by MAJUMDER SAKRASHUMINDERATHER, Alternate Reality News Service Education Writer
By day, he's a dweeb, shuffling under the weight of a backpack full of physics textbooks to his astronomy club meeting, sad and alone. Jocks knock him down, but forget they've done so even as they're walking over his prone body. Cheerleaders at his school don't bother spitting on him, since they might at some undetermined point in the future be stranded in the desert and need the saliva.
At night, though, he's a dweeb, shuffling under the weight of a backpack full of physics textbooks to his math club meeting who has to fend off all the prettiest girls in his high school, high schools in several other parts of the city and even the local community college using a combination of awkward karate moves and proofs of Fermat's Last Theorem. What has changed?
He's using Axxxe IQ body spray for men.
"It's ama - oww! Get off me! - amazing!" enthused Arnold "Lonely Destiny" McSchwartzberg. "I didn't know - hey! Watch the braces - WATCH THE BRACES! I didn't know there were so many fashion models in the world, and now I'm practically drowning in them!"
Thanks to a massive advertising campaign before movies, on television and in the pages of Marvel's Bonecrusher the X Spider Barbarian (tremendously) graphic novel, Axxxe IQ body spray has become the most popular spray on intelligence product in parts of the world that cannot afford to raise their IQ the old-fashioned way (using financial incentives to encourage Japanese students to emigrate). But, how does it actually work?
"It's really very simple," explained Doctor Philogenesis Nardwar, eyes blinking rapidly. "Chemicals in the aerosol spray travel up nerve endings to the spinal cord, where they eventually migrate to the brain, often causing an increase in synaptic activity that, if taken advantage of by an attentive person, can improve cognitive function. Over time, this could lead to permanent changes in the structure of the right hemisphere of the brain, particularly the corpus callosum, that might result in an elevated Intelligence Quotient."
Using Morse Code for Dummies, I translated Dr. Nardwar's blinking. It told a very different story: "I can't believe I'm spouting this bullshit! There are so many qualifications in this statement you could use it on a ham and Swiss sandwich! What happened to me? When I became a doctor, I wanted to make a difference in the world. Now, I'm very rich, but I'm dead inside..."
Some educators are worried that Axxxe IQ body spray will give students who use it an unfair advantage. "They'll use it through school," high school finger painting ethics teacher Portia Installatio explained, adjusting her gas mask to make it easier for her to speak out of. "Maybe even college. But, sooner or later, they will settle down, get married and not need to pretend to be intelligent any more. Do you want people running your corporations or government who faked their way through school thanks to spray on IQ?"
I was about to suggest that that was the norm before the invention of spray on IQ, but Installatio pulled dramatically on her gas mask, indicating that I would have to stay late after the interview if I was going to be a smartass. I looked bashful as she scratched around the strap of the gas mask, by which I understood that she did not approve of the first sentence of the previous paragraph, which didn't really set up the quote, and suggested that I add "in life, if not in their schoolwork" to the end of it.
I was 12 years old again.
"No, but, they're not pretending," Dr. Nardwar responded. "They really are smarter. Our painstaking research - which I would love to share with you, because it truly is amazing, but corporate secrecy and all that et cetera - proves that beyond a shadow of a doubt. If most of the roles that they will be assigned as adults do not require intelligence, surely that is not the responsibility of Axxxe Incorporated, its wholly owned subsidiaries, its partially owned subsidiaries, its corporate partners, its employees, assigns or chattels!"
His furiously blinking eyes told a different story, however: "Nothing could possibly compensate for the emptiness of realizing I have become a pimp with a PhD."
This raises many questions, but the one we'll pursue here is: does spray on IQ really work? Placido Installatio (no relation), an environmental stewardess, has conducted an independent study that showed that people who used Axxxe IQ body spray had no discernible increase in intelligence. "And, the people who used it the most were the people who needed it the most!"
Installatio explained that the placebo (literally: "what a sucker!") effect makes people think they're smarter for a while. "You would be surprised," she stated, "how many people have had to be treated in the emergency ward of their local hospital for brain inkjuries because they thought they were intelligent enough to do the New York Times crossword puzzle...in pen!"
"Yeah, I used it for six months," high school senior Arnold Amaranto Junior said. "I thought I'd be so smart that ninja babes would beat each other off with shuriken to get close to me. Hunh! My sister told me that babes stayed away because they could smell me from half a mile away! I realized that being attractive to ninjas can't come from an aerosol can.
"Hey! Maybe using Axxxe IQ body spray made me smarter after all!"