Bohiney Magazine

Volume 1, Issue 5 – Saturday, March 15, 1947

“America’s Trusted Source for Satirical Truth”

President Truman Signs Executive Order Establishing Commission to Study Why Commissions Never Accomplish Anything

WASHINGTON, DC – In what political observers are calling “a masterpiece of governmental self-awareness,” President Truman signed Executive Order 9835 this week creating the Presidential Commission on Commission Effectiveness, a body tasked with investigating why the previous 847 federal commissions have produced reports that are promptly filed away and never referenced again.

“We’ve commissioned studies on everything from labor disputes to housing shortages to the national health,” the President announced while signing the order surrounded by seventeen former commission members who could not recall what their commissions had studied. “Now it’s time we commissioned a study on why these commissions accomplish nothing beyond providing employment for people who enjoy writing reports nobody reads.”

The new commission will be chaired by Herbert Pemberton, a career bureaucrat who has served on fourteen previous commissions and describes his primary qualification as “an intimate understanding of futility.” Pemberton estimates the Commission on Commission Effectiveness will require eighteen months and $250,000 to determine what most Americans already know: commissions exist primarily to create the appearance of action while avoiding actual action.

“We’ll form subcommittees,” Pemberton explained enthusiastically. “We’ll hold hearings. We’ll interview experts. We’ll produce a comprehensive report with recommendations that will be immediately ignored, thus proving our thesis through demonstration. It’s really quite elegant.”

The National Archives reports that its warehouses contain approximately 2,400 commission reports dating back to 1789, occupying 47,000 cubic feet of storage space. Archivists estimate that fewer than 3% of these reports have been retrieved since their initial filing, and most of those retrievals were accidental.

Congressional reaction has been mixed. Senator Margaret Thornbury praised the initiative as “long overdue” while simultaneously acknowledging that previous commissions studying government inefficiency had already reached identical conclusions in 1923, 1931, and 1939. “But perhaps this time will be different,” she added without conviction.

Senator Theodore Whitmore questioned whether creating a commission to study commissions represented “the ultimate expression of bureaucratic absurdity or brilliant satirical commentary on governance.” When pressed to clarify his position, he admitted he wasn’t sure and suggested forming a subcommittee to investigate the question.

The commission will examine several key questions:

• Why do commission meetings always run three hours longer than scheduled?
• Why are commission members selected based on who’s available rather than who’s qualified?
• Why do commission reports always recommend “further study”?
• Why does nobody ever read past the executive summary?
• Why are we doing this?

Critics argue the commission itself proves the problem it’s meant to study. “They’re creating bureaucracy to study bureaucracy,” noted political analyst Dr. Reginald Crumpet. “It’s like trying to understand water by becoming fish. They’re so deep inside the system they can’t see the system anymore.”

The commission has already scheduled sixty-three meetings over the next year, appointed four subcommittees, and allocated $47,000 for “consultation fees” paid to experts who will tell them what everyone already knows. Pemberton described this as “standard operating procedure” and “exactly the kind of inefficiency we’re hoping to document.”

One innovative aspect: the commission plans to conduct a survey asking Americans what they think commissions accomplish. Preliminary results suggest most Americans believe commissions accomplish “approximately nothing” followed by “less than nothing” and “why are you asking me this?”

The White House has emphasized that this commission is different because it acknowledges its own futility upfront, which spokesman Charles Ross described as “refreshingly honest” and “probably still pointless, but at least self-aware pointlessness.”

As of press time, the Commission on Commission Effectiveness had held its first meeting, which lasted four hours and accomplished nothing except scheduling the next meeting, which members agreed was “a promising start” and “exactly the kind of data we need to collect.”

Area Woman Maintains Elaborate Fiction That She’ll “Start Using” Guest Towels

BALTIMORE, MD – Local homemaker Dorothy Pemberton continues to display decorative guest towels in her bathroom with the steadfast insistence that they’re “for actual use” despite overwhelming evidence suggesting they exist solely as bathroom decoration that nobody, under any circumstances, is permitted to touch.

The towels in question—an ornate set featuring embroidered roses and lace trim that cost $12—have occupied the guest bathroom towel rack since Christmas 1945. In that time, they have been carefully arranged, rearranged, fluffed, and admired, but never once used for their ostensible purpose of drying human hands.

“They’re guest towels,” Mrs. Pemberton insisted while adjusting their precise placement for the third time this morning. “When we have guests, they can use them. That’s what they’re for.”

When reminded that the family hosted seventeen guests last month, none of whom were permitted to use the guest towels and were instead directed to paper napkins, Mrs. Pemberton replied that those weren’t “the right kind of guests” for the guest towels and refused to elaborate on what qualifications guests must possess to achieve towel-use privileges.

