Bohiney Magazine

Volume 1, Issue 6 – Saturday, March 22, 1947

“America’s Trusted Source for Satirical Truth”

United Nations Delegates Spend Six Hours Debating Lunch Location, Achieve Nothing on Palestine Question

NEW YORK – As tensions escalate in British-controlled Palestine and the world awaits decisive action from the newly formed United Nations, sources inside the Security Council reveal that delegates spent the entirety of Wednesday’s emergency session debating whether to order sandwiches or go to a nearby diner, ultimately achieving no consensus on either matter.

“We’re here to solve the world’s most pressing problems,” explained French delegate Pierre Beaumont while studying a menu with the intensity previously reserved for treaty negotiations. “But how can we focus on partition plans when we haven’t established whether this establishment’s tuna salad is trustworthy?”

The session, originally convened to address the escalating crisis in Palestine following Britain’s announcement that it would refer the matter to the UN, instead became what one observer described as “the most detailed discussion of sandwich filling options in diplomatic history.”

Soviet delegate Andrei Gromyko proposed the diner, arguing that “sandwiches from unknown sources represent capitalist uncertainty.” American delegate Warren Austin countered that leaving the building would waste valuable time, though he conceded the coffee at the diner was “notably superior.” British delegate Alexander Cadogan suggested they simply skip lunch entirely, a proposal that was immediately rejected by all parties in the first unanimous vote of the session.

The United Nations has acknowledged that the lunch debate consumed six hours and forty-seven minutes of a session that was supposed to address the future of 2 million people in a region experiencing increasing violence. Secretary-General Trygve Lie issued a statement expressing “mild disappointment” that no progress was made on the Palestine question but noting that “at least we’ve established that the diner closes at 6 PM, which is valuable information for future reference.”

The lunch paralysis represents what political analysts call “institutional displacement activity” where organizations avoid difficult decisions by focusing obsessively on trivial matters. Dr. Theodore Pemberton of the Institute for International Relations noted that “it’s much easier to debate tuna salad than to resolve complex ethnic and religious tensions involving multiple competing claims to sacred territory.”

The session’s minutes reveal fascinating insights into diplomatic priorities:

2:00 PM – Session called to order to discuss Palestine partition 2:03 PM – Delegate mentions he’s hungry 2:05 PM – General discussion of lunch options begins 2:47 PM – Heated debate over whether egg salad is appropriate for important meetings 4:15 PM – Chinese delegate proposes compromise: half the group orders sandwiches, half goes to diner 4:16 PM – Proposal rejected as “logistically complicated” 5:30 PM – Someone remembers they were supposed to discuss Palestine 5:32 PM – Discussion returns to whether the diner has adequate parking 8:47 PM – Session adjourned due to hunger-induced fatigue, no decisions made

Meanwhile, Jewish and Arab representatives waiting outside the chamber to present their cases grew increasingly confused about the delay. One representative reported hearing the word “mayonnaise” shouted with unusual passion through the chamber doors and wondered if it was some sort of diplomatic code.

The British delegation, eager to hand over responsibility for Palestine to the UN, expressed frustration that the organization cannot even decide on lunch, let alone territorial partition. “We’re trying to extricate ourselves from an impossible situation,” noted one British official who requested anonymity. “But if these people can’t agree on sandwiches, I have grave concerns about their ability to redraw Middle Eastern borders.”

The incident has raised questions about the UN’s effectiveness as a peacekeeping body. If member nations cannot coordinate basic meal planning, critics argue, how can they possibly coordinate international security? Supporters counter that the lunch debate demonstrates “the democratic process in action” and that “deliberative democracy takes time, even when discussing turkey on rye.”

Some delegates defended the prolonged lunch discussion as necessary relationship-building. “You can’t solve global conflicts without first establishing trust,” explained one delegate who spent forty-five minutes describing his grandmother’s soup recipe to a colleague from a nation his country barely recognizes. “These informal discussions during meal planning create the bonds that lead to diplomatic breakthroughs.”

The Palestine question remains unresolved and has been rescheduled for next week’s session. Organizers have announced that lunch will be pre-ordered to avoid similar delays, though early reports suggest delegates are now debating whether the pre-ordering process represents “an authoritarian approach to meal selection that violates the democratic principles upon which this organization was founded.”

