I KANT CUZ I’M TOO JUNG

“Do you remember,” asked Pennypacker, “the thumbless children?”

“Indeed I do,” Jearl replied. “And a good thing we ditched them before the University found out.”

Sitting in Pennypacker’s office, drinking something noxious and green from bell-shaped flasks, the two men presented a glaring contrast: Pennypacker tall and cadaverous, looking like a puppet assembled from the bones of a dozen species; Jearl thick and lumpy, as if constructed from poorly mashed potatoes. Each man wore a white labcoat on front to rear, the buttons in back misdone, causing the garments to ride up crazily.

“I can’t forget what high hopes we had for that one,” Pennypacker continued. He seemed nostalgic today, as if contemplating past glories that would never come again. “We were going to settle once and for all the role of an opposable thumb in the development of man’s intelligence. We set up the orphanage with some of our grant money, and you hired the staff from the Salvation Army residence halls.”

“Very tractable they were, too,” Jearl said. “As long as they got their daily shots.”

“A few discreet whispers among the indigent members of the city, and the children began pouring in. I feel it’s a shame, by the way, this lack of morality among the young today, thinking nothing of rutting like guinea pigs, and relying on science to handle the consequences.”

Jearl burped agreement.

“In any case, we had our subjects. Once we reached a critical mass, so to speak, of infants, it was the work of only a day to dethumb them. Then, it would have been a simple matter of sitting back and observing our little community, to see whether they developed intelligence as we define it.”

“But the police came,” Jearl said morosely.

Pennypacker pounded a knobby fist on his desk. “How were we to anticipate one of those hysterical young women might want her baby back? What nerve! Laymen have no conception of what true science demands. Luckily, our hands were clean in the whole affair. Imagine if we hadn’t taken those precautions I insisted upon— Where would our careers be today? As it was, they came damnably close to catching us. The newspapers didn’t let the story fade for a whole year. Reporters sniffing even around the campus.”

Jearl shifted his lumpy bulk uncomfortably in the visitor’s chair. Pennypacker’s mood had infected him now too. “It seems that the era of great science is past, Pennypacker. Imagine Pavlov or Mengele struggling under these conditions. Begging for funds, complying with the EPA and genetic-engineering watchdog committees, lecturing pointy-headed proto-yuppies, whose vision extends no further than a six-figure income. How are men of our insight and daring supposed to advance the cause of science with such petty restrictions?”

The two men sat silently for a time, contemplating injustice and the fickleness of the world.

At last Pennypacker slammed his desk again. “We can’t despair, Jearl! The future stretches before us, beckoning. Don’t we have our minds, our hopes? Surely there’s territory left to conquer. Let’s reason about this.”

“You know my feelings about reason, Pennypacker. It’s never gotten us anywhere. It’s our instincts we have to rely on. As Jung said, ‘The great decisions of human life have as a rule more to do with the instincts and other mysterious unconscious factors than with conscious will and well-meaning reasonableness.’”

“Don’t quote that charlatan in my office, Jearl. My thoughts on the subject are fixed. Reason and logic are what separate man from the animals. Take a supreme rationalist such as Kant—whom you would do well to study, Jearl. What did he recommend? Intensive scrutiny of one’s every action, to determine all its consequences. ‘Act only on that maxim through which you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law.’ A fine mess we’d be in if I had let you rely on your instincts with the orphanage. ‘We should appear on television,’ you said. ‘Publicize ourselves.’ Hah! We would have publicized ourselves right into a jailcell.”

Jearl composed his crevassed face into lineaments of hurt and distress. “Get in touch with your shadowside, Pennypacker, and you won’t be so miserable to be around.”

“Bah! Rubbish! Look at your actions in the light of the Categorical Imperative, Jearl, and recognize your flaws.”

“I’m sick of this argument,” Jearl said petulantly. “We always have it when we’re in between experiments. I wish there was some method to settle it, one way or the other.”

Pennypacker shot to his feet, as if his strings had been pulled. “Jearl, you’ve hit upon it! Our next conquest! We’ll answer the question that has plagued mankind since it crawled from the slime. Which approach to life is more beneficial? Brain or heart, thought or feelings, rationality or instincts!”

Like pudding, Jearl rumbled up excitedly out of the chair. “Classical or jazz, Asimov or Vonnegut, PBS or ABC!”

“Exactly!”

