: You bumped the table and you know it.

Amy: Perhaps it would be kinder to play a game more suited to his abilities. We’ll close our eyes and count to ten while you hide.

Leonard: I’m going to my room.

Amy: Very good, Leonard. But next time, don’t tell us where you’re hiding.

Credits sequence.

Scene: The Cheesecake Factory

Leonard: Did you guys see the paper in The American Physics Journal on supersolids? It’s pretty interesting. This guy’s working from a hypothesis where…

Raj: Spoiler alert! Spoiler alert.

Leonard: What?

Raj: Don’t ruin it for me, man. I printed out a PDF to read on the potty.

Howard: On the potty? What are you, five?

Raj: It’s a potty. What do you call it?

Howard: Toilet.

Raj: That’s a little vulgar for the dinner table, don’t you think?

Howard: Oh, and potty is okay?

Raj: Potty is innocent. Potty is adorable.

Howard: What do you do in the potty, wee-wee?

Raj: If I don’t have to boom-boom.

Sheldon: Greetings. You all remember Amy Farrah Fowler.

Leonard: Sure.

Howard: Nice to see you.

Amy: Hello.

Sheldon: Sorry we’re late.

Amy: I must take responsibility. I had to stop for feminine hygiene supplies.

Howard: Ah, ah.

Leonard: Okay.

Sheldon: I believe she’s experiencing her menses.

Amy: Actually, I’m not. In order to avoid surprises, I wear them all the time.

Leonard: Ah, ah.

Howard: Okay. Toilet’s sounding pretty good now, huh?

Penny: Hey, look, it’s Shamy.

Amy: Shamy?

Sheldon: A juvenile amalgamation of our names. Sheldon and Amy, Shamy.

Amy: Oh. I don’t like that. Don’t do that.

Penny: All righty. What’s new?

Amy: Well, just recently, I learned that you refer to us as Shamy, and I don’t like that.

Penny: I got it. But what I was going for was, you know, how’s your life?

Amy: Like everybody else’s. Subject to entropy, decay and eventual death. Thank you for asking. Why is she not taking our order?

Sheldon: I should’ve warned you, one has to navigate a labyrinth of social nonsense before one can be fed here.

Amy: Really? I assumed an establishment called the Cheesecake Factory would function more efficiently.

Sheldon: It’s how they lure you in. I believe it’s called bait and switch.

Penny: Okay, I’m just gonna walk away, ’cause I don’t want to be here.

Leonard: So, this is nice. First time we’ve all gotten together to eat.

Amy: You’re right, he’s a festival of humdrum chitchat.

Leonard: Okay, that’s all I got. Howard, you’re up.

Howard: Um, tell us about your work, Amy.

Amy: I doubt you’d understand. Sheldon tells me you only have a master’s degree.

Howard: Raj, do you have any questions for Amy?

Amy: I’m curious as to why we’re not eating alone.

Sheldon: They can’t function without me. I’m the social glue that holds this little group together. You’re welcome.

Scene: The stairwell.

Leonard: Listen, can I talk to you about your girlfriend?

Sheldon: She’s not my girlfriend. She’s a girl and she’s my friend, but there’s no touching or unsanitary exchange of saliva.

Leonard: Got it.

Sheldon: Although, for the record, on one occasion, she licked her thumb to remove raspberry jelly from the corner of my mouth. It’s an action we both regret to this day.

Leonard: Uh-huh. Anyway, I’m not sure she’s the best fit for our little, how should we call it, rebel alliance.

Sheldon: Oh, I never identified with the rebel alliance. Despite their tendency to build Death Stars, I’ve always been more of an empire man.

Leonard: Yeah, not my point.

Sheldon: I know what your point is. You’re intimidated by Amy’s intellect. To that I say, buck up.

Leonard: Okay, let me just get right to it. Amy is judgmental, sanctimonious and frankly just obnoxious.

Sheldon: So?

Leonard: So we already have you for all that.

Sheldon: Are you suggesting I terminate my relationship with Amy?

Leonard: No, no, of course not. Just have your relationship someplace else.

Sheldon: May I point out that for eight long months, I suffered in silence as your female companion filled our apartment with her off-key country music caterwauling, the unappetizing spectacle of her grinding a pumice stone against her calloused feet in our living room, and night after night of uninformative TV documentaries about the Jersey Shore.

