The Government Grant

I recently spent some time visiting my brother in law at his weekend retreat in Texas.

During this visit, I learned that my sister in law, during her college years, was responsible for the very efficient use and spending of our tax dollars.  How, you might ask?  Well, she was performing government funded 'research'.  Want to know what type of research?

Determining if male pigeons would care if they had sex with a stuffed female pigeon or a live one.

I am not kidding.

Now, I am not a scientist and I have no idea what if any redeeming social value this information might offer; but my question (and I am sure yours as well) would be....WHY?

In order to answer that question, we must first understand how the process worked.

Step one:  Get the male pigeon aroused.  I can't answer with any certainty how this would have been accomplished, but I can only assume it involved beer, playboy and cheerleader movies.
Step two:  Keep the male pigeon aroused while moving him to the 'test cage'.  This probably involved someone just talking dirty to the pigeon.
Step three:  Through a cleverly designed chute send the male either:  (1) A live female pigeon who had just had a good meal, some wine, some quiet conversation, and a walk on the beach.  In scientific terms, "her motor was running." -or-  (2) A stuffed pigeon that, as far as I could tell from looking at the pictures, looked pretty much the same as the live one.
Step four:  Start playing Mel Torme records and see what happens.

The 'test' was too see if the male would....what's the scientific word here......oh yea HUMP whatever fell through the chute.  I asked if, just to break up the monotony, they would send other things down the chute.  You know..... a teddy bear, Malibu Barbie, a squirrel.  I mean, if there was a need to see if the guy pigeon cared what he had sex with....give him some options.  I was told that, while a fine idea, it would have "altered the results". 

Apparently there is some great need to determine if a male is concerned if he scores with a real female or a fake one.  So my next thought was, if it's important to know if a male cares what he has sex with, perhaps a study of college students and blow up dolls would be more revealing; (especially if those males were Grand Masters of World of WarCraft or members of the Harry Potter Fan Club) and had access to large quantities of beer.

But that's not the end of it.  The test was just to see IF the male wanted to have sex....not actually let him HAVE sex.  So, what happened was the male was not allowed to.....again, what are the scientific words here.....oh yea, LAUNCH HIS BOTTLE ROCKET.  Just before that occurred, the process would be stopped by:

-Pulling the birds apart
-Yelling at the male "Her mother's coming, hide!"
-Having the female say lovingly to the male as he approaches her "I just love kids, don't you?"
-Shining a flashlight on them while in a gruff voice saying "What are you kids doing in there?"

Once separated, the female would be sent back to the 'holding cage' where she would watch The View, phone all her girlfriends to talk about what happened, and eat ice scream.  The male would sulk off to another room where he would become deeply involved watching a ping pong match between two Chinese nationals.....then be given a cold shower.

Careful notes would be taken with such things as:
1.  Did the male care about her needs?
2.  Did the male care she was (or was not ) alive?
3.  Did the female want to cuddle first, and did the male respond?
4.  Did the male promise to "call the next day".....even to the fake one?
5.  Did the male prefer blond female pigeons?

There is actually a published paper on this study.  Suffice it to say that the results were eagerly accepted by the scientific community....much like you or I would eagerly accept a toothache.  I don't know what the findings were, but I can imagine they'd be something like this:

Case Study L-Texas-49Q
Horny Pigeons

Overview / Process:
We took several male pigeons, got them drunk, and tested whether it mattered if they had sex with a live pigeon or a fake one.

Results:
Nope...didn't matter


Our tax money paid for this information.


**As a footnote, I am not lessening