Machine Mockery

Meet Gregory Farnsworth III — inventor, visionary, mastermind, and all-around ketchup kleptomaniac. To the untrained eye, Gregory looked like your average balding 42-year-old man with a suspicious trench coat and an aura of expired mustard. But behind those twitching eyes was a brain pulsing with one singular, obsessive idea: Free condiments = pure profit. It all began one fateful Tuesday when Gregory, broke and bitter after being rejected for a Shark Tank pitch involving edible shoelaces, unwrapped a burger at BurgerHut and noticed— eight ketchup packets. He had only used one. The rest? Untapped wealth. Gold in tomato form. Gregory pocketed them. He soon returned to that same BurgerHut every day, asking for "just a few more salt packets" with every free water cup. At night, he’d pour his haul into labeled mason jars in his basement lab, which was just a card table surrounded by empty McNugget boxes and a poorly taxidermied raccoon wearing a chef hat. Soon Gregory had ...

A story of feathers, fins, and far too many eggs. Deep within the clandestine laboratories of Eggstraordinary Genetics Inc. , a team of over-caffeinated scientists stared at a whiteboard covered in chicken scratch (literally—there was a chicken loose with a marker). Their mission: solve the Great American Egg Shortage. “People need omelets!” cried Dr. Henrietta Yolkman, slamming her fists on the table, accidentally cracking three eggs and a colleague’s confidence. They had tried everything: Robot chickens (exploded). Egg vending drones (attacked by eagles). Renting wombats (don’t ask). But now… a new plan hatched. “We’re going to cross a chicken with an ocean sunfish,” declared Dr. Beaker McFeathers, the only scientist who wore both a lab coat and water wings. Everyone gasped. Except Carl, who was busy trying to microwave a Pop-Tart with a Petri dish. Phase 1: The Mashup Begins They started with the basics. Chicken DNA? Easy. Ocean sunfish DNA? Slippery. Ve...