Jearl’s smile faded then, and he asked, “But how?”

Pennypacker advanced to his friend and put a bony arm around a suety shoulder. “The brain is an open book today, Jearl. Out of a hundred neurotransmitters, surely we can adjust a few to achieve a person who relies solely on either rationality or instincts. Then, we monitor his life, and objectively determine which way brings more success.”

Jearl looked skeptical. Pennypacker bent low and whispered, “Dopamine.”

Wistfully, Jearl said, “You hope o’ mine.”

“Serotonin.”

“Got me moanin’.”

The two joined hands and began to dance around the office, knocking furniture and files.

“Norepinephrine.”

“Causes such a scene.”

“Acetylcholine.”

“Gets you nice and mean.”

“GABA.”

“Makes me jabber.”

“Glycine.”

“Could turn me lean!”

Laughing, the two collapsed into their seats.

First to recover, Pennypacker said, “Let’s get busy.”

Three weeks later, they sat once more in the office. On the desk between them stood two vials filled with clear fluid. One was marked with a black label, the other white.

“That didn’t take too long, did it?” Pennypacker said. “Without the computer simulations and molecule modeling, we’d still be at it. I suppose this decadent age has a few benefits. Now, we need to decide who runs the first trial. I nominate your serum for the initial test.”

“Not so fast,” Jearl said. “You’re hoping something goes wrong, and I have to discount my results. No, you go first.”

Pennypacker shrugged. “You wound me, Jearl. That was not my intention at all. I have faith in my chemistry, even if you don’t. There’s no advantage to going last. I’ll be proud to begin this experiment.”

“Aren’t we forgetting something?” said Jearl.

“What’s that?”

“The subject.”

Pennypacker waved his hand. “Not to worry. Remember the words of one of the greatest science popularizers of all times, Jearl.”

“Which are?”

“There’s a subject born every minute.”

* * * *

Kirsten James walked briskly across the campus, her mind beset by problems. If her problems could have been objectively ranked—always a doubtful proposition—the top three might have been:

1) Arthur.

2) Money.

3) Grades.

But not necessarily in that order.

At least, she thought gratefully, as she reached the steps of the biology building, money won’t be a problem much longer.

After all, the ad in the campus paper had promised a thousand dollars for just two weeks work.

She hoped fervently that she would get the position. They only needed one subject, though. But a friend on the staff of the paper had tipped her off in advance, and she was certain to be the first applicant.

Tripping lightly up the stairs, Kirsten wondered what the nature of the work would be.

On the third floor, she came to the office mentioned in the ad. Two silhouettes—one tall and skinny, the other short and lumpish—moved on the frosted glass as if in a dance. Kirsten supposed it was a trick of the late afternoon sunlight. She knocked. The shadows stopped abruptly, separated and disappeared. A shuffling of chairs sounded. A voice came:

“Enter, please.”

Kirsten opened the door and went in.

Behind a standard professorial desk sat the man who had obviously cast the elongated shadow. His labcoat was all disordered, rucked up somehow around his neck. To the side, barely fitting in a big chair, a second man sat, identically dressed.

“Ah, my dear, come in, come in,” the tall man said. “My name is Pennypacker, and my esteemed associate here is Jearl. I assume you are responding to our solicitation for a subject to aid us in our latest work.”

“Yes, I am,” Kirsten said. Were they wearing their coats backwards?

“Wonderful. You’re the first, and hence undoubtedly the best qualified. We merely have to ask you a single question concerning your epistemology, before making a final decision.”

“My what?”

Jearl spoke up. “Don’t take offense, Miss. We refer merely to your philosophy regarding knowledge. Do you favor rational thought over intuition, or vice versa?”

Kirsten pondered the question for trick implications, could discern none, and thought it best to answer honestly.

“Well, I try to apply both in my life. I mean, if you don’t listen to your heart, where are you? But on the other hand, it pays to look before you leap.”

Pennypacker clapped his hands together. “Marvelous! I could hardly have found two cliches more suited to express the attitude we are seeking in our subject. You’re hired! Here is five hundred dollars up front, for the first trial.”

Advancing around the desk, Pennypacker stuffed the bills in Kirsten’s purse.

“Hey, wait a minute. I need to know a little bit more about this experiment before I agree. Don’t you want my name, at least, and some references?”

“Nonsense. We trust you implicitly. Your word is your bond, we are sure.”

