Psychotic Mice Demand Cheese Boots

ice genetically engineered to be psychotic by researchers at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center have refused to go on with testing this week, threatening to bring the program to a halt until they are given the “cheese boots� they so desire. The mice, bred to be insane by the mutation of two genes, have been used in a series of experiments over the last two months researchers hoped would shed new light on schizophrenia and its genetic components, information that could one day aid in treatment and prevention of the debilitating mental illness.

Researchers are uncertain where the mice got the idea about cheese boots, but insist that the mice are “fucking nuts� if they think the UT team is going to devote hours to carving tiny mouse boots out of cheddar cheese.

Since the mice made their original demand they have become belligerent and uncooperative, refusing to take part in various insanity-measuring trials. The mice’s normal routine involve tests of “crazy-maze� navigation, spatial perception in relation to tiny carnival funhouse mirrors, and proper differentiation between funny mouse movies, like Mouse Hunt, and serious mouse movies, like Stuart Little or The Mouse and the Motorcycle.

When asked how one can tell a psychotic mouse from a normal, sane mouse, project head Dean Sarcanon explained that the sane mice are the ones that don’t have “that crazy look in their eyes.� Additionally, researchers have observed the psychotic mice acting erratically, avoiding social situations, and combing their hair with their testicles.

The mice, which communicate with researchers through a series of small metal levers that correspond to musical tones, repeated their demands for cheese boots Monday, and then spent the rest of the day playing “Hot Cross Buns� on the musical levers.

Researchers hope the mice will eventually soften their demands and settle for more realistic and less difficult to produce items, such as cheese hats, instead.

“Oh yeah, we can make cheese hats,� explained lab technician Arthur Keys. “No problem. I’ve already made a few to show the mice how nice they are.�

Keys demonstrated for the commune a series of fashionable cheese hat prototypes he had created in his spare time, each of which was lovely.

“It’s really pretty simple,� explained Keys. “You take a cheesy cracker, like a Cheez-It or even better, a Ched-Unk, and attach a little wedge of brie on top here with a hot glue gun.�

“The hardest part is making the tiny chin strap,� Keys solemnly intoned, with an entirely straight face. “That’s where I really earn my $17,000 a year.�

As the story has gained national attention, UT researchers have come under pressure to concede to the cheese boot demands, a move that project head Sarcanon believes would be a grave mistake.

“Once you bend over backwards to make these mice cheese boots, then were does it end?� Sarcanon asked, shrugging his shoulders. “You have to remember, these are crazy mice we’re talking about here. What are they going to ask for next? Little biker jackets made out of provolone? A Minnie Mouse blow-up doll? What if they want a tiny piñata party, how do we pull that off?�

According to other researchers on the team, the mice don’t like Sarcanon, and regularly play the notes F-A-G on their musical levers when he enters the room. Although Sarcanon claims to be a good sport about this, he did seem strangely pissy when this reporter joined in on kazoo.

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I received an angry reader email this week, which for the first time in my life didn't involve Viagra, my Superbowl predictions, or a time share in the Balkans, so I thought I'd grant it some precious column time here. Concerned reader Munay Dubutu of the Bronx recently moved to these friendly shores from the decidedly unfriendly shores of Namibia, and is pissed off that his toilet water is spinning the wrong way. Though he has attempted to remedy this problem by purchasing a special spinning toilet, Munay finds the fact that his water now just goes straight down to be vaguely unsatisfying. How, Munay asks, has the government managed to control his water and where can he buy a gun? After I explained to Munay that guns are readily available on most New York street corners, I realized there were probably other poor, huddled mass-like readers out there wondering why water drains counterclockwise in the Northern Hemisphere, yet clockwise in the pagan Southern Hemisphere.

I'm glad somebody finally asked this question, because I'm sick as a dog of listening to well-meaning momos give the incorrect answer in bars and at science symposiums. The reason for the bathtub drain (or toilet, or record player for that matter) switcheroo is because the earth itself rotates counterclockwise in the Northern Hemisphere, and clockwise in the Southern. The government has kept this mostly a secret for years, to keep people from flocking to the equator to check this shit out in person. But it is nevertheless truthy. For this reason, crossing the equator has proved a dangerous proposition for travelers since the beginning of time, challenging daring souls to leap across the equator with the hope that they timed their jump well enough to end up in the part of the Southern Hemisphere they wanted to get to.

