Bohiney Magazine

Volume 1, Issue 8 – Saturday, April 5, 1947

“America’s Trusted Source for Satirical Truth”

Jackie Robinson Breaks Baseball’s Color Barrier While Commentators Debate Whether He Can “Handle the Pressure”

BROOKLYN, NY – As Jackie Robinson took the field for the Brooklyn Dodgers this week, becoming the first Negro player in Major League Baseball since the 1880s, sports writers across the nation responded by questioning whether Robinson possesses the “mental fortitude” to withstand the pressure of playing a game that white players have somehow managed to play without similar psychological scrutiny.

“The question isn’t whether Robinson can hit or field,” explained Sporting News columnist Herbert Pennington while watching Robinson handle both with obvious competence. “The question is whether he can handle being stared at, insulted, threatened, and treated as less than human while performing at the highest level of his profession. You know, pressure.”

Robinson, who served as a lieutenant in the United States Army, faced down German military forces, and excelled in four sports at UCLA, is apparently considered potentially fragile by writers who believe that throwing a baseball constitutes sufficient stress to warrant concern about mental collapse.

The Baseball Hall of Fame notes that Robinson joins a sport where players regularly start brawls over perceived insults, throw tantrums over umpire calls, and occasionally weep openly when losing games. These behaviors are considered “passion for the game” when exhibited by white players but would likely be classified as “inability to handle pressure” if demonstrated by Robinson.

The integration of baseball has prompted extensive discussion about “readiness” with numerous commentators suggesting that perhaps the Negro Leagues should remain separate because “that’s where those players are comfortable.” This reasoning apparently doesn’t apply to white players who are never asked whether they’re comfortable playing in integrated settings because their comfort is assumed to be the default condition requiring no examination.

Critics of Robinson’s signing argue that forcing integration threatens “team chemistry” and might make white players uncomfortable, suggesting that maintaining racist segregation is less disruptive than treating human beings equally. Brooklyn manager Leo Durocher responded to this concern by reportedly telling his players that anyone uncomfortable with Robinson could find employment elsewhere, which several writers described as “heavy-handed” rather than “basic human decency.”

The pressure that commentators believe Robinson cannot handle includes:

• Playing baseball while being Negro
• Maintaining composure when opponents deliberately spike him
• Ignoring racial slurs from fans, opponents, and possibly teammates
• Performing athletically while representing an entire race
• Existing in hotels and restaurants that don’t want him there
• Not responding to death threats with anything less than perfect sportsmanship

Meanwhile, white players are expected to handle the pressure of:

• Playing baseball

Several opposing players have announced they will refuse to play against Robinson, which writers frame as “standing on principle” rather than “being racist.” The St. Louis Cardinals reportedly threatened to strike, prompting National League President Ford Frick to inform them that anyone refusing to play would be suspended, which some columnists characterized as “suppressing free expression” rather than “preventing workplace discrimination.”

The Philadelphia Phillies spent Robinson’s first series hurling racial abuse from their dugout with such vigor that witnesses described it as “organized hate” rather than competitive banter. Manager Ben Chapman defended this as “riding the opposition,” apparently believing that racial epithets constitute legitimate baseball strategy. Chapman suggested Robinson should expect such treatment and that protesting it would demonstrate his unfitness for baseball, a sport that Chapman believes naturally includes organized racism as part of its rules.

Robinson’s response to this treatment—playing excellent baseball while maintaining dignity—has prompted some writers to grudgingly admit he “seems to be handling it well so far,” while others suggest this proves he’s “not feeling the pressure yet” and predict imminent collapse under the weight of being treated as subhuman.

Lost in the discussion of whether Robinson can handle the pressure is any examination of whether white players can handle integration without resorting to violence, whether fans can watch baseball without shouting slurs, or whether sports writers can cover the game without obsessing over the race of players who just want to play ball.

Branch Rickey, Dodgers president who signed Robinson, has been alternatively praised as a visionary and criticized as a troublemaker for doing something that should have happened sixty years ago. Rickey’s motivation—whether moral conviction or profit interest—has been endlessly debated, as if the reasoning matters more than the result.

As of press time, Robinson had played several games with competence and composure, which writers interpreted as “promising start” while maintaining that “the real test comes later” when presumably he faces some pressure worse than having 30,000 people scream hatred at him while he tries to work. What that greater pressure might consist of remains unspecified, though it apparently exceeds military service, death threats, and systematic dehumanization, all of which Robinson has already handled without the benefit of sports commentary on his mental fortitude.