“But I haven’t agreed yet! What are my responsibilities? Is this gonna cut into my free time a lot? I’m carrying a full course-load this semester.”

“Your duties are minimal. We wish you to live your life exactly as you have been doing, merely keeping a diary for us of your inner reactions to the drug and how it alters your decision-making faculties.”

“Drug! Hey now, the ad didn’t say anything about drugs. I don’t smoke, drink or do dope. This isn’t the sixties anymore, you know.”

Pennypacker dismissed Kirsten’s fear with a suave gesture. “The solution you will receive is simply a mix of chemicals already present in your brain. It’s one hundred percent natural. Just like NutraSweet. Now if you will kindly submit to Jearl for a moment—”

Somehow, Jearl had come up behind her with impossible stealth. Now he pinioned her arms. She watched as Pennypacker took out a hypodermic and filled it from a glass vial bearing a white label. He advanced on Kirsten with an odd smile.

“You should be grateful,” Jearl said from behind her. “Before we solved the problem of getting past the blood-brain barrier, we used to have to drip the solution directly onto the cortex.”

Kirsten fainted.

* * * *

“—two tickets.”

His speech concluded, Arthur Hennepin stared longingly at Kirsten, his moony face nearly bisected by his broad smile. The couple sat at a food-speckled table in the cafeteria. Arthur was rather pudgy, with thin blond wisps of hair straggling across a spot of premature baldness. His major was accounting, his minor subject ornithology. Kirsten’s girlfriends frequently demanded to know what a beauty of her caliber saw in Arthur. She would patiently explain that they had known each other since elementary school, that Arthur was “sweet and devoted” and that he would someday make a good salary, at his longed-for job: keeping the books for the Audubon Society.

But her girlfriends would always persist: “Isn’t he dull as dust, though?”

And Kirsten, honestly forced to reply “Yes,” was lately beginning to have her doubts about Arthur.

However, at this minute she had much more on her mind than Arthur’s lack of stimulating qualities.

Those two screwy guys—exactly what had they done to her, and what was she going to do about it? Imagine their nerve, injecting her with some untested drug without her permission! Yet, hadn’t she tacitly agreed to participate when she hadn’t immediately rejected their money? It was all very confusing. Why not give them the benefit of the doubt? Perhaps they were just eager to come up with some new wonder drug that would benefit all mankind. She suspected scientists got carried away occasionally with their enthusiasms. Take that Sagan fellow, for instance. Why, sometimes he seemed almost frothing— And the drug seemed to have no adverse effects—yet.

Kirsten opened her pocketbook, verified that the money was indeed there, and decided to go along.

“Kirsten,” Arthur said with an impatient whine, “I don’t think you’ve heard a word I’ve said.”

“Of course I have, Arthur,” she replied, although truthfully, she hadn’t. In fact, the whole trip across campus to the cafeteria was somewhat hazy in her mind, and she seemed to be having trouble concentrating. Perhaps she had been a little hasty in discounting the effects of the drug.

Kirsten took Arthur’s hand and squeezed it. His smile threatened to wrap around his ears. “I’m sorry, Arthur. Maybe I was a little distracted. Would you mind running things by me once again?”

“Well, since you’ve been saying lately that we don’t do anything exciting, I gave it some thought, and decided, what the hell, let’s splurge. So I managed to buy two tickets to the concert tonight. You know, that guy you like.” Arthur made a face. “Davey Zowie, or whatever his name is.”

Kirsten squealed. “David Bowie! You managed to get tickets! Oh, Arthur, how did you do it? That concert was sold-out weeks ago.”

Arthur looked smug. “Oh, I just found a scalper—”

Suddenly Kirsten’s brain shifted into hyperdrive. The room seemed to collapse into a pinpoint of light and disappear, while her thoughts raced with nanosecond precision and silicon clarity.

Scalper. Tickets bought unethically in blocks. Eager consumers deprived of their fair chance. Prices jacked up. Unhappiness. Unfair. What if everyone scalped? Chaos, despair, young girls slitting their wrists, Bowie finding out and feeling responsible, becoming too distracted to sing. Patronize a scalper? No!

The whole process took less than a second. Kirsten came out of the intensely rational state, back to the noisy room. Wow, what had all that been about? She had never experienced anything like that before. She shook her head. Maybe she could just ignore it.