Since the earth rotates at 1,000 miles an hour in the Northern Hemisphere, and 1,200 mph in the Southern (slightly faster due to the bottom half of the earth being lighter), crossing the equator is similar to attempting to jump onto a train going 2,200 miles an hour, a daunting task in itself that has produced more than a few hobo pancakes. To make matters worse, timing your jump is always a bit of a roulette gamble, since entire countries are only lined up for a few minutes out of the day, plus you don't want to jump into some other-hemisphere-fleeing douchebag who's trying to jump across the opposite way at the same time. Coconut-sounding skull collisions and severely bruised egos often result, much to the glee of the audiences that gather at the most-popular equator crossings.

Complex systems have developed in equatorial nations to cope with Earth's geological quirk, including the brave mailmen who hand off letters and packages across the divide, often suffering decapitative papercuts and parcel burns in the process. And a special prayer must be said for the unlucky souls who live on one side of the equator and work on the other, making the dangerous commute twice daily. Few can forget the story of the Brazilian meter reader who was late to work one day and carelessly jumped across the equator into the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. Thankfully, someone in Indonesia was able to throw him a life preserver and a hot dog several minutes later, and some relatives with a hook grabbed him the next day. But others are not so lucky, leading to a booming casket and wall-scraping business in most equatorial towns.

This phenomena is especially challenging for ships at sea, since the unwary sailor can easily shipwreck on a beach that wasn't there a second ago, or sometimes even into downtown Singapore. Even when they do manage to time it right and hit the fat part of the ocean, ships still have to contend with the sudden 2,200 mph change in velocity and direction, which all throughout history has led to the kind of rollover fatalities the world wouldn't see again until the Suzuki Samurai. There's a very slim margin for error in crossing the equator in a boat: either you get the timing and angle just right and hold on for the 2,200 mph ride of your life, or you die very, very suddenly.

Even in the modern era, planes have difficulty compensating for the equatorial rotation shift. Say you're late taking off from Heathrow because some tit had an expired salami in his luggage, on a flight to Ecuador. You try to make up some time by cutting in line on the runway and burning your special reserve tank of Dave's Insanity Fuel, but still, by the time you get to where Ecuador should be, it's the Democratic Republic of Congo. Shit. Then your navigator's got to figure out the best way to get to Ecuador from the Congo, if you should just turn right or if it would be faster to hop back across the equator and fly the other way until Ecuador comes back around again. Then your navigator and your copilot get in an argument over which half is spinning which way that you have to settle by drawing a diagram and twirling your hands in opposite directions, which makes you nauseous and you crash in the Congo and are eaten by bush people. Government scientists believe this to have been the fate of most of the vessels lost in the famous "Bermuda Triangle."

Law enforcement is especially difficult near the equator, since villains on the run can always leap across the equator to safety, much like screen-side warp zones in Pac-Man. Unless the felon spends the next 24 hours sitting in that very spot gloating, or comes back the next day to show a friend exactly where he outsmarted the fuzz, the police are unlikely to ever see him again.

Television ratings, employment rates, and sporting event attendance are also especially poor near the equator, since people in equatorial towns spend most of their time sitting in lawn chairs, watching the world whiz by at incredible speeds, and pointing out people they recognize. Some have even developed friendships with "other-siders" over the years, in spite of the limitation of only being able to shout one word to each other every day, usually "Hi!"

Now you know why your toilet water spins the way it does. The only question that remains is why you spend so much time staring into the toilet. For that answer, I refer you to a licensed professional.

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Thanks to an unprecedented number of Jurassic Park sequels, the BBC's "educational" series Walking with Dinosaurs, and countless truly putrid CGI dinosaur DVDs aimed at children, these terrible ugly beasts of yore have never been more popular. However, none of these irresponsible Hollywood types with their sexy and exciting CGI tools will tell you the real secret truth about these terrible beasts: Dinosaurs were boring.