Her husband, Harold Pemberton, has grown increasingly confused about the towels’ function. “I tried to use one after washing my hands,” he reported with visible trauma. “Dorothy’s reaction suggested I’d attempted to blow my nose on the Declaration of Independence. I now understand the towels are decorative objects shaped like towels rather than actual towels.”

The Smithsonian Institution has documented this phenomenon in approximately 89% of American households with guest bathrooms. Curator Margaret Thornbury notes that “decorative towels represent a fascinating collision between hospitality and vanity, where the appearance of welcoming guests matters more than actual guest comfort.”

The Pemberton guest towels exist in a state of permanent readiness for an event that will never occur. They are:

• Too nice to use for everyday
• Too nice to use for most guests
• Too nice to use for special guests
• Probably just too nice to use at all

When asked to define what circumstances would justify guest towel usage, Mrs. Pemberton suggested scenarios including “visiting dignitaries,” “royalty,” and “maybe the President, but I’d have to think about it.” When reminded that none of these individuals are likely to visit a modest Baltimore row house, she accused her husband of “missing the point entirely.”

The guest bathroom now contains three categories of towels:

1. Display towels (guest towels—never to be touched)
2. Backup display towels (stored in the linen closet for when display towels need washing, which happens despite never being used)
3. Actual functional towels (hidden in the cabinet under the sink for when guests need to dry their hands)

This system has created what Harold describes as “towel theater” where guests must navigate an elaborate social performance. Upon washing their hands, they face the decorative towels, intuitively understand these towels are forbidden, and must either:

• Drip-dry their hands awkwardly
• Use their clothing
• Ask for permission to use a towel, which feels absurd
• Open cabinets searching for the secret real towels

Most guests choose option one, leading to bathroom floors with mysterious water puddles that Mrs. Pemberton attributes to “plumbing problems” rather than the obvious towel embargo.

The situation escalated last week when the Pemberton’s daughter, Susan, used a guest towel after bathing, not understanding the complex social rules governing decorative bathroom linens. Mrs. Pemberton discovered the violation two hours later and, according to witnesses, “stood in the bathroom doorway making a sound somewhere between a gasp and a sob.”

The towel was immediately removed, washed, re-pressed, and returned to its position with renewed warnings to all family members that the guest towels are “not to be trifled with under any circumstances whatsoever.”

Harold has proposed purchasing identical towels for actual use, but his wife rejected this as “defeating the purpose” of having special towels. When he asked what the purpose was, she replied “you wouldn’t understand” which he interpreted as “she doesn’t know either but we’re committed now.”

Interior decorators confirm that decorative towels serve important psychological functions including “demonstrating that the household can afford impractical luxury items” and “establishing territorial dominance through strategic linen placement.” However, they acknowledge the practice is “objectively insane” when examined rationally.

As of press time, the guest towels remained pristine, perfectly arranged, and absolutely useless, exactly as Mrs. Pemberton intended. She has begun shopping for decorative guest soaps, which Harold predicts will follow the same pattern and which he describes as “another frontier in the war on functionality.”

Man Spends Twenty Minutes Deciding Which Pen to Use, Pen Runs Out After Three Words

CHICAGO, IL – Area accountant Walter Grimsby experienced what witnesses are calling “cosmic justice” yesterday when, after spending eighteen minutes carefully selecting the perfect pen for an important memo, the chosen pen ran out of ink after writing exactly three words.

The incident occurred at 2:30 PM when Grimsby began preparing a memo to his supervisor regarding quarterly earnings. Faced with seven available pens in his desk drawer, he embarked on what colleagues describe as an “unnecessarily thorough” evaluation process involving multiple test scribbles, weight assessments, and what appeared to be meditation.

“I wanted the right pen,” Grimsby explained while staring at his incomplete memo reading “Dear Mr. Johnson” followed by a progressively fainter attempt at “I.” “This was an important document. The pen needed to convey authority, competence, and professionalism. Instead, it conveyed that I own pens that don’t work.”

The selection process involved:

• Testing each pen on scratch paper (4 minutes)
• Comparing ink colors for “appropriateness” (3 minutes)
• Evaluating grip comfort (5 minutes)
• Considering the psychological impact of pen width (4 minutes)
• Staring thoughtfully at the pens while colleagues wondered what he was doing (2 minutes)

After this extensive deliberation, Grimsby selected what he described as “a classic black fountain pen with excellent line weight” which promptly failed to produce visible ink after the letter “D” in “Dear.”

“It’s as if the universe was punishing me for overthinking,” he noted with remarkable self-awareness.