Man Confident Arguing with Mechanic Despite Knowing Nothing About Cars

DETROIT, MI – Area resident Walter Grimsby spent forty-seven minutes this morning arguing with certified mechanic Harold Pemberton about engine repair despite possessing automotive knowledge that extends approximately to “cars have engines” and “gasoline makes them go.”

“I know what I’m talking about,” Grimsby insisted while confidently misidentifying the carburetor as “the thing that makes the wheels turn.” “Just because he’s a mechanic doesn’t mean he knows everything.”

Pemberton, who has repaired automobiles professionally for twenty-three years and can identify engine problems by sound alone, attempted to explain that Grimsby’s 1940 Ford required a new fuel pump. Grimsby countered that the problem was “probably just the spark plugs” based on something he once overheard at a gas station in 1938.

“The fuel pump is failing,” Pemberton explained with the patience of a man who has this conversation seventeen times weekly. “I can show you the diagnostic results.”

“But have you checked the spark plugs?” Grimsby insisted, apparently believing that spark plugs function as a universal solution to all automotive problems, similar to how he believes hitting things with hammers fixes household issues.

The National Automobile Dealers Association reports that approximately 63% of male customers attempt to debate mechanics despite having no mechanical training, no diagnostic equipment, and no idea what most engine components do. This phenomenon, termed “Automotive Dunning-Kruger Effect,” causes men to believe that owning a car qualifies them to argue about its repair with people who repair cars for a living.

“He kept saying ‘in my experience,'” Pemberton reported while gesturing helplessly at Grimsby’s disabled vehicle. “His experience consists of driving the car and occasionally checking the oil. My experience consists of twenty years of engine repair. These are not equivalent experiences.”

Grimsby’s automotive expertise derives from the following sources:

• Watching his father work on cars in 1925 (observed from distance, understood nothing)
• Reading part of a car manual once (fell asleep after three pages)
• Conversations with other men who also know nothing about cars
• Vague memories of seeing engines
• Confidence that accumulated naturally through male socialization

This knowledge base somehow convinced him to challenge a professional mechanic’s diagnosis with the certainty of a man who had personally invented the internal combustion engine.

“The thing is,” Grimsby explained to his wife later, “these mechanics try to upsell you. They say you need expensive repairs when really you just need to check the spark plugs.” When his wife asked how he knew this, he replied “everyone knows that” which she interpreted correctly as “I have no idea but admitting ignorance is unthinkable.”

The argument covered several topics that Grimsby understood incorrectly:

Fuel pumps – Grimsby believes they pump fuel (correct) and can be fixed by tapping them with a wrench (incorrect)

Carburetors – Grimsby thinks they carbure things (definition unclear) and are located “under the hood somewhere” (technically accurate but unhelpfully vague)

Timing belts – Grimsby suspects these involve time somehow (they don’t) and suggested maybe the car’s clock was broken (it isn’t, also unrelated)

Engine compression – Grimsby believes this is when engines feel squeezed (not accurate) and can be relieved by “letting air out of something” (please don’t)

Pemberton eventually convinced Grimsby to authorize the fuel pump replacement by explaining it in terms a child might understand, then simplifying further when that proved too complex. The final explanation involved pointing at the broken part and saying “This broken, need new one” while Grimsby nodded thoughtfully as if he’d known all along.

“I still think he should have checked the spark plugs first,” Grimsby maintained while paying the repair bill. “But I guess we’ll try his way.”

When informed that the mechanic had in fact checked the spark plugs as part of standard diagnostics, Grimsby claimed this vindicated his position and proved he “knows what he’s talking about after all.”

Dr. Theodore Whitmore, who studies male psychology, explains that arguing with experts while ignorant represents “a fundamental male need to appear competent regardless of actual competence.” Men would rather confidently dispense misinformation than admit they don’t know something, particularly regarding traditionally male domains like automotive repair.

“Asking questions or deferring to expertise feels like admitting weakness,” Dr. Whitmore noted. “So instead they argue, badly, about things they don’t understand, then claim victory regardless of outcome. It’s remarkable to observe.”

Grimsby’s wife Dorothy reports this pattern extends beyond automotive repair. “He argues with the doctor about medicine, the electrician about wiring, the plumber about pipes, and once spent twenty minutes correcting a meteorologist about weather patterns,” she explained. “He’s been wrong every single time but it never diminishes his confidence for the next argument.”

As of press time, Grimsby’s car was running perfectly with its new fuel pump, which he attributed to the mechanic “finally listening to reason and checking the spark plugs like I suggested,” despite the spark plugs remaining unchanged and having nothing to do with the repair.

