Yankee Poodle
The Smell of L’Amour
by Comickook
Yankee Poodle has been dating Pepe Le Pew, alias Skirt Chaser, for a few weeks now. Can their new relationship endure when Rova Barkitt decides to play a practical joke on Valentine’s Day?
***
Valentine’s Day on Earth-C:
Rova Barkitt had just adorned one of her best gowns for her date with Pepe Le Pew, alias the Skirt Chaser, one of a few temporarily dimension-stranded members of the Earth-L super-team known as the Looney Society of Toomerica. (*) Yankee Poodle and the suave super-speeding skunk had been seeing each other steadily for a little while now, but this would be their first Valentine’s Day together.
[(*) Editor’s note: See Captain Carrot and the Zoo Crew: Crisis on Earth-L.]
Precisely ten minutes before their date started, Pepe, garbed in a very nice black tuxedo that was protected from the friction of his super-speed by his special aura, sped over to Rova’s home in Beaverly Hills to greet her at the door. He carried a bouquet of roses, carefully wrapped to protect the flowers from his super-skunk spray.
As Rova saw the suave Pepe Le Pew approach the door with confidence, she thought that this odorous but amorous acceleration ace seemed a little too sure of himself. Thus, she decided to play a little joke on him, since they still had some time before their dinner reservation. Pulling down the bedroom window shades and leaving on just enough light for the super-speeding sprayer to see shadows, Rova then took a dummy in the shape of a burly gorilla and said aloud, “Why, Joe, dah-ling. I never knew you were this interested in me.”
Pepe looked in on the shadows with a look of concern, but decided to wait and see where this was going before he either rushed in or left.
Disguising her voice and using her animal magnetism — aimed just low enough so that Pepe couldn’t see the stars and stripes from the window — to make it look like the dummy was moving, Rova then said in a deeper voice, “Indeed, Rova. How could I help feeling about you the way that I do?”
Then, in her normal voice, she replied, “I’m flattered, but I’m afraid I already have a date for the evening.” With this, Pepe Le Pew let out a smile and prepared to ring the bell.
He stopped when Rova, disguising her voice once more, said, “I don’t care about that, Rova. Nobody spurns ‘Mighty’ Joe Youngorilla. That skunk will have to wait his turn.” She used a convincingly jealous tone, cranking up her animal magnetism slightly to give the illusion that the gorilla was pouncing on her at an incredibly fast rate.
Suddenly, concern for Rova getting the better of him, the Skirt Chaser zoomed up the wall of her home to Rova’s bedroom window, pried the window open slightly, and tried unleashing a spray on the ape. Holding her breath throughout the spray barrage, Rova made it look like Joe was somehow immune to Pepe’s spray attack. Surprised about how ineffective the attack seemed to be, Pepe made up his mind to nail this massively muscled masher with a thousand-mile-per-hour haymaker, opening Rova’s window the rest of the way so he could enter.
After opening the window all the way, however, Pepe could see that the so-called masher was just a dummy with a microphone rigged up. One look in Rova’s eyes ensured that the scene was played merely as a joke to kill some time before their date. Though Pepe was a little annoyed about being tricked, that teasing but loving look in Rova’s eyes made it impossible for the super-speedster skunk to stay mad at her, which he proved by presenting her with the flowers he intended for her anyway.
“And zey call me a stinker, no?” Pepe Le Pew said with a sheepish grin.
Without further ado, the skunk and poodle then made their way to the restaurant where they had a reservation. Oddly enough, as popular as the restaurant was, within a few minutes it was nearly abandoned except for Pepe, Rova, and the staff, and even all of the staff were now wearing gas masks. “You are zee rarest flower I have ever known, Rova,” Pepe said with pleasant surprise. “You do not seem as affected by my super-spray as so many of ze other members of zee fairer gender.”
“Well, truth be known, Pepe, dah-ling, you have saved my life more than once, and you still smell better than half of the animals I have had to wine and dine to get interviews with,” Rova answered honestly as the waiter presented them with their menu. “Some of those animals, sheeesh. Just getting within five feet of them is an act of supreme heroism.”
Following dinner, the two super-animals made their way to the nearest theater to watch a movie. As Rova Barkitt and Pepe Le Pew entered the theater lobby, everybody else cleared the way like the Rat Seas parting for Mouses.
Besides, dating a super-skunk does have the advantage of us usually having entire restaurants and theaters to ourselves when we prefer to have some privacy, Rova thought to herself with a grin as they went in to see the movie.
The End