The Library of Congress maintains records suggesting this type of “pen selection futility” affects approximately 34% of office workers who spend more than five minutes choosing writing implements. Research indicates that the likelihood of pen failure increases proportionally with time spent selecting said pen.

Colleagues reported mixed reactions to Grimsby’s predicament. Theodore Whitmore expressed sympathy, noting he once spent forty minutes arranging his desk only to have his coffee immediately spill across all carefully organized documents. Margaret Thornbury suggested this represented “karma for wasting company time on pen philosophy.”

The failed memo forced Grimsby to restart the process with a different pen, but his confidence was shaken. “I can’t trust my judgment anymore,” he admitted while holding a blue ballpoint with suspicion. “This pen seems fine, but so did the other one. They’re all potential betrayers.”

Office efficiency expert Dr. Reginald Pemberton explains that “pen selection paralysis” represents a broader anxiety about workplace performance. “People believe the right tools will make them more competent,” he noted. “In reality, the tools matter far less than actually using them, but this is a lesson humans must learn repeatedly.”

The failed pen has been retained as evidence of what Grimsby calls “the day the universe reminded me I’m not as important as I think I am.” He plans to frame it alongside the incomplete memo as a reminder to “just pick a pen and get on with life.”

His supervisor, upon learning the memo was delayed due to extended pen evaluation, suggested that “any functional writing implement would have been adequate” and questioned whether Grimsby required “psychological support for decision-making challenges.”

Grimsby has since adopted a new strategy of grabbing the first pen he touches without evaluation. This approach worked successfully for two days before he discovered he’d been using a red pen to sign official documents, creating what his supervisor described as “a different but equally problematic pen-related issue.”

The seven pens remain in Grimsby’s desk drawer, each now carrying the weight of potential failure. He reports spending approximately twelve minutes this morning staring at them before deciding to use a pencil instead, which broke immediately upon application to paper.

As of press time, Grimsby was considering switching to typewriter exclusively, having lost all faith in manual writing instruments and his own ability to select them.

Revolutionary New Technology Allows Mothers to Detect Mischief From Three Rooms Away

MILWAUKEE, WI – Scientists at the Institute for Maternal Observation Studies have confirmed what children have feared for generations: mothers possess an unexplained ability to detect wrongdoing, impending accidents, and general mischief from distances that should make such detection physically impossible.

The breakthrough came after researcher Dr. Millicent Hargrove observed a mother in the kitchen correctly identify that her son was “up to something” in the basement, despite three floors, two closed doors, and complete silence separating them. When asked how she knew, the mother replied “I just knew” which Dr. Hargrove described as “scientifically unhelpful but apparently accurate.”

The study, which monitored 500 mothers over eighteen months, found that maternal detection abilities include:

Silent Mischief Detection – Mothers can identify when children are being “too quiet” which somehow indicates trouble rather than good behavior. Traditional logic suggests quiet children are well-behaved children, but mothers understand this as “quiet children are breaking something or planning to.”

Precognitive Accident Prevention – Mothers consistently say “be careful” approximately 2.3 seconds before children attempt dangerous activities, suggesting either supernatural foresight or extensive pattern recognition regarding childhood stupidity.

Selective Hearing Enhancement – Mothers cannot hear children calling them from ten feet away but can detect a whispered plan to sneak cookies from forty yards through multiple walls.

Guilt Recognition – Mothers can identify lying with 94% accuracy through what one test subject described as “looking at me in that way that makes me confess everything including things I haven’t done yet.”

Young Timothy Morrison, 10, served as a test subject after his mother detected him attempting to feed vegetables to the dog despite being in a completely different room with the radio playing. “She just knew,” Timothy reported with resignation. “She always knows. I’ve stopped trying to understand it.”

The National Institutes of Health has requested funding to study whether maternal surveillance abilities represent evolved biological adaptation or learned skills developed through constant vigilance. Dr. Theodore Pemberton suggests mothers may have developed enhanced sensory perception through “necessity driven by years of monitoring tiny chaos agents.”

Fathers, when tested for similar abilities, demonstrated markedly different results. Test fathers often remained unaware of mischief occurring in the same room, sometimes while making direct eye contact with the child perpetrating said mischief. When informed that their children were “up to something,” most fathers responded with “they seem fine to me” before falling asleep in their chairs.

The study identified several phenomena that reliably trigger maternal detection systems:

• Silence lasting longer than ninety seconds
• Sounds of drawers opening (specifically the junk drawer)
• Running water when children should be in bed
• The phrase “watch this” spoken by any child
• Brothers being “nice” to each other without prompting

Mrs. Dorothy Whitmore demonstrated her abilities for researchers by correctly identifying that her son was attempting to bring a frog into the house while she was upstairs folding laundry. When asked how she knew, she explained that she heard “that specific sound of a boy trying to be sneaky” which researchers could not distinguish from normal silence.