Leonard: Suffered in silence?

Sheldon: Yes. And I’d thank you to do the same.

Leonard: Really? Silence?

Scene: Penny’s apartment.

Raj: Ah. Nothing makes beer taste better than cool clear Rocky Mountain spring water. Where are the Rocky Mountains, anyway?

Howard: Philadelphia.

Raj: Really? I thought they were out West someplace.

Howard: Think about it, Raj. Where did the movie Rocky take place?

Raj: Philadelphia. Okay, now I get it.

Penny: So this is the plan? From now on, we’re just gonna hide out in here to avoid the Shamy?

Raj: I’m very comfortable here. Penny, dear, why don’t you sh**t another silver b*llet my way?

Penny: Get one yourself.

Raj: Ooh, somebody’s been taking bitchy pills.

Penny: God, he’s an ass when he drinks.

Howard: Oh, he’s an ass when he doesn’t. You just don’t hear it.

Leonard: I think we need to start entertaining the possibility that the Shamy could go on for years.

Raj: Well, if that’s the case, Penny will have to get satellite TV and maybe once a week run a vacuum through this place.

Penny: I thought you were going to talk to Sheldon.

Leonard: I did.

Penny: Well, what’d he say?

Leonard: Well, he pointed out that he kinda, sorta had to put up with you.

Penny: Kinda, sorta had to?

Leonard: I didn’t agree with him.

Penny: Well, you defended me, right?

Leonard: I tried, but (Penny starts rubbing her foot with a pumice stone) he made a fairly well-reasoned argument.

Howard: You’re not doing that right.

Penny: What?

Howard: Gimme.

Penny: No.

Howard: Trust me.

Penny: No!

Howard: I do this for my mom all the time. See? With the grain.

Penny: Wow, that is better.

Howard: And someday, when you have varicose veins, I’ll show you how to massage them.

Scene: The University Cafeteria.

Raj: Oh, God, never again.

Leonard: I assume by never again, you mean never again will you drink all of Penny’s beer, then run down to the gas station for a couple of 40s, a box of Slim Jims and the latest issue of Bombay Badonkadonks.

Raj: I was homesick.

Howard: The highlight of the evening was when you showed us your Bollywood break dancing skills. (Does a stereotyped impersonation of Bollywood dancing.)

Raj: That’s very offensive.

Howard: Yeah, we all thought so.

Leonard: Oh, no.

Howard: What?

Leonard: John and Yoko.

Howard: More like Yoko and Yoko.

Sheldon: Greetings.

Leonard: Hey.

Sheldon: I brought Amy here to show her some of the work I’m doing.

Amy: It’s very impressive, for theoretical work.

Sheldon: Do I detect a hint of condescension?

Amy: I’m sorry, was I being too subtle? I meant compared to the real-world applications of neurobiology, theoretical physics is, what’s the word I’m looking for? Hmm, cute.

Leonard and Howard together: Oooh!

Sheldon: Are you suggesting the work of a neurobiologist like Babinski could ever rise to the significance of a physicist like Clarke-Maxwell or Dirac?

Amy: I’m stating it outright. Babinski eats Dirac for breakfast and defecates Clarke-Maxwell.

Sheldon: You take that back.

Amy: Absolutely not. My colleagues and I are mapping the neurological substrates that subserve global information processing, which is required for all cognitive reasoning, including scientific inquiry, making my research ipso facto prior in the ordo cognoscendi. That means it’s better than his research, and by extension, of course, yours.

Leonard: I’m sorry, I’m-I’m still trying to work on the defecating Clark Maxwell, so…

Sheldon: Excuse me, but a grand unified theory, insofar as it explains everything, will ipso facto explain neurobiology.

Amy: Yes, but if I’m successful, I will be able to map and reproduce your thought processes in deriving a grand unified theory, and therefore, subsume your conclusions under my paradigm.

Sheldon: That’s the rankest psychologism, and was conclusively revealed as hogwash by Gottlob Frege in the 1890s!

Amy: We appear to have reached an impasse.

Sheldon: I agree. I move our relationship terminate immediately.

Amy: Seconded.

Sheldon: There being no objections…

All: No, uh-uh.

Sheldon: The motion carries. Good day, Amy Farrah Fowler.

Amy: Good day, Sheldon Cooper.

Howard: Women, huh? Can’t live with them, can’t successfully refute their hypotheses.