Local Woman’s Phone Call Entering Hour Two, Still Hasn’t Reached Original Topic

MILWAUKEE, WI – What began as a telephone conversation to confirm lunch plans has expanded into a sprawling narrative epic as area resident Margaret Thornbury continues speaking to her sister Dorothy about topics ranging from the weather to their mother’s neighbor’s cousin’s gallbladder surgery, having not yet mentioned lunch in the ninety-seven minutes since the call began.

“I should go,” Dorothy has said approximately fourteen times, each attempt to conclude the conversation being swept aside by Thornbury’s relentless verbal momentum, which acknowledges no pauses, interruptions, or social cues suggesting the other party has obligations beyond listening indefinitely.

The call, which began at 2:15 PM with Dorothy answering the phone expecting a thirty-second exchange, has progressed through numerous topics without arriving at its stated purpose. Current subjects under discussion include:

• The weather (seventeen minutes)
• Whether it feels like April (eleven minutes)
• Last April’s weather in comparison (nine minutes)
• Their father’s opinion about weather patterns (thirteen minutes)
• Unrelated story about their father from 1929 (twenty-two minutes)
• The neighbor who looks like their father (eight minutes)
• That neighbor’s daughter’s wedding (currently in progress, estimated completion time unknown)

The lunch plans remain unmentioned.

Dorothy has employed multiple strategies to redirect conversation toward lunch, including phrases like “So about Thursday,” “Getting back to lunch,” and “Why did you call again?” All attempts have been absorbed into Thornbury’s monologue like stones thrown into quicksand—briefly visible before disappearing completely.

The Library of Congress has documented what researchers term “Telephone Topic Drift” where conversations expand infinitely through tangential branches, each tangent spawning additional tangents in fractal patterns that mathematicians describe as “fascinating” and participants describe as “I need to hang up but I don’t know how.”

Dr. Reginald Pemberton, who studies communication patterns, notes that phone conversations between certain family members operate under different temporal physics than normal conversation. “What feels like five minutes to the speaker is actually approaching two hours for the listener,” he explained. “They exist in separate time dimensions connected only by telephone wire.”

Thornbury’s conversational technique involves what linguists call “associative storytelling” where each word triggers memories that require full explanation. The mention of lunch prompted thoughts of restaurants, which reminded her of a restaurant their mother once visited, which led to discussing that particular day, which connected to other events from that year, which somehow arrived at the neighbor’s daughter’s wedding without any logical connection.

“I’m getting to the point,” Thornbury assured her sister at the ninety-minute mark, apparently unaware that conversations with points typically reach them considerably before the listener begins experiencing Stockholm syndrome.

Dorothy has progressed through several psychological stages:

Stage One: Patience (0-15 minutes) – Assumes conversation will end soon, listens politely

Stage Two: Mild Concern (15-30 minutes) – Begins wondering when lunch will be mentioned

Stage Three: Active Intervention (30-60 minutes) – Attempts to redirect conversation, fails repeatedly

Stage Four: Resignation (60-90 minutes) – Accepts fate, considers putting phone down and walking away

Stage Five: Transcendence (90+ minutes) – Achieves zen-like state of not listening while making occasional acknowledgment sounds

Thornbury remains oblivious to her sister’s psychological journey. “Dorothy is such a good listener,” she noted during a rare breath. “She’s been on the phone for over an hour. She must really care about Aunt Edith’s neighbor’s cousin’s gallbladder.”

Dorothy, when briefly achieving consciousness, could only emit a sound somewhere between laughing and crying before Thornbury interpreted it as encouragement to continue.

The telephone company reports that Thornbury holds the neighborhood record for longest single phone call at four hours and seventeen minutes, achieved last month when calling about a recipe and instead discussing local politics, family genealogy, and whether modern youth understands proper telephone etiquette.

Other family members have developed strategies for managing Thornbury’s calls. Her brother Harold claims urgent appointments that mysteriously arise thirty seconds into any conversation. Her niece Susan has perfected the art of agreeing enthusiastically while reading the newspaper. Her husband Ernest reportedly answers the phone, says “She’s not here,” and hands the phone to Thornbury anyway.

Dorothy has attempted to implement time limits, but Thornbury interprets “I only have ten minutes” as “I have ten minutes before you need to start the important part of the story, so feel free to fill those ten minutes with preamble.”