As of press time, the Security Council had achieved unanimous agreement that the diner’s coffee is indeed superior, marking the first successful resolution in the body’s brief history. Delegates are calling it “a promising foundation for future cooperation” while Palestine continues to burn.

Man Discovers Junk Drawer Has Achieved Sentience, Refuses to Give Back Scissors

MINNEAPOLIS, MN – Local resident Harold Finchley made a disturbing discovery this morning when, after searching for scissors in his kitchen junk drawer for the fourteenth consecutive time, he realized the drawer has developed consciousness and is deliberately hiding items to torment him.

“I put the scissors in there yesterday,” Finchley reported while staring at the drawer with suspicion and growing anger. “I watched myself put them in there. Now they’re gone. The drawer has them. It’s keeping them from me out of spite.”

The junk drawer, which occupies approximately 14 inches of space in the Finchley kitchen, contains what appears to be every item the family has been unable to assign a permanent location for the past twelve years, including: seventeen pens (four functional), thirty-two rubber bands of varying sizes, forty-three twist ties, a screwdriver nobody remembers purchasing, instruction manuals for appliances the family no longer owns, and a small key that fits nothing in the house but feels important enough to keep.

Noticeably absent: the scissors.

“The scissors are in there,” Finchley insisted with the conviction of a man who has lost this battle many times before. “The drawer just rearranges itself when I’m not looking. It’s toying with me.”

The Smithsonian Institution has documented what researchers term “Junk Drawer Consciousness Theory” – the hypothesis that after accumulating sufficient random items in sufficient disorganization, drawers develop a primitive form of awareness focused primarily on inconveniencing their owners.

Evidence supporting the theory includes:

• Items vanishing despite being placed in the drawer moments earlier
• Items appearing that nobody remembers putting there
• The drawer’s uncanny ability to make every search require removing all contents
• Twist ties spontaneously tangling around everything
• The satisfying “junk” sound that occurs when closing the drawer, as if it’s laughing

Mrs. Dorothy Finchley has attempted to organize the drawer seventeen times over their marriage. Each organization attempt lasted approximately forty-eight hours before the drawer “reverted to its natural chaos state” as if the disorder was the drawer’s true form and organization an unnatural condition it actively resisted.

“I put dividers in there,” she reported with the exhaustion of someone who has fought entropy and lost. “Little plastic containers for different items. Batteries in one section, twist ties in another, tools in another. Within two days, the batteries were mingling with the twist ties, the screwdriver had somehow gotten under the divider, and three rubber bands had formed a coalition in the corner. The drawer has a will of its own.”

The drawer’s contents have achieved what physicists call “maximum entropy” – a state where organization becomes theoretically impossible because every item has bonded with every other item through complex twist tie and rubber band entanglements. Attempting to remove one item inevitably disturbs seventeen others, creating what scientists term “junk drawer avalanche effect.”

Dr. Reginald Pemberton, who studies household chaos theory, notes that junk drawers represent “humanity’s surrender to disorder” and serve as “containment zones where we admit defeat and simply throw items we don’t know what to do with.” He estimates that 94% of junk drawer contents could be thrown away with no consequences, but the remaining 6% will definitely be needed the moment they’re discarded.

Finchley eventually located the scissors after removing the drawer’s entire contents and spreading them across the kitchen counter. The scissors were at the very bottom, underneath a tangle of rubber bands that appeared to have formed a protective nest. He suspects the drawer deliberately buried them.

“It knows I need them,” he muttered while replacing all items in the drawer, where they immediately resumed their chaotic configuration. “It’s testing me. Seeing how much I’ll take before I finally just buy new scissors. But I won’t give it the satisfaction.”

His wife has suggested perhaps the scissors simply got buried under other items through natural processes rather than sentient drawer malice. Finchley described this interpretation as “naive” and “exactly what the drawer wants us to think.”

The couple’s son, Timothy, reported that he successfully located a rubber band in the drawer on his first attempt last week. Finchley dismissed this as “the drawer playing favorites” and “further evidence of consciousness and decision-making ability.”