Sheldon: Amen to that.

Scene: The laundry room.

Penny: Hey, Sheldon.

Sheldon: Hello.

Penny: I hear you broke up with Amy.

Sheldon: A breakup would imply she was my girlfriend. She was a girl who was my friend who is now a girl who is not my friend.

Penny: Wow. That’s like the worst country song ever. So, how are you doing?

Sheldon: Regarding what?

Penny: Amy.

Sheldon: I don’t follow.

Penny: Well, breakups, or whatever the hell this is, can be tough.

Sheldon: Penny, I assure you, I’m fine. My relationship with Amy was purely intellectual. There were no emotional bonds, the severing of which would cause me any discomfort. The relationship simply outlived its utility, and I’m continuing on with my life as before.

Penny: Okay. Good.

Sheldon: Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to buy a pussycat.

Scene: The cafeteria.

Leonard: I gotta tell you guys, I’m a little worried about Sheldon.

Howard: We’re all a little worried about Sheldon.

Leonard: No, I mean since the Shamy hit a reef.

Howard: Oh, I thought you were just making a generalization, you know, I’m worried about Sheldon someday setting off a low-yield nuclear device because the cafeteria ran out of lime Jell-O.

Raj: What does hit a reef mean?

Leonard: Uh, went splitsville.

Raj: Pardon?

Leonard: Turned to boom-boom.

Raj: Ah.

Leonard: I think Sheldon really misses Amy.

Howard: You should lend him your copy of Bombay Badonkadonks.

Leonard: He got a cat to keep him company.

Raj: You’re kidding.

Leonard: He takes it everywhere, to bed, to the bathroom.

Raj: He takes the kitty to the potty?

Howard: I thought we discussed the P-word.

Raj: Don’t try to change me, dude. I am what I am.

Sheldon: Oh, gentlemen.

Howard: Hey. Aren’t you going to introduce us to your little friend?

Sheldon: My apologies. Raj, Howard, I’d like you to meet Dr. Robert Oppenheimer.

Howard: Hello.

Raj: Hi.

Sheldon: Now, if you’ll excuse me, the father of the atomic b*mb wants a saucer of milk.

Howard: Okay, I get it. We’re worried about Sheldon.

Leonard: Yeah.

Scene: The apartment. Leonard arrives.

Leonard: Hey. (Turns to see Sheldon now has five cats) Oh, no.

Sheldon: Robert Oppenheimer was lonely.

Leonard: So you decided to get the whole Manhattan Project?

Sheldon: Yes. This is Enrico Fermi, Richard Feynman, Edward Teller, Otto Frisch, and Zazzles.

Leonard: Zazzles?

Sheldon: I was going to name him Herman von Helmholtz, but he’s so zazzy.

Leonard: Okay, we need to talk.

Sheldon: About what?

Leonard: Cats, Sheldon. You’re clearly upset about Amy being gone, and you’re trying to replace her with a bunch of cats.

Sheldon: Clowder.

Leonard: What?

Sheldon: A group of cats is a clowder. Or a glaring.

Leonard: Okay, yeah, fine.

Sheldon: It’s the kind of thing you ought to know now that we have one.

Leonard: Terrific. My-my point is you need to face up to what you’re feeling with this breakup.

Sheldon: It wasn’t a breakup. A breakup would imply that Amy was my girlfriend.

Leonard: Okay, I got it, I got it, she’s not your girlfriend. Now listen to me. I know about loneliness. I know about trying to replace someone with other stuff. When I broke up with Penny, I got back into my cello, I built a bunch of model rockets, I got those weightlifting gloves and that five-pound dumbbell.

Sheldon: You didn’t break up, she dumped you.

Leonard: She didn’t dump me. It was mutual!

Sheldon: I was there. She dumped you.

Leonard: Okay, fine. Live with cats. Be like my Aunt Nancy. She had dozens of them. And do you know what happened after she d*ed? They ate her.

Sheldon: You don’t have to sell me on cats, Leonard. I’m already a fan. All right, fellas, who’s in the mood for Fancy Feast? Well, that’s not fancy at all.

Scene: The apartment.

Leonard: Hi, Mrs. Cooper. Thanks for coming.

Mrs Cooper: Where is he?

Leonard: He’s in his bedroom.