As of press time, the call had entered its second hour with Thornbury now describing the wedding decorations in detail that suggested she was either present at the wedding or had conducted extensive surveillance. Dorothy had stopped responding with words, instead offering periodic grunts that Thornbury apparently found sufficient. The lunch plans remained undiscussed, and Dorothy had begun to question whether lunch was ever the actual purpose or merely a pretext for Thornbury to discuss everything else that had occurred in her life since their last conversation three days ago.

Man’s “System” for Remembering Wife’s Birthday Consists Entirely of Panic

CLEVELAND, OH – Despite seventeen years of marriage and 364 days annually to prepare, area resident Ernest Potts has once again arrived at his wife’s birthday with no gift, no plans, and only the desperate hope that flowers from the gas station might somehow constitute adequate celebration of her existence.

“I had it all planned out,” Potts insisted while racing through downtown traffic toward the only florist still open at 5:47 PM on his wife’s birthday, which he remembered at 5:43 PM when she mentioned “looking forward to tonight’s dinner plans” that he also forgot. “I was going to do something really special this year.”

The system Potts claims to employ for birthday remembering consists of the following steps:

First, he notices his wife’s birthday approaching with plenty of time to plan. Second, he acknowledges he should begin preparing. Third, he decides to think about it later. Fourth, later never comes. Fifth, panic.

“It’s the same every year,” reported his wife Dorothy while watching her husband return home with gas station flowers and visible perspiration. “He acts shocked, like my birthday snuck up on him unexpectedly, as if birthdays don’t occur on the same date annually through some mysterious calendar magic.”

The National Retail Federation reports that approximately 41% of husbands approach spousal birthdays with what researchers call “aggressive procrastination followed by inadequate last-minute scrambling.” This demographic purchases more gas station flowers, emergency jewelry, and hastily wrapped household items than any other consumer group.

Potts’s birthday preparation timeline reveals a consistent pattern:

364 days before birthday: Notes date, feels confident about remembering

300 days before: Briefly considers shopping early, decides there’s plenty of time

200 days before: Thinks about gift ideas, forgets them immediately

100 days before: Mentions to himself that birthday is approaching

50 days before: Definitely should start planning soon

30 days before: Has vague awareness of upcoming birthday

7 days before: Probably should think about this

1 day before: Will definitely handle it tomorrow

Day of birthday, 5:43 PM: Complete system failure, emergency protocols activated

“I don’t understand how it happens,” Potts explained while attempting to locate a restaurant that takes last-minute reservations on Saturday evening. “I think about it constantly. Well, not constantly. Occasionally. Actually, rarely. But it’s in my head somewhere.”

The emergency protocols that activate during birthday panic involve:

Step One: Call every restaurant in the city despite knowing none will have tables

Step Two: Purchase flowers from wherever sells flowers at that moment

Step Three: Consider whether household appliance counts as romantic gift (it doesn’t)

Step Four: Frantically wrap anything recently purchased that might pass as deliberate

Step Five: Claim this was “the plan all along” and hope for mercy

Dr. Theodore Whitmore, who studies marital psychology, explains that birthday forgetting represents “not actually forgetting but rather a sophisticated avoidance system where remembering requires action and action requires effort.” Men typically remember birthdays but engage in what he calls “acknowledgment without preparation” where knowing about an event feels like preparing for it even though it isn’t.

“They remember the birthday exists,” Dr. Whitmore noted. “They just don’t remember it exists in a temporal sense requiring actual planning. It’s like being aware that winter happens without connecting that knowledge to needing a coat.”

Potts has attempted various reminder systems:

Calendar marking: Marks birthday, never checks calendar

Phone alarm: Sets alarm, ignores when it rings

Wife reminding him: Hears reminder, forgets thirty seconds later

Physical notes: Writes notes, loses them or stops seeing them through familiarity

The only system that works is his wife saying “My birthday is today and we have dinner reservations” which removes all planning responsibility while making him look incompetent.

“Every year I say I’ll do better,” Potts admitted while presenting his wife with gas station flowers and news that the only available restaurant reservation is at a diner. “And every year I’m standing here with gas station flowers wondering how this happened again.”

His wife has developed her own system: making plans herself, telling him about them, then pretending to be surprised when he “planned everything.” This arrangement maintains the fiction that Potts is a functioning partner while acknowledging reality that he cannot be trusted with birthday remembering.

“He means well,” Dorothy explained while accepting flowers that still had the gas station price tag attached. “He just has no concept of time, planning, or follow-through. But the panic in his eyes every year is kind of sweet in a pathetic sort of way.”

