by FREDERICA VON McTOAST-HYPHEN, Alternate Reality News Service People Writer
Police character who hands the lead detective the key piece of lab evidence Zooey Macadoo was giving a talk on "The Special Joy of Stopping Drunk Drivers" at a police officers convention and karoake smackdown in San Francisco when she started slurring her words. Soon, she was weaving all over the stage and threatening to smash into other speakers. When they realized this was not a demonstration of how to humiliate suspects who cannot walk a straight line, over 70 officers in attendance offered to give her a breathalyzer test; those who succeeded found that she had virtually no alcohol in her system.
Her mysterious behaviour may never have been explained if Macadoo hadn't received a call from her ex-husband, Josh Duchovearl, a couple of hours later saying that he was bombed and asking if she wouldn't mind picking him up from the bar he was sprawled out in front of. A bar in New York. "We were quantabangled," Macadoo explained over groups of officers singing "I Will Survive." "I mean quantum bageled. I mean...oh, shit!"
What she was trying to say was that Macadoo and Duchovearl had been quantum entangled.
"I don't think it works quite that way -" started New York installation artist Jonathon Keats.
Hold on, hold on just a moment, we told him. We have more exposition to get to.
Oshawa Planktons defenseman Boby Indruschuk was streaking past the blue line when he doubled over with cramps; this was around the same time that his wife, Andronicus, watching from their home in Val-de-Mer, started feeling the effects of her period. This allowed Quebec Nordiques forward Guy LaGuy to steal the puck and score. In a more dramatic universe, this goal would have been the difference in the game, but, as it happened, the Plankton stank like they had washed ashore and started to rot, and this was the fifth goal in an 8-0 rout.
Quantum entanglement connects two particles at a sub-atomic level. When particles are so entangled, what affects one will affect the other, no matter how far apart they are. Across the room or across the universe - it doesn't matter to quantum entangled particles. They're stubborn bastards that way.
"You know, I really hadn't intended for -" Keats tried again.
Please, have a little patience, we assured him. We'll get to you at the appropriate time in the article.
Bobby Trash was on stage with his band The Killing Succotash in South Bend, North Frogtown when he got a paper cut, which was odd considering the nearest piece of paper was three blocks away from the venue. Trash completely mangled the chord he was playing - much to the delight of the band's fans. After the show, he called his current wife, Demosthenes-Janie Trash, at their farm in Northern Southland and discovered that at about the time he felt the paper cut, she had actually cut her finger on a piece of paper she was using to print the first chapter of her memoirs of her time as the band's groupie. This discovery was the beginning of an acrimonious, not to mention mean-spirited, break-up.
Keats set up a particle beam splitter in an art gallery in New York and allowed married people to stand in the particle stream on one side or the other; all of the couples referred to above went through this process. This experience allowed the couples to be united on a much deeper level than a mere marriage certificate could. In fact, it was a surprise to Keats just how deeply the couples who participated in the work would become.
"What's the bloody point?" Keats asked. "You've already pretty much summed up everything I could say on the subject!"
All quantum processes are very delicate. This means -
"Oh, right. Okay, okay, I've got this one!" Keats interrupted us. "All anybody who wants to get out of a quantum entangled marriage has to do is become skeptical of the whole process. Simply stop believing, and you'll be returned to the whole level of reality that involves divorce, child custody and asset divisions."
"That's it?" Trash incredulously asked.
"That's all it takes?" Indruschuk couldn't believe it.
"Why the hell didn't you - hic! - tell us!" Macadoo asked, half-heartedly trying to slap Keats in the face and hitting a concrete wall a couple of metres and half a continent to his left. "Oww!"
"It was in the fine print in the catalog," Keats weakly responded. "Right after the page which thanked the sponsors, my parents and Nils Bohr!"
The installation has been shut down and, aside from the inevitable documentary about the experience, Keats claims that it will not be revived. However, rumours in Washington are that a certain political party is interested in using the technology to control its candidates for office.
"No comment," said Republican operative Karl Rove with a smirk.