SF Chapter 35: The Luminous Fish Effects
Days later, the group of scientists attended a Caltech dinner with a few guests from the university where they worked.
"This is so nice!" Alex Dunphy said excitedly as she walked beside her two cousins.
Leonard smiled. "I'm glad you like it."
But his roommate cut in with his usual pompous tone. "Really? Because all you showed her were lasers and other small demonstrations. You didn't show her the real science."
"Sheldon," Leonard gritted his teeth.
Meanwhile, Daniel leaned closer to Raj and whispered, "Really? She's thirteen… and you still can't talk to her?"
The Indian man shook his head helplessly, and the two stepped aside.
That's when Raj's demeanor suddenly changed. He smiled broadly. "Oh God, look at this buffet. I love America." He immediately began piling food onto his plate.
"You don't have buffets in India?" Daniel inquired.
"Of course we do," Raj replied, "but it's all Indian food. You can't find a bagel in Mumbai to save your life. Or beef."
Daniel raised an eyebrow. "Isn't your religion supposed to forbid eating beef? Something about cows being sacred?" He had seen him eat it plenty of times before.
Raj countered, "Isn't your religion forbidden from having sex before marriage?"
"Hey!" Dani protested. "Some rules make sense, some are crazy. I totally see a reason to venerate the cow."
"I wonder if that's why I love the cowgirl so much," he smirked.
Raj played along. "There's also the cow position, which you sinners call doggy style."
Daniel laughed. "Well your country created the Kama Sutra. I will use it!"
"Yeah, now I just need to put it into practice," Raj murmured, a bit self-deprecating.
The two stopped talking when the other three approached them as well, heading for the buffet.
Before they could say anything, Sheldon remarked, "Well, here's an interesting turn of events."
"What?" Leonard turned around. "Howard brought a date?" He was surprised, staring at the two people who had just arrived.
His roommate offered an observation. "A more plausible explanation is that his work in robotics has made an astonishing leap forward."
"Hey, what up, science bitches?" Howard walked over with a girl much taller than him at his side. "May I introduce my special lady friend, Summer."
The blonde whispered, loud enough for everyone to hear, "Howard, I told you, touching's extra."
"Right. Sorry," the short Jewish man nodded, removing his hand from her waist.
"Here comes our new boss," Leonard said as he spotted a man walking toward them. "Be polite." He added, looking pointedly at his roommate.
[Leonard and Sheldon commentary]
"We came to the university dinner to honor the new head of Caltech's physics department, Dr. Gablehauser," Leonard said, sitting on the front bench of the event hall.
"I also took the opportunity to invite my cousin Alex to give her a tour of the university, since I owed her one," he explained. "And Dani brought her here."
"About our new boss…"
Sheldon, who was sitting beside him to his left, cut him off. "He is a fortunate individual, since the university has chosen to hire him… despite the fact that he has done no original research in the last twenty-five years…"
The physicist continued, "…and has instead written books that reduce the great concepts of science to anecdotes, each one dumbed down to accommodate the duration of an average bowel movement."
"Ohh, I have a bad feeling about this..." Leonard muttered.
[Commentary ends]
"Hi, fellas." The older man approached them. "Eric Gablehauser."
"Howard Wolowitz."
"Howard, nice to meet you," Eric shook his hand, then turned to the taller physicist. "And you are?"
"An actual, real scientist," Sheldon replied, turning to his roommate. "How was that?"
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"I can't believe he fired me," Sheldon complained as he climbed the steps to his apartment, holding a cardboard box with his belongings.
Daniel, who was walking up with him, snorted. "And I can't believe you worked there for so long without getting fired sooner."
He laughed. "You called your new boss a glorified science teacher… whose last successful experiment was lighting his own farts."
"In my defense," Sheldon said, staring at him, "I prefaced that by saying, 'with all due respect.'"
"Yeah, how did that work out?" Daniel replied, dripping with sarcasm - not that Sheldon would understand.
"Here we are. Your place. Now, excuse me, I'm going to 'talk,'" he made air quotes, "with your neighbor."
He ignored Sheldon's confused expression. Daniel accepted his cousin's offer to take Alex back home, while he returned with the unemployed C-3PO.
He didn't have to go all the way to the Dunphy house and back, but he did have to listen to Sheldon whining the entire way.
But Penny made up for all that 'sacrifice' later that night.
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The next morning, Leonard stepped out of the hallway. "Morning."
"Morning." Daniel was already at his laptop, typing frantically.
"Morning," Sheldon replied as well, standing by the stove and stirring a frying pan with a wooden spoon.
Leonard glanced at what he was doing. "You're making eggs for breakfast?"
"This isn't breakfast. It's an experiment," his roommate corrected.
"Oh. Because it looks a lot like breakfast."
"I finally have time to test my hypothesis regarding the separation of water molecules from egg proteins and its impact vis-à-vis taste," Sheldon explained.
But suddenly, Daniel exclaimed, "I request the highest of fives!" Finally quoting a line he hadn't used in a while.
His cousin stepped closer and gave him a high five.
"So?" Leonard asked.
"I like how you high‑fived me before even knowing why. That's what family and a bro does," Dani smirked, patting him on the shoulder.
"I finally finished Superbad!" He revealed.
"Congratulations!!"
The cousins chatted for a bit, until Leonard returned to yesterday's topic, glancing at his roommate.
"You know, Sheldon, I'm sure if you just apologize to Gablehauser, he'd give you your job back."
"I don't want my job back," Sheldon dismissed the idea. "I've spent three and a half years staring at grease boards full of equations."
He went on, "Before that, I spent four years working on my thesis. Before that, I was in college, and before that I was in the fifth grade."
"This is my first day off in decades, and I'm going to savor it," he concluded, turning back to the stove.
"Hey, why don't you run an experiment on how to make Penny's apartment more organized?" Daniel suggested, since she had already managed to mess everything up again.
"But without breaking into her place in the middle of the night…" he added.
Sheldon shook his head. "That is a lost cause. I will focus on more productive things."
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