As of press time, Potts was swearing that next year would be different and he’d start planning six months early, a claim Dorothy recognized as the same promise made annually for seventeen years and which has never once resulted in actual preparation.

Scientists Confirm Coffee Achieves Perfect Temperature Precisely Three Seconds Before Meeting Starts

BOSTON, MA – After extensive research involving 5,000 coffee cups and countless ruined meetings, the Institute for Thermal Dynamics has confirmed that coffee reaches optimal drinking temperature exactly three seconds before its owner must leave their desk to attend a meeting, creating what researchers call “maximum temporal frustration.”

“The pattern is unmistakable,” announced lead researcher Dr. Millicent Hargrove while gesturing at charts showing coffee temperature curves plotted against meeting schedules. “Coffee poured at 8:57 AM for a 9:00 AM meeting will achieve perfect temperature at 8:59:57. Not earlier. Not later. The universe is actively conspiring against morning productivity.”

The study utilized advanced temperature monitoring equipment to track coffee cooling rates across various conditions. Results showed that coffee temperature operates not according to normal thermodynamic principles but rather through what scientists term “malicious thermal awareness” where beverages sense when their owners most need them and become undrinkable at that exact moment.

Test subject Walter Grimsby participated after years of arriving at meetings either with scalding coffee he couldn’t drink or cold coffee he didn’t want. “I’ve tried every timing strategy,” he reported while holding a perfectly-temperatured cup of coffee outside a conference room door. “If I pour it early, it gets cold. If I pour it late, I’m late to the meeting. If I pour it at exactly the right time to arrive at the meeting with drinkable coffee, it becomes perfect precisely as I’m walking away from it.”

The National Institutes of Health has classified coffee temperature timing as “a legitimate physiological stressor” affecting approximately 78% of office workers who must choose between burning their mouths, missing meetings, or attending meetings without coffee while staring longingly at the perfect cup they left on their desk.

The phenomenon operates through several predictable mechanisms:

The Morning Meeting: Coffee poured at 8:55 for 9:00 meeting reaches perfection at 8:59:57, forcing owner to either miss meeting or abandon perfect coffee

The Afternoon Lull: Coffee poured at 2:00 stays too hot until 2:14, then somehow becomes cold without passing through optimal temperature

The Extended Meeting: Coffee poured optimistically before three-hour meeting is stone cold by minute seventeen

The Quick Check-In: Coffee poured for “quick five-minute meeting” cools to perfection during meeting that mysteriously lasts forty minutes

Dr. Theodore Pemberton explains that the coffee timing problem represents “a fundamental conflict between biological needs and workplace demands, complicated by thermodynamics that appear to be actively hostile.” His research indicates that coffee temperature and meeting schedules operate as opposing forces in the universe, never achieving equilibrium.

“People try to outsmart the system,” he noted. “They pour early and bring the too-hot coffee to the meeting. They burn their tongues. They add ice. They use insulated cups. Nothing works. The coffee knows.”

Study participants reported attempting various strategies:

Strategy One: Pour coffee five minutes early Result: Coffee cold by meeting start

Strategy Two: Pour coffee immediately before meeting
Result: Coffee molten, requires twenty-minute cooling period

Strategy Three: Bring coffee to meeting while hot Result: Cannot drink for fifteen minutes, then forgets about it, remains undrunk

Strategy Four: Skip coffee entirely Result: Cannot function in meeting, regrets all life choices

The only successful approach involved installing coffee makers directly in conference rooms, but this created new problems when six people simultaneously needed coffee and the maker could only brew one cup at a time, delaying meetings while everyone waited for coffee that would achieve perfect temperature three seconds before the meeting ended.

Harold Finchley reported spending seventeen minutes carefully timing his coffee preparation to achieve optimal temperature upon meeting arrival. His coffee was perfect when he reached the conference room. The meeting had been moved to a different floor. By the time he found the new location, the coffee had cooled past optimal and entered the “might as well be lukewarm water” phase.

“It’s like the coffee and the meeting scheduler are working together against me,” he noted with surprising accuracy.

The study identified several aggravating factors:

Hallway Length: The distance between desk and conference room correlates exactly to coffee cooling time

Meeting Delays: Meetings that start late somehow don’t provide additional coffee cooling time; coffee remains stubbornly hot until meeting actually begins

Surprise Meetings: Coffee just poured when someone says “quick meeting, right now” achieves perfect temperature during the walk over

Cancelled Meetings: The rare coffee that’s perfect temperature when a meeting is cancelled immediately cools to undrinkable within seconds

As of press time, researchers were developing a predictive algorithm to calculate optimal coffee pouring time based on meeting distance, hallway temperature, and the probability that the meeting will start on time (zero percent). Early results suggest the algorithm’s complexity rivals quantum mechanics and may not be solvable within current mathematical frameworks.