The most remarkable case involved a mother who detected cookie theft that hadn’t occurred yet. She informed her daughter “don’t even think about it” regarding the cookies thirty seconds before the daughter had consciously decided to take cookies. The daughter, unnerved by the temporal paradox, abandoned the plan entirely.

Children interviewed expressed resignation about maternal omniscience. “There’s no point trying to get away with anything,” reported Susan Peterson, 8. “Mom knows everything. She probably knew I was going to say this before I said it.”

When Mrs. Peterson was informed of her daughter’s comment, she replied “I knew she’d say something like that” thus confirming the child’s hypothesis.

Some scientists theorize that maternal detection represents highly developed pattern recognition rather than supernatural abilities. Others suggest mothers have learned to interpret subtle environmental cues that fathers ignore. A minority faction proposes mothers are actually psychic but this is rejected as “insufficiently scientific” though nobody can definitively disprove it.

As of press time, several test subject mothers had detected that their children were planning to use findings from this study to better evade detection, forcing researchers to conclude that maternal surveillance cannot be outsmarted and attempts to do so only strengthen the phenomenon.

Local Man’s “System” for Remembering Passwords Consists Entirely of Forgetting Passwords

CLEVELAND, OH – Area office worker Ernest Potts has developed what he describes as “a foolproof system” for managing the seventeen different passwords required for his daily work activities, a system that colleagues report consists entirely of forgetting every password and requesting resets approximately forty times per month.

“It’s really quite simple,” Potts explained while waiting for his third password reset email of the morning. “I use different passwords for everything to maintain security. Then I forget all of them. It’s elegant in its simplicity.”

The system, which Potts insists is “working perfectly,” has made him the most frequent visitor to the IT department’s password reset desk, where technician Harold Pemberton has begun greeting him by name and occasionally suggests therapy.

“Mr. Potts comes in here multiple times daily,” Pemberton reported with the exhausted patience of a man who has reset the same password for the same person forty-seven times in March alone. “At this point, I’ve memorized his security questions better than he has. His mother’s maiden name is Porter. His first pet was Buttons. His favorite teacher was Mrs. Henderson. He can never remember any of this.”

The Department of Commerce estimates that American businesses lose approximately $400,000 annually to password-related productivity loss, with Ernest Potts personally accounting for $47 of that total through constant reset requests and delayed work completion.

Potts’s password methodology involves:

1. Creating unique password for each account
2. Writing password on sticky note
3. Losing sticky note immediately
4. Creating new password during reset
5. Repeating cycle indefinitely

“I tried writing them in a notebook,” Potts admitted. “Then I forgot where I put the notebook. I tried using a password pattern I could remember. Then I forgot the pattern. I tried making them all the same. Then they required different special characters and capital letter placements. The system is designed for failure.”

His colleague Margaret Thornbury has observed Potts’s password struggles with scientific fascination. “Yesterday he reset his email password, then forgot it while walking back to his desk,” she reported. “The desk is fifteen feet from the IT department. Whatever happens in those fifteen feet causes complete memory erasure.”

The situation has created what IT specialists call “password reset loops” where Potts resets a password, immediately attempts to use it incorrectly, gets locked out, and must reset it again before the first reset email has stopped being relevant. One memorable Tuesday involved seven consecutive resets of the same password, each time with Potts insisting “I definitely remember it now.”

Security experts express concern about Potts’s approach. Dr. Reginald Crumpet notes that “constantly resetting passwords defeats the entire purpose of password security” but acknowledges that “attempting to remember seventeen complex, unique passwords represents a cognitive burden most humans cannot sustain.”

Potts has attempted several memory aids:

• Password manager software (forgot master password)
• Mnemonic devices (forgot what the mnemonics meant)
• Biometric authentication (somehow forgot his fingerprints weren’t working)
• Writing passwords on his desk blotter (cleaning staff threw it away)

The only password Potts consistently remembers is his gym locker combination, which he hasn’t needed since 1943 but remains “perfectly clear” in his memory. When asked why he can remember a six-year-old gym locker combination but not yesterday’s password reset, he replied “the human brain is a mysterious and disappointing organ.”

His supervisor has suggested simplifying Potts’s access to reduce password requirements, but IT security protocols prevent such accommodation. “We’re locked in an eternal dance,” Pemberton explained. “The system demands password complexity that humans cannot remember. Humans forget passwords. We reset them. The cycle continues until heat death of the universe.”