As of press time, the scissors had once again vanished from the junk drawer despite Finchley watching himself place them there. He has begun taking photographs of their placement as evidence, though he admits “the drawer probably knows how to work around that too.”

Local Woman’s “Quick Story” Now Entering Third Hour, No End in Sight

BALTIMORE, MD – What began as a “quick story” at 2:15 PM has evolved into an epic narrative of staggering complexity as area resident Margaret Thornbury continues describing her recent shopping trip to her neighbor Dorothy Pemberton, who has been trapped on her front porch for 174 minutes with no clear escape route.

“So anyway, I get to the store,” Thornbury continued, having opened with those exact words forty-seven minutes ago before embarking on extensive backstory covering her morning routine, a tangential discussion of her arthritis, and a detailed genealogy of her cousin Ethel whom she saw in the parking lot and who is unrelated to the main story but whose presence required full explanation.

Pemberton, who initially stopped for what she assumed would be a thirty-second greeting, has progressed through all five stages of grief and is currently experiencing what psychologists call “conversational Stockholm syndrome” where she has begun to identify with her captor and even occasionally nods as if interested.

“I should go,” Pemberton attempted to interject approximately forty times, each time being swept aside by Thornbury’s relentless narrative momentum which acknowledges no breaks, pauses, or social cues suggesting the listener has other obligations such as living the rest of her life.

The story, ostensibly about purchasing a hat, has expanded to include what experts describe as “Russian novel levels of character development and subplot complexity.” Current narrative threads include:

• The primary hat purchase (15% of story)
• The clerk’s attitude problem (18% of story)
• A woman who looked like Thornbury’s deceased aunt (22% of story)
• The parking situation (11% of story)
• General reflections on modern youth (19% of story)
• An unrelated story about a similar shopping trip in 1938 (15% of story)

The Library of Congress has dispatched archivists to document the story before Thornbury concludes, though they estimate based on current pacing that the conclusion may not occur until early April.

Thornbury’s narrative technique involves what linguists call “fractal storytelling” where each tangent spawns additional tangents in infinite regression. Mention of the store’s location prompted discussion of the neighborhood, which prompted memories of people who used to live there, which prompted stories about those people, which prompted reflections on changing times, which somehow circled back to the hat but then immediately veered into discussion of hat fashion through history.

“I’m trying to get to the good part,” Thornbury assured her captive audience at the ninety-minute mark, apparently unaware that the good part of any story should arrive considerably before the listener begins experiencing existential despair.

Pemberton has attempted multiple escape strategies:

The Glance at Watch – Ignored The Mention of Appointments – Incorporated into story as example of “everyone being so busy these days” The Slow Backward Movement – Matched step-for-step by Thornbury advancing The Desperate Eye Contact with Passing Neighbors – Neighbors accelerated walking pace to avoid being drawn into narrative event horizon

Dr. Theodore Whitmore, who studies conversational dynamics, explains that “quick story” people suffer from what he terms “temporal perception disorder” where their internal sense of time becomes completely disconnected from objective reality. “What they experience as a brief anecdote exists in a separate time dimension where three hours equals ‘just a second.'”

The phenomenon typically affects people with these characteristics:

• Inability to distinguish relevant from irrelevant details
• Belief that extensive preambles improve stories rather than destroy them
• Deep conviction that every character requires full biographical background
• Complete immunity to social cues suggesting listener disengagement
• Assumption that others find their daily activities as fascinating as they do

At the two-hour mark, Thornbury finally reached the hat purchase itself, describing the transaction in excruciating detail including the exact change tendered, the clerk’s response, and a complete description of the register’s mechanical operation. Pemberton experienced brief hope that the story was concluding before Thornbury launched into the “and then” phase covering her exit from the store, which has spawned entirely new narrative branches.

Neighboring residents report this is Thornbury’s standard operating procedure. Ernest Potts claims he was trapped for four hours hearing about her dentist appointment. Walter Grimsby reports missing his daughter’s birthday party while hearing about Thornbury’s grocery shopping. Both men now cross the street when they see her approaching.

Thornbury remains oblivious to the carnage her storytelling creates. “People seem so interested in what I have to say,” she noted during a rare breath. “Dorothy has been listening for hours. She must really care about this hat.”