Mrs Cooper: Now, when you said on the phone he broke up with a girl, you meant an actual girl, not something you kids whipped up in a lab?

Leonard: No, she’s real.

Mrs Cooper: Did they sin?

Leonard: No, no, it’s not like that. It’s, uh, I don’t know what it’s like. But there is something I should prepare you for.

Mrs Cooper: Oh, relax, Leonard, I have raised that boy. I’ve seen him at his best, I’ve seen him at his worst. There’s nothing he can do that’ll surprise me.

Leonard: Hold on to that thought. (Knocks on Sheldon’s bedroom door)

Sheldon: Come in. (They enter. The room is full of cats.)

Leonard: Surprise.

Sheldon: Mom, what an unexpected pleasure.

Mrs Cooper: My, my, that’s a powerful smell.

Sheldon: I’d like you to meet Oppenheimer, Frisch, Panofsky, Feynman, Weisskopf…

Mrs Cooper: Yeah, I get it. You got a lot of cats and you gave ‘em cute Jewish names.

Sheldon: What are you doing here?

Mrs Cooper: Leonard called, and he said that you were pining for a young lady.

Sheldon: Oh, that’s preposterous. I’m not pining over anyone.

Mrs Cooper: Oh, lambchop, we can quibble what to call it, but I think we can both agree it’s creepy.

Sheldon: I do not agree. Cats make wonderful companions. They don’t argue or question my intellectual authority, and this little guy here, I think you’ll find to be quite zazzy.

Mrs Cooper: You should have called sooner.

Scene: The kitchen.

Mrs Cooper: Shelly! Dinner’s ready!

Sheldon: Coming!

Mrs Cooper: No cats!

Sheldon: Aw.(Enters to find Amy) What is she doing here?

Mrs Cooper: I called her.

Amy: Your mother thinks you might be losing your mind over me. As a neurobiologist, I was curious.

Sheldon: Well, rest assured, I am in full possession of my faculties.

Leonard (pretending to sneeze): 25 cats!

Mrs Cooper: Oh, God bless you, dear. Sheldon, sit down. Let’s talk.

Sheldon: All right, but you’re not fooling me. Whenever you say we have to talk, it means you want me to listen.

Mrs Cooper: Then stop talking.

Sheldon: Yes, ma’am.

Mrs Cooper: Now, the reason I called Amy over was to find out what type of person she is. And after chatting a bit, I have to say that while she is a perfectly unique young woman, you two are definitely not suited for each other.

Sheldon: That’s a peculiar conclusion. By any standard, Amy is more similar to me than anyone I’ve ever met.

Mrs Cooper: Oh, I’m sorry, Shelly, I can’t see it.

Sheldon: Well, whether you see it or not is irrelevant. I can’t see subatomic particles, but nevertheless, they’re there.

Amy: Excellent point.

Sheldon: A physics point.

Amy: Touche.

Mrs Cooper: Well, putting aside the pig Latin, it’s a good thing that you two decided to end the relationship so I didn’t have to end it for you.

Sheldon: Amy, after consideration, I believe we may have acted rashly. I propose we resume our relationship and attempt to resolve our differences.

Amy: I’ll agree to that only if you’ll stipulate that 80% of our difficulties were caused by you.

Sheldon: I’ll go as high as 40.

Amy: Sixty-five.

Sheldon: Done. You understand that moving forward, we deal with the fact that my mother does not approve of you?

Amy: I do. I find being cast in the role of bad girl oddly titillating.

Sheldon: Would you like to see my cats?

Amy: I would. I love cats. They’re the epitome of indifference.

Sheldon: Ah, then you may find Zazzles a little cloying.

Leonard: I saw what you did there.

Mrs Cooper: He thinks he’s such a smarty pants. He’s no different from any man. You tell ‘em not to do something, that’s all they want to do. If I hadn’t told my brother Stumpy not to clear out the wood chipper by hand, we’d still be calling him Edward. Now, don’t you move. I’ll bring over all the food.

Leonard: No, no, no, I can do it.

Mrs Cooper: Well, isn’t that sweet?

Scene: Outside. Sheldon is sitting at a table with a sign reading “Cats $20”)

Sheldon: Thank you, Amy. Here’s your cat. And here’s your $20.

Amy: Next!

Sheldon: Thank you, Amy. Here’s your cat. And here’s your $20.

Amy: Next!