Science Project

I've been cultivating "cultures" in those decorative petri dishes Professor Gleedle bought for my birthday. I took one blob of imported marmalade and placed it in Alpha Dish. Then I filled Beta Dish with a blob of a cheaper, domestic marmalade. Finally, Gamma Dish contained a blob of marmalade that my elderly neighbor Mrs Herbert made, and that is acting as the "control" blob. The cultures were then treated as follows.
Alpha Dish was attached to electrodes which were in turn connected to an iPod that was playing a loop of Edward Elgar's "Dream of Gerontius."
Beta Dish was sonically drip fed with an especially lengthy live version of Hawkwind's "Space Is Deep."
Gamma Dish was awoken at noon every day with a recording of a nurse saying "it's time for your bath Mrs Herbert."
After six weeks the blob of marmalade culture in Alpha Dish had become covered with a tweed-like substance and somehow acquired a brace of pheasant; the blob of marmalade culture in Beta Dish smelled bad and was levitating a full six inches off the bottom of the petri dish; and the blob of marmalade culture in Gamma Dish had gone for a walk but forgotten where it lived.
The team at BioSystems Laboratories have so far been unable to duplicate my results, but this is only because they haven't returned my phone calls yet.

Comments

[Edward Williams]

It is important that you respond to this situation with the same scientific rigor, with which you conducted the (ongoing, I assume) marmalade experiments. I would suggest you do the following. Buy, or find on the street, two more telephones; hook them up, or don't hook them up, and then wait to see which phone rings first. After you have become impatient with these results, another science experiment is called for. Must I tell you what that is?