Pemberton, when her eyes briefly refocused, could only manage a strangled sound somewhere between weeping and laughing before Thornbury interpreted it as encouragement to continue.

As of press time, the story had entered its third hour with Thornbury now describing her walk home from the store “which is actually another whole story.” Pemberton’s family has filed a missing persons report. Thornbury expects to reach the story’s conclusion “any minute now” which experts interpret as “potentially by next Tuesday.”

Scientists Baffled as Man Successfully Untangles Headphones on First Try

BOSTON, MA – The scientific community is reeling from reports that Detroit resident Walter Grimsby successfully removed his headphones from his pocket yesterday and found them completely untangled, ready for immediate use without any struggle whatsoever.

“This shouldn’t be possible,” stammered Dr. Sebastian Crumpet of the Massachusetts Institute of Applied Physics while examining photographs of the untangled headphones with visible confusion. “According to all known laws of headphone behavior, they should have formed at minimum seventeen knots and possibly achieved sentience. This defies everything we understand about pocket-based wire entanglement.”

The incident occurred at 3:47 PM when Grimsby, preparing to listen to the radio broadcast of a baseball game, reached into his jacket pocket and extracted his headphones in a single, fluid motion. The wires remained parallel and orderly, with no knots, tangles, or mysterious loops of unclear origin.

“I pulled them out and they were just… fine,” Grimsby reported with the bewilderment of a man who has experienced a miracle but cannot prove it. “They weren’t twisted around themselves. They weren’t forming inexplicable Celtic knots. They were exactly as I’d left them. It was the most unsettling moment of my life.”

The National Science Foundation has dispatched a team to interview Grimsby and examine the headphones, which are being treated as evidence in what researchers are calling “the most significant challenge to chaos theory since its inception.”

Headphone entanglement represents one of physics’ great unsolved mysteries. Previous research established that headphones placed in pockets, bags, or drawers will spontaneously form knots regardless of initial configuration, storage duration, or user precautions. The process appears to violate entropy principles by creating order from disorder in reverse, generating maximum complexity from minimum input.

“We’ve documented cases where headphones tied themselves into knots that required three-dimensional thinking to unravel,” explained Dr. Millicent Hargrove while holding up what appeared to be a small sculpture made entirely of tangled wire. “We’ve seen them braid themselves. We’ve seen them form loops that should be topologically impossible. But we’ve never seen them remain untangled.”

Grimsby insists he took no special precautions with the headphones. He placed them in his pocket that morning in roughly coiled configuration, walked approximately 2,000 steps throughout the day, and removed them to find them essentially unchanged. Fellow commuters who witnessed the event describe it as “deeply wrong” and “against the natural order.”

The incident has sparked intense debate within the scientific community. Some researchers argue Grimsby is lying and the headphones were actually tangled but his brain suppressed the memory to protect him from existential crisis. Others suggest the headphones were tangled but untangled themselves moments before removal through a process nobody can explain or wants to contemplate.

A third faction proposes that Grimsby exists in a localized reality where normal physical laws don’t apply, which would explain the untangled headphones but raises concerning questions about what other natural laws he might be violating unknowingly.

“This could be the first documented case of personal physics exemption,” noted Dr. Theodore Pemberton while taking detailed measurements of Grimsby’s pockets. “If he can keep headphones untangled, what else can he do? Can he fold fitted sheets? Does his toast always land butter-side up? We need answers.”

Grimsby has become an overnight sensation in scientific circles but reports the attention is “frankly exhausting.” He cannot replicate the phenomenon and subsequent headphone retrievals have resulted in normal tanglement, leading researchers to classify the event as “a singular anomaly that may never occur again in human history.”

The headphones themselves have been preserved in the Institute’s vault alongside other unexplained phenomena including a working pen that someone successfully returned after borrowing and a USB cable that connected correctly on the first attempt.

Some skeptics argue the entire story is fabricated because “headphones simply don’t behave that way” and suggest Grimsby is seeking attention. However, multiple witnesses confirm the event, including Ernest Potts who was present and described it as “watching someone casually violate the laws of nature while boarding a streetcar.”