Take for example the Snorasaurus, the most boring dinosaur ever to walk the earth. The Snorasaurus spent his days sitting in the mud, staring straight ahead and giving no indication whatsoever that it was alive or dead. Eventually, the Snorasaurus would evolve into his modern-day cousin, the legendary boring pet the iguana.

Clearly, the public has been sold a bill of goods about dinosaurs and how exciting they supposedly were. Few will tell you the truth about the Disappointadocus, the most overrated dinosaur ever to live, or his cousin, Hypalamus. That doesn't fit into their neat little "dinosaurs were awesome" worldview.

Few dinosaur lovers today would be loving it if they crossed paths with the Australopithasaur, an Aussie dinosaur known for its withering, pithy tone and general bitchy demeanor. This miserable beast was closely related to Cockbastaranus, the "Asshole Lizard" whom annoyed all others and was often killed by other dinosaurs as a matter of principle, in spite of its inedible meat, which was uniformly stringy and bitter.

The most famous disappointing dinosaur of all, however, was the Tyrannosaurus Rex, the "Terrible Lizard." And in this case, the name was perfectly fitting, as the Tyrannosaurus was uniformly terrible at hunting, fighting, mating, and all other dinosaur activities. This hapless creature was also known as the biggest pussy in all of nature. In spite of its impressive size and terrifying appearance, the Tyrannosaurus was easily frightened by other dinosaurs, birds, ground squirrels, and the sound of the wind rustling through tree branches. Because of his incredible cowardice, the Tyrannosaurus spent most of his time running away from various threats, real or imagined, and hiding among bushes and shrubberies.

These weren't the only miserable dinosaurs of course, as the unfortunate roll call goes on and on. Few scientists care to remember the Oshitodon, a dinosaur known for causing problems it would then blame on other dinosaurs. Most consider this clumsy oaf of nature best left forgotten.

Possibly the strangest of the dinosaurs was the Nonudodon, a dinosaur with a paralyzing fear of nudity, which would fashion strange, primitive articles of clothing out of branches, rocks, pelts and the patchwork skins of other dinosaurs. These modest creatures were often only seen at night, foraging on the forest floor for accessories.

Despite the claims of a few pissy scientists bent on ruining the fun for everyone else, dinosaurs and early man did in fact coexist, and they threw wild parties. Early man loved nothing more than getting dinosaurs piss drunk on fermented goat milk, and this led directly to early man's nomadic nature, since nobody wanted to hang around camp anymore after the dinosaurs had started barfing all over the place.

Dinosaurs did pose a special problem for early man, however, since many early cave-dwellers were trampled by Tyrannosaurus that were running away from threateningly-shaped clouds in the sky. Eventually, early man had to take to traveling around in giant man-sized boots with foot holes cut out of the bottom, knowing dinosaurs would never step in the boots because lizards don't wear shoes.

But how did all these dinosaurs get their names? After the discovery of strange reptile fossils in 1857, Sir Edward Albey named the theoretical beasts Agranamapeus, which is Latin for "Ahhhhh! Ahhhhhhhhhhh! ArrggggaaaaahhhhhhhHh!" Sir Dingus Reily found this name to be accurate, though lacking in social graces, and proposed instead the name dinosaur, Latin for "Lizards so big you'd totally shit."

Unfortunately, the names of dinosaurs have often reflected the biases of the scientists doing the discovering, especially in less-enlightened historical times. Case in point is the Beaneramus, a small herbivore once commonly found in the land that is now Mexico. Thankfully, modern-day scientists have taken the liberty to give this beast the more politically-correct name of the Labambadon.

Likewise with the Krautosaur of Southern Germany, the bi-curious Fagodon, the McSaurus of Scotland, and the Frogonomin, the French "bird of meat" that once terrified the part of the skies that is located very near to the ground.

Now that you know the truth, do a good deed today and spread the disappointing word to all the small children you can find, before they get all carried away.

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