by LAURIE NEIDERGAARDEN, Alternate Reality News Service Medical Writer
Harrinder Glooulsbee was late for a meeting with a government official at the Department of Transport whom he had intended to bribe. He had forgotten the meeting. Forgotten it completely. Forgotten it so completely that when the official, angry at being snubbed, sent the police after him, they found him picking daffodils by the side of I28 out of Pittsburgh (aka: the Mahatma Kane Jeeves Underhand Overpass).
"Your basic criminal type isn't very bright," said arresting officer Janet Frisson-Siddiqui. "Whether it's missing the meeting it's taken you six months to set up or trying to rob a hotel safe during a police chiefs convention, there's always that one little detail that makes their well laid plans go KABLOOEY!"
But, why did Glooulsbee's well laid plans go KABLOOEY? Could it have had something to do with the fact that, just the week before, he had had a Clutter Buster chip placed in his head?
We asked Esme Peevie-Antsy, the creator of the Clutter Buster, if the chip may have had anything to do with Glooulsbee's unfortunate behaviour. She didn't show up for the interview. When we contacted her, she was picking roses by the side of Poppy Avenue in Dandelion, North Dakota (a state which sounds sort of flowerish, doesn't it?).
"Oh, dear, that's embarrassing," Peevie-Antsy stated. She explained that the wireless network that connected the chip in her brain to the cloud computer where her memories are stored was down that afternoon, so the cloud couldn't send the reminder of our meeting to her.
"I'm sorry that I cannot help you," Peevie-Antsy went on to say, "but I have no idea what happened to Mister Glooulsbee. Did you know that the Clutter Buster chip will soon come in ketchup and salt and vinegar flavours?"
This is not the first time the Cluster Buster has been associated with criminal activity gone horribly, horribly wrong. Two weeks ago, drug dealer Pellicula "Hammer or Anvil" Voitannen saw a meet with his supplier collapse when he kept saying the word "bananas" instead of "crystal meth." When the smoke cleared, 11 gang members, 17 innocent bystanders and 19 shady bystanders were dead.
"Criminal types think they're so clever, storing key words in their Clutter Buster lexicon and only accessing them when they need them," Officer Frisson-Siddiqui, whose assignment to the Voitannen case conveniently saved me a phone call, stated. "Without the words in their memory, they think we cannot prove intent. Well, they may have the upper hand for now, but we've got some of the best psycho-linguistic jurists in Bosnia working on the problem!"
I asked Peevie-Antsy what role the Clutter Buster could have played in the incident. "None whatsoever," she responded. "Clearly, it was a case of silt deposits."
Silt deposits? I asked.
"Yeah. You know," Peevie-Antsy continued. "When the brain confuses one syllable for another?"
Do you mean dyslexia? I asked.
"That's what I said," Peevie-Antsy insisted. "Silt deposits."
You didn't say dyslexia, I told her. You said silt deposits.
"You just said I didn't say silt deposits, I said silt deposits," Peevie-Antsy, becoming a little ant...noyed - annoyed, stated. "You're making no sense."
After 11 minutes of going back and forth like this, Peevie-Antsy allowed that the problem may have been hers. "We were doing regular maintenance on the cloud a month ago," she explained, "and, for reasons that are still unclear, some lexicon files were reassigned to the wrong users. I'm so goats about the confusion. But, I'm sure that wasn't the case here. Did you know that the Clutter Buster can be used safely by people with peanut butter allergies?"
Peevie-Antsy went on to say that the Clutter Buster chip was per cent safe for everyday use as recommended by an actor playing a doctor on a closed track. When I asked her to repeat the figure, she stared at me blankly for several seconds. When I pointed out that I still didn't have the figure, she got peev - annoyed and asked if I needed to get my ears checked, because three times seemed like enough to repeat a simple number.
It took another 11 minutes for me to convince Peevie-Antsy that she hadn't given me the number, that she had, in fact, kept gliding over it when she spoke. "Really?" she asked. "Because, we have had reports of hackers getting into people's spaces and randomly deleting facts. Of course, uhh, none of this has ended up in a client being hauled into court, so it isn't something anybody should be overly concerned about. Have I...have I mentioned that Clutter Buster chips are recommended for people on low fat diets because they are sun baked rather than fried?"
The Clutter Buster was supposed to outsource and organize memory of the random details that clutter our brains, freeing us to harness the power of our minds to become philosopher...kings would be too strong a term for most people. Let us say philosopher court jesters. However, the implementation has, to date, been found wanting.
"Hey, if...if...if it helps me catch more criminals," Officer Frisson-Siddiqui, surprised to get the last word, stated, "the technology works for me!"