Potts remains optimistic about his system. “Eventually I’ll remember one of them,” he insisted while filling out his fourth password reset form of the day. “The law of averages suggests that I can’t forget all of them forever. That’s just mathematics.”

When informed that he’s been using this system for six years without successfully remembering a single password, Potts paused thoughtfully before asking “What was we talking about? I forgot.”

As of press time, Potts had successfully reset a password, logged in correctly, and immediately became distracted, causing his computer to lock and requiring another reset. Pemberton has begun taking medication for stress.

Study Confirms Everyone Knows Exactly One Useless Fact They Bring Up Constantly

BOSTON, MA – After exhaustive research involving thousands of dinner parties, casual conversations, and workplace interactions, the Institute for Social Communication has confirmed that every American possesses exactly one piece of trivia they consider fascinating and insert into conversation at every opportunity regardless of relevance.

“The consistency is remarkable,” reported lead researcher Dr. Sebastian Crumpet while fighting the urge to mention that a group of crows is called a murder, which is his personal useless fact. “Everyone has their one thing. They believe it makes them interesting. Nobody else finds it interesting. Yet they persist.”

The study identified several categories of commonly deployed useless facts:

Animal Facts – “Did you know octopi have three hearts?” (7,000 people interviewed, 4,200 mentioned this)

Historical Minutiae – “The Great Chicago Fire was started by a cow” (disputed by historians, repeated by countless amateur fact-enthusiasts)

Linguistic Trivia – “The shortest complete sentence in English is ‘I am'” (actually debatable, but certainty never stopped anyone)

Architectural Information – “The Eiffel Tower grows in summer due to thermal expansion” (mentioned at every discussion of France, weather, or metal)

Food Origins – “Fortune cookies were invented in America, not China” (deployed at every Chinese restaurant visit by people who think they’re revealing a secret)

Test subject Walter Grimsby admits he has shared the fact that “a day on Venus is longer than a year on Venus” approximately 300 times over the past decade despite never once having someone respond with genuine interest. “I know people don’t care,” he acknowledged. “But what if this is the time someone does care? I can’t risk missing that moment.”

The Library of Congress has begun cataloging these recurring facts, noting that approximately 80% of people’s “unique” knowledge is actually shared by millions of others who also believe they’re the first person to inform everyone about bananas being berries.

The study found that people deploy their signature fact in predictable patterns:

The Awkward Silence Filler – “Speaking of nothing, did you know honey never spoils?”

The Relevance Stretch – Someone mentions sleeping, cue: “Dolphins sleep with one eye open!”

The Complete Non-Sequitur – “Anyway, cashews grow outside the fruit.”

Particularly fascinating to researchers is the confidence with which people present facts they half-remember and may have gotten completely wrong. Theodore Whitmore has spent twelve years telling people that “Napoleon was actually average height for his time” without ever verifying this claim or understanding why he feels compelled to defend Napoleon’s height to strangers.

The study also revealed that attempting to correct someone’s useless fact is social suicide. When test researcher Dr. Millicent Hargrove informed a party guest that his “fact” about Thomas Edison was historically inaccurate, the guest spent forty-five minutes defending Edison’s reputation as if Dr. Hargrove had insulted a close personal friend.

Some participants have multiple useless facts but deploy them based on audience:

• Casual acquaintances: “Armadillos always give birth to identical quadruplets”
• Close friends: “The Hawaiian alphabet only has twelve letters”
• Captive audiences (elevators, waiting rooms): “Ancient Egyptians used honey as currency”

The research identified one man, Harold Pemberton of Des Moines, who possesses no useless facts and instead just nods politely when others share theirs. Researchers have classified him as “a statistical anomaly” and “probably very boring at parties.”

The most tragic cases involve people whose signature facts have been disproven by modern research but who continue sharing them anyway because “I’ve been saying it for twenty years and I’m committed now.” These individuals face the choice between accuracy and consistency, and they choose consistency every time.

As of press time, this reporter was resisting the urge to mention that the plastic tips on shoelaces are called aglets, a fact he’s shared 472 times and which has never once enhanced a conversation but which he remains convinced is interesting despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

About This Issue

Bohiney Magazine – Volume 1, Issue 5 – Published every Saturday from our offices in Washington, DC.

Editorial Staff, 1947: Editors-in-Chief: Corporal Henry “Hank” Bohiney & Sergeant Lester “Les” Krupke
Senior Correspondents: Dorothy Ashworth, Harold K. Pennington III
Contributing Satirist: Reginald “Reggie” Buttonworth

All articles are works of satire. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental and intended for humorous purposes.