Arthur studied her with puzzlement. “Aren’t you excited, Kirsten? Don’t you want to go?”

Kirsten opened her mouth to say how glad she was, when a new sensation struck. It felt rather similar to constipation, only it was located directly behind the bridge of her nose.

All at once, she found herself speaking without control.

“Arthur, such behavior is reprehensible and not to be taken as a guide to universal conduct. You will return those tickets immediately. I want nothing to do with them.”

Kirsten stood and began to stalk out of the cafeteria.

After half a minute, Arthur recovered enough to pursue.

“Kirsten, hey, wait a minute. I never thought you’d take it like this. I was just trying to make you happy. Those tickets cost fifty bucks apiece. Slow down a second, will you! Let’s talk.”

“There’s nothing to talk about. Get rid of those unethically purchased items at once.”

“The scalper’s not gonna take them back, Kirsten. What should I do with them?”

Stopping at a random table, Kirsten said, “Give them to these people. Your charity will nullify the original unethical act.”

With trembling hands, Arthur took out the tickets. He looked as if he might cry. He eyed Kirsten imploringly, but her unrelenting face gave him no hope. He handed the tickets to the seated students, who had been watching the whole affair with amazement.

“Hey, thanks, man,” one said. “Is this a promotion or something? Are you guys from a radio station? Will you say my name on the air?”

“Just shut up,” Arthur said, then hurried after Kirsten, who was already outside.

On the walk, Arthur caught her by the arm. “Okay, I did just like you said. Let’s forget I ever brought it up. Boy, a hundred dollars down the drain.”

Kirsten halted. What had come over her? She put a hand to her forehead. It seemed to be over now.

“I’m so sorry, Arthur. I—I can’t explain it.”

“It’s all right. We’ll just have a quiet dinner at my place, like we do every Friday.”

Arthur began to guide Kirsten home.

By the wrought-iron campus gate, they came upon Johnny Z. Johnny was a bedraggled, burnt-out hipster who had been a fixture on campus for twenty years. He cadged loose change and beers from each passing generation.

“Spare cha—” Johnny began.

Before Arthur could stop her, Kirsten delivered a vicious kick to Johnny’s stomach, whereupon he promptly folded and collapsed.

Arthur regarded Kirsten with fright.

“People,” she said sternly, “should work for a living.”

* * * *

The lights were low in Arthur’s off-campus apartment. He and Kirsten sat side by side on the couch. During the evening, Kirsten had suffered no more of the strange attacks. Both she and Arthur felt relieved. Arthur, however, wanted to discuss the incidents. Nervous and feeling contaminated, Kirsten had not told him of the injection, and so his theories were hopelessly off the mark.

“Could it be that PMS thing…?”

“Oh, Arthur, just be quiet and kiss me.”

Arthur knew when to comply.

After a time even under Arthur’s inexpert caresses, Kirsten began to grow excited. She felt happy and relaxed, all the troubles of the day receding in the wake of a mellow sexual warmth. Surely no troublesome decision could lurk in this encounter—

Without warning, Kirsten sat up straight and stiff as a frozen fish. Arthur fell back, arms folded across his stomach as if to ward off a foot.

“Whatever it was, I didn’t mean it!”

“Arthur,” Kirsten intoned like an automaton, “this issue of sex is one of the most complicated to objectively judge. On the one hand, intercourse outside of societal structures such as marriage is non-productive and not to be sanctioned, insofar as it tends to undermine the necessary social matrix. On the other hand, coitus remains a natural function, tending to contribute to both the mental and physical well-being of the individual, especially among males of your age-group. Therefore, I have decided that I will now proceed to have sex with you, but under no circumstance will I allow myself to enjoy it.”

With this statement, Kirsten lay back, arms rigid by her side, her face a mask. “You may now undress me and continue what you were doing.”

For just ten seconds, Arthur considered the matter.

He made the sidewalk before the inner door even slammed.

* * * *

Kirsten stood in front of the door to Pennypacker’s office. A week had passed, and she was expected now to report.

She hoped she had the strength.

It had been quite a week.

Kirsten had managed to alienate everyone she knew, teachers and friends, strangers and relatives, shopclerks and waiters, and, most of all, Arthur.

She shuddered now to recall everything that had happened.

