I have learned how to communicate with a race whose language consists entirely of adverbs and the phrase "mac and cheese."
I have interviewed the developer of steel reinforced umbrellas in a world where flying electric sheep drop spent batteries on people's heads.
I have reported from a universe where consequences of actions were randomly passed on to strangers. If you overate, somebody else gained weight. If you committed a crime, somebody else went to jail. After 90 per cent of the human population died, the remainder learned to treat each other with a great deal of respect. The Golden Rule turned out to be a great life philosophy; all it needed was an enforcement mechanism.
I have read lengthy Cahiers du Cinema articles explaining why Timothy Dalton was the best James Bond.
I once covered a world where only autistic children were allowed to become the CEOs of Fortune 500 companies. That may sound cruel, but their economy was doing much better than ours...
I know why the caged fluffnagel sings.
I have watched as Jimmy Carter and Menachim Begin held a contest to see who could stand on their hands the longest.
I was once sent to a barren universe where the rocks sing songs that are so sad that any single-celled life forms that develop immediately kill themselves. (When I got back, I had to spend six months in hospital, smartass.)
I was once sent to write about the avatar of a CFO who was selling the company's stock short behind his human counterpart's back. They'll be writing about this case in the business press for decades; a whole new business journal and several popular magazines were created just to report on it.
I have been in a world where human beings evolved with a third arm - it came out of the chest - which made breastfeeding easier, wrestling a very different sport and being left-handed a much less sinister condition.
I have met people whose Bible consisted entirely of Rorschach ink blots. You may scoff, but in over 2,000 years, they have never initiated a war...
Have you ever tried to speak Pig Klingon? It rips apart your vocal cords and hurts your brain! I know!
I've explored a universe where dreams go to die - it was a nightmare!
I've written about a reality in which X-Ray Specs actually allowed people to see through objects (walls, clothes, combustion engines, what have you). They were banned minutes after being made publicly available, not because they caused cancer of the eyeballs (that connection wouldn't actually be proven for 30 years), but because they "offended the common decency." After several years of futile effort, the United States of Vespucca legalized X-Ray Specs, but insisted that each one be sold with a chip that tested the skin of the wearer and would only work for those over 18. You don't want to know how it determined that they were over 18.
I have reported on gas giants - a race of people 20 feet tall who can't control their flatulence - who debated issues of environmental protection as drought was slowly killing their planet.
I have met Rush Limbaugh's inner child. I would strongly urge people with small pets to keep them away from it.
I once sold my left lung to get a story about political corruption on a world where selling your organs was legal. But, were the Alternate Reality News Service accountants willing to let me expense it?
I spent several months in a world where people went to the bathroom in public, but ate food in private. Or, did I see that in a movie? Or...both?
I was once in a universe where you could get anything you wanted...as long as it was green.
I remember when the robots designed to carve promotional messages in the lunar dust were hacked into and carved a huge pair of butt cheeks on the moon. Tabloid headline writers had a field day describing what had happened.
Yes, I've seen it all. And, I can't keep track of it anymore. When I'm riding on the bus, I expect a distinctly non-extinct, evolved dinosaur to sit next to me and try and convince me that the war in Iraq was necessary. When I'm making breakfast in the morning, I have to remind myself that the toaster will not report how many pieces I make to the Diet Police. No matter how often I remind myself that they do not exist in this reality, I see frustrums.
Can anybody tell me what, in this universe, is real? Please? Anybody?
Arturo Bigbangbootie, the Alternate Reality News Service's Transdimensional Traffic Writer, has been given an indefinite leave of absence for reasons of mental health.