As of press time, scientists were attempting to recreate the conditions of Grimsby’s pocket environment, including fabric type, ambient temperature, walking pattern, and what he had for breakfast, in hopes of understanding how headphones might occasionally spare their owners from the tangled torment that is their apparent purpose.

Man’s Elaborate Bookmark System Consists Entirely of Losing His Place Constantly

PHILADELPHIA, PA – Despite owning seventeen different bookmarks and maintaining what he describes as “a sophisticated reading organization system,” area resident Theodore Whitmore has not successfully maintained his place in a book since 1939, sources close to the situation report.

“I have a whole collection,” Whitmore insisted while displaying an array of bookmarks ranging from simple paper strips to ornate leather varieties, none of which are currently marking any books because he has misplaced them all. “Each one has a purpose. This one is for serious literature. This one is for casual reading. This one I got at the library fundraiser and feel guilty about not using.”

The bookmarks, which Whitmore describes as “essential reading tools,” are currently located in various places throughout his home including: three in other books he’s not reading, two serving as scratch paper, one being used to scrape something off the kitchen counter, four missing entirely, and eight in the drawer where they live when not failing to mark books.

His wife Dorothy reports that Whitmore’s bookmark methodology involves “purchasing bookmarks enthusiastically, placing them carefully in books, then somehow losing both the bookmark and his place within forty-eight hours.” She estimates he has purchased forty-seven bookmarks over their marriage and successfully used zero.

“He just folds down page corners like an animal,” she noted with visible disappointment.

The Library of Congress acknowledges that bookmark failure represents a widespread phenomenon affecting approximately 73% of readers who, despite bookmark ownership, resort to using whatever object is nearby including: receipts, junk mail, other books, pencils, rulers, playing cards, photographs of relatives, and on one memorable occasion, a piece of bacon.

Whitmore’s current reading strategy involves opening a book to a random page and trying to determine through context whether he’s already read that section. “I’ve developed a sixth sense,” he claimed while reading the same chapter of a mystery novel for the third time without realizing it. “I can usually tell if I’ve read something before based on whether it sounds familiar, though sometimes everything sounds familiar, which is confusing.”

His bookmark collection includes:

The Fancy Leather One – Gift from sister-in-law, too nice to actually use, maintained in pristine condition in drawer

The Magnetic One – Theoretically stays in place through magnetic force, actually stays in place nowhere because magnets somehow lose their magnetism when applied to bookmarks

The Metal One – Heavy enough to damage book spine, abandoned after three uses

The Handmade One – Created by niece, emotionally valuable, physically useless due to incorrect dimensions

The Library One – Taken from library by accident, kept due to shame about theft, never used due to guilt

Dr. Reginald Pemberton, who studies reading behavior, notes that bookmarks represent “the triumph of hope over experience” where people continue purchasing organizational tools despite consistent evidence that they will not use them properly. “It’s the same principle as gym memberships,” he explained. “The purchase makes people feel responsible and organized, which provides psychological benefit even when actual behavioral change never occurs.”

Whitmore has attempted several bookmark retention strategies:

Strategy One: Use bookmark immediately – Result: Bookmark falls out first time book is moved

Strategy Two: Use multiple bookmarks – Result: Confusion about which bookmark indicates actual reading position

Strategy Three: Attach bookmark to book with string – Result: String breaks, bookmark lost anyway

Strategy Four: Just remember page number – Result: Remembers wrong number, reads random section of book

The most successful approach involved reading books in single sittings to avoid needing bookmarks entirely, but this proved incompatible with adult life responsibilities such as employment, sleep, and acknowledging family members.

Whitmore’s bookmark failure has resulted in re-reading significant portions of books, reading books in completely wrong order, and on one occasion finishing a mystery novel without realizing he’d skipped the chapter revealing the murderer.

“I thought the ending was deliberately ambiguous,” he explained. “Turns out I’d just missed forty pages.”

His wife has suggested perhaps accepting that he’s not a bookmark person and developing alternative systems, but Whitmore refuses to surrender. “I’ll master this,” he insisted while purchasing his eighteenth bookmark, this one featuring an inspirational quote about persistence. “This one will be different.”

As of press time, the new bookmark was serving as a coaster for his coffee mug while he tried to determine whether page 147 of his current novel seemed familiar or whether all pages seem familiar when you have no idea where you stopped reading.