A termpaper had arrived in the mail, ordered from one of the mills. She had been so happy, confident that now she would pass Chaucer. In amazement she had watched her willful hands rip it into shreds. Needless to say, her own efforts netted an F.

Shopping with her best friend, Carol, she had been startled to see the other girl pocket a scarf in the department store, although only days ago, Kirsten might have done the same thing. The floorwalker was very eager to press charges, and Kirsten volunteered to testify. Carol had stopped crying long enough to swear at Kirsten, using words Kirsten would have sworn Carol didn’t know.

And that awful altercation with the fat girl eating an extra-large pizza— Who could say why the girl had reacted so intemperately to a spontaneous lecture on the evils of gluttony, delivered in the packed restaurant? Kirsten was still removing mozarella from her hair.

These events constituted merely the tip of the iceberg of embarrassment. She had done things that would never be forgotten. There were people now who fled from her on sight. And all because she had wanted a little extra cash.

Kirsten sighed. She had thought long and hard about how she was going to extricate herself from this mess. Eventually, she had rejected the idea of turning in the two scientists to the authorities. They were the only ones who could restore her to herself. In the end, there seemed nothing to do but play along.

Kirsten knocked, turned the handle and entered.

Jearl and Pennypacker occupied the same positions as on that fateful day a week ago. They seemed to have been waiting patiently here for her, like fungus on a log. For a minute, she actually believed they lived in the office.

Pennypacker rose eagerly to his feet. “Ah, Miss James. Word of your exploits have filtered back to us. It seems as if you have become living proof of the immortal Kant’s wisdom. No doubt your life has been revolutionized for the better, and you see no need to try Jearl’s serum.”

“Wait just a minute now,” Jearl rumbled. “Let the girl speak her mind.”

“It’s been revolutionized all right,” Kirsten said ruefully. “I don’t know about the better part. Anyway, it’s all in here.” Kirsten rummaged in her purse and found a small diary with clasp, which she tossed on Pennypacker’s desk. “I hope you don’t mind it’s not written real scientific like. I had a lot on my mind. And just skip over the first few pages. They’re private.”

Pennypacker seemed disappointed at Kirsten’s lack of enthusiasm for his point of view. “We are engaged in a scientific trial here, Miss James. You may rest assured that we will hold everything in the strictest confidence.”

“Okay, you’d just better. I don’t want Arthur or anyone else finding out my innermost secrets—if they still even care about me. Now, let’s get the second part of this over with.”

Pennypacker spoke with resignation. “Jearl, I suppose you may administer your little cocktail now.”

Jearl drew off some liquid from the black-labeled bottle. Kirsten closed her eyes.

She felt the needle go in. Then something inside her sucked her consciousness down into a bottomless pool.

* * * *

Arthur sat in the cafeteria, moodily regarding his cup of Sanka. (Too much caffeine normally upset him, and lately, with Kirsten acting so bizarre, even one cup seemed like too much.) What could be wrong with Kirsten? She had changed so drastically in such a short time. This stern morality was so unlike her. Previously, her entire code of ethics had consisted of misquoting the Golden Rule. Was it something he had done? Perhaps it was a subtle comment on his own behavior. He supposed he could be something of a prig at times.

Abandoning his unprofitable speculations, Arthur raised his cup, tilted back his head to sip, and—

My God, what was that commotion by the door—?

Kirsten burst in, trailed by a crowd of whooping students. Her blouse was ripped, hanging off one white shoulder. Somewhere she had lost her shoes. Her hair seemed charged with electricity, her eyes feverish. Breasts heaving, she moved like an animal. Lifting her face to the ceiling, she bellowed, “I am the Anima!”

Arthur sprayed out a mouthful of coffee.

Kirsten continued to address the sky. “Where is my soulmate? I must have him. He is the strong horse I will ride to ecstasy!” Kirsten scanned the cafeteria. Her eyes lit on Arthur. She regally raised a long arm to point. “He awaits me on his throne.” She began to advance, with a sinuous gait the likes of which Arthur had never seen.

Arthur hastily scraped back in his chair, got to his feet. His knees felt weak and his stomach churned.

“Uh, hi, K—K—Kirsten. What a surprise.”

“Discard words,” she said. “l am going to melt your spine with love.”

The crowd’s hoots redoubled.

Kirsten was almost upon him.

“W—wait just a minute,” Arthur stammered desperately.

Too late. Kirsten leapt.