Area Man’s Elaborate Grocery List System Results in Buying Everything Except What He Needed

PHILADELPHIA, PA – Despite maintaining what he describes as “a sophisticated organizational approach to shopping,” area resident Theodore Whitmore returned from the grocery store yesterday with $43 worth of items, none of which were the bread and milk his wife asked him to purchase two hours earlier.

“I had a list,” Whitmore insisted while unpacking three types of crackers, two jars of pickles, a magazine, and what appears to be a decorative pineapple. “I’m almost certain I had a list. I remember making a list. Where’s the list?”

The list, discovered thirty minutes later in his shirt pocket, contained two items: “bread” and “milk.” His shopping bags contained seventeen items, none of which were bread or milk, suggesting that Whitmore’s shopping methodology involves reading the list, carefully considering each item, then purchasing random products based on whim, hunger, and whatever was positioned at eye level.

“The pickles were on sale,” he explained while his wife stared at shelves already containing four jars of pickles from previous shopping trips where he also forgot the actual needed items. “And I’ve been thinking we should have more crackers. We can never have too many crackers.”

When informed that they already possess six boxes of crackers and zero bread, Whitmore argued that “you can’t predict when you’ll need crackers” but apparently believes bread needs are entirely predictable and thus safe to ignore.

The National Retail Federation reports that approximately 67% of husbands sent shopping with specific lists return with items not on the list while forgetting items that were. This phenomenon, termed “Grocery List Blindness,” causes men to view shopping lists as suggestions rather than requirements, leading to what wives describe as “I told you exactly what to buy and you bought literally anything else.”

Whitmore’s shopping strategy appears to involve:

Step One: Receive list with specific items Step Two: Enter store with good intentions
Step Three: Become distracted by unrelated products Step Four: Purchase random items Step Five: Return home triumphantly with wrong things Step Six: Act confused when wife asks about requested items

“I walked every aisle,” Whitmore protested. “How did I miss bread and milk? They’re everywhere.”

His wife Dorothy explained that he missed them by “looking at everything except what you were supposed to look at,” a skill she’s observed across seventeen years of marriage. She estimates that Whitmore has been sent shopping approximately 400 times and has purchased the correct items perhaps nineteen times, usually by accident when the thing he randomly wanted happened to match the list.

The decorative pineapple particularly baffled Dorothy. “Why?” she asked while holding the pineapple that costs $2 and serves no purpose.

“It looked nice,” Whitmore replied, as if aesthetic appeal justified purchasing tropical fruit they won’t eat while forgetting staple items they need daily.

Dr. Reginald Pemberton, who studies consumer behavior, explains that list-ignoring represents “a fundamental male inability to resist novelty while remaining focused on stated goals.” Men enter stores with missions but become seduced by possibility, leading to what he calls “fantasy shopping” where they purchase items for imagined situations rather than actual needs.

“They see pickles and think ‘what if we need pickles urgently?'” Dr. Pemberton noted. “They buy three jars. They never consider ‘do we currently need pickles?’ which is the actual relevant question.”

The magazine purchase particularly exemplifies this phenomenon. Whitmore, sent specifically for bread and milk, somehow determined that a publication about fishing constituted necessary shopping despite not owning fishing equipment, living nowhere near water, and having never expressed interest in fishing.

“It was in the checkout lane,” he explained. “I thought I might take up fishing.”

This reasoning—purchasing items based on hobbies he might hypothetically adopt—has resulted in a home containing golf tees (doesn’t golf), camping supplies (never camps), and seventeen jars of exotic mustard (doesn’t eat mustard).

Whitmore has attempted to improve his shopping accuracy:

Method One: Writing detailed list Result: Loses list, buys random items anyway

Method Two: Repeating items mentally Result: Remembers wrong items, buys those instead

Method Three: Calling wife from store
Result: She tells him what to buy, he buys other things

Method Four: Taking wife shopping Result: Only method that works, defeats purpose of sending him alone

As of press time, Whitmore had been sent back to the store specifically for bread and milk with explicit instructions to “look at the list, buy only those things, come home immediately.” Dorothy estimated his success probability at 35% and was already planning dinner that didn’t require bread or milk.

About This Issue

Bohiney Magazine – Volume 1, Issue 8 – 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.