Revolutionary Discovery: Leftovers Achieve Peak Deliciousness Precisely Two Hours After Throwing Them Away

CHICAGO, IL – In a breakthrough that has devastated households nationwide, researchers at the Institute for Food Regret Studies have confirmed that leftovers reach maximum appeal and flavor exactly two hours after being discarded, a phenomenon affecting 96% of American homes and causing what scientists term “garbage-based dietary remorse.”

“The pattern is unmistakable,” reported lead researcher Dr. Millicent Hargrove while examining data from thousands of thrown-away meals. “A person opens the refrigerator, discovers three-day-old casserole, deems it ‘probably not good anymore,’ throws it away, and precisely 127 minutes later becomes overwhelmed with desire to eat that exact casserole.”

The study, which monitored 5,000 households over eighteen months, found that leftovers follow a predictable appeal curve:

Day 1 – “I’ll definitely eat this tomorrow” Day 2 – “I should probably eat this” Day 3 – “Is this still good?” Day 4 – “This is definitely going bad” Day 5 – Throw away Day 5, Plus 2 Hours – “Why did I throw that away? That would have been perfect for lunch.”

Test subject Harold Pemberton participated in controlled experiments where he discarded leftovers while researchers monitored his subsequent desires. In every case, his craving for the discarded food peaked between ninety and 150 minutes post-disposal, regardless of how unappealing the food seemed at disposal time.

“I threw away perfectly good pot roast,” Pemberton lamented while staring at the trash can with visible longing. “It looked questionable this morning. Now I would commit minor crimes for one bite. It’s like the garbage has made it more valuable somehow.”

The Department of Agriculture estimates that Americans waste approximately $165 billion worth of food annually, with roughly 40% of that waste occurring moments before the waster realizes they actually wanted to eat it. The two-hour window represents what economists call “peak regret valuation” where disposed items achieve theoretical worth far exceeding their actual value.

The phenomenon appears to affect all leftover categories:

Pizza – Seems unappetizing until garbage truck is halfway down the block Chinese Food – Looks suspicious until precisely after disposal Mystery Containers – Unknown contents seem dangerous until trash bag is sealed Half-Eaten Sandwiches – Definitely too old until two hours post-disposal

Mrs. Dorothy Grimsby reports throwing away leftover chicken on Tuesday morning, spending Tuesday afternoon consumed with chicken regret, and actually considering retrieving it from the garbage before her husband stopped her. “It was right on top,” she argued. “Barely even touched by garbage. It would have been fine.”

Her husband disagreed, though admitted he also experienced brief chicken longing around 3 PM despite supporting the disposal decision that morning.

The study identified several aggravating factors that intensify post-disposal cravings:

Disposal Witnessing – Watching yourself throw away food increases subsequent desire by 34% Bag Sealing – The finality of sealing the trash bag creates immediate regret spike Alternative Lunch Disappointment – Realizing your current lunch is inferior to discarded leftovers intensifies longing by 67% Garbage Truck Arrival – Hearing garbage collection triggers acute awareness of lost opportunity

Some participants attempted to prevent the phenomenon by forcing themselves to eat leftovers immediately rather than risk throwing them away. This approach proved moderately successful but created new problems around “eating food I don’t want to prevent future regret about not eating food I didn’t want.”

Dr. Theodore Whitmore, who studies decision-making patterns, explains that leftover regret represents “the grass is always greener principle applied to refrigerator contents” where disposed items become automatically more appealing through their unavailability. “We assign value based on accessibility,” he noted. “Make something impossible to obtain and suddenly we want it desperately, even if it was questionable casserole we were afraid to eat.”

One revolutionary household attempted to combat the phenomenon by photographing all discarded leftovers, reasoning that looking at the unappetizing photo during the regret window would remind them why disposal was correct. This strategy failed when photographs somehow made the food look better in retrospect.

As of press time, researchers were developing a “cooling off period” recommendation where people wait two hours before throwing away leftovers to ensure they’re making decisions during the regret window rather than before it. Early testing suggests people will still throw away the food and regret it, just on a delayed schedule.

About This Issue

Bohiney Magazine – Volume 1, Issue 6 – 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.