Somehow Arthur found himself off his feet. Kirsten had lifted him in a grip of steel. Now her feral face hovered inches from his. Her breath was hot, and she smelled of musk.

“Prepare to know heaven,” she growled.

Arthur fainted.

* * * *

Who would have ever thought the unconscious held so many archetypes? Certainly not the innocent Kirsten of old.

What a varied lot they were!

And so prone to surface with the slightest prompting.

Take, for instance, the time the Wily Trickster persona had possessed her. That had been while she was trying to explain to campus security about the scene in the cafeteria. She had never evidenced any talent for ventriloquism before then. Despite her lack of practice, however, she had convincingly projected her voice so as to simulate a riot outside. When the rent-a-cops turned their backs, she had split out the window.

After that, time seemed to pass confusingly, in a frenzy of events.

Somehow, the Eternal Virgin had convinced an entire fraternity house of horny males to shelter her for two days, without laying a finger on her. When the police inexplicably learned of her whereabouts, the Noble Savage had helped her escape over the rooftops. After that, she had lived in the city’s parks for a week, stealing food from the concession stands and once even catching and roasting a squirrel. At last, the Naive Waif had enlisted the aid of an elderly couple, who had disguised her as their twelve-year-old grand-daughter and delivered her safely back to the campus. (Amazing how each persona seemed to mold her body accordingly!)

Now she stood for the third time outside the office where she had met so much grief and trouble. Surely Pennypacker and Jearl could ask no more of her. She had co-operated to the max. Let them restore her old self now.

Bruised, weary, cynical, she went inside.

As before, two familiar figures confronted her.

This time, it was Jearl who rose to greet her.

“My dear, how wonderful to see you. You rather slipped out of view there for a few days. We thought our experiment might have to end prematurely. How good to know you still survive. And evidently, you’ve flourished!”

Jearl sat, as if the greeting had fatigued him.

Kirsten looked down at herself. Although clean and wearing whole clothes, she was marked with scratches, contusions, and poison-ivy rash. Her fingernails were broken and she knew her cheeks were gaunt. Flourished?

She shrugged. “Whatever you say, Mister. I’m tired now. We can discuss the results of part two later. Just give me the antidote and let me get back to my old self.”

Jearl and Pennypacker regarded each other nervously. Neither seemed to want to tell her certain bad news. Finally, Pennypacker spoke, his skeletal fingers intertwining uneasily.

“Ah, Miss James, it seems we neglected something crucial at the beginning of this experiment. We made no record of your original unique mix of brain chemicals, and so are unsure of precisely what to restore you to. We could, however, experiment further—”

Kirsten felt tears fill her eyes. This was beyond belief. Surely she didn’t deserve this much torment for such a simple transgression as a little greed. Her mind began to whirl under the pressure. The leftover drugs from Pennypacker’s shot began to battle the remnants of Jearl’s. Ultimate rationality surged against primal instinctual drives. Kirsten thought her head was going to crack wide open.

Peace descended without warning. She probed internally, as if touching a sore tooth with tongue. Which was the victor?

With wonderment, she realized what had happened.

Integration had occurred.

Something of her unique wholeness must have shown on her face. Pennypacker and Jearl made motions as if to stand.

Using her new powers, Kirsten paralyzed them both in an awkward crouch. At the same time she controlled them, she levitated two hypodermics from their shelf. One filled itself from the vial with the white label, the other from the black.

Sweat started from the brows of the two men. Kirsten smiled. Then she sent Jearl’s serum into Pennypacker’s buttock, and vice versa.

She let the two collapse back into their seats. Their faces were starting to mirror an inner discontent.

As she turned to go, she said:

“Be sure to record the results, gentlemen.”

AUTHOR’S NOTE

Every once in a while a story title arrives out of the blue, like a goddess springing from a sweaty forehead, but bearing no sense of what any substance behind it might be. This was one such instance. Luckily, thanks to college memories of some Philosophy 101, a fondness for Jung’s autobiography, and a reliance on the original Ghostbusters movie for ambiance, I was able to cobble together a comedic accompaniment to the original inspiration. But it was pretty much tail wagging the dog all the way.

If only I had seen, back in 1989, the 1952 Howard Hawks film Monkey Business, in which Cary Grant play a scientist whose experiments provoke similar chaos, I would have had an even more reliable model for my story. But I only encountered that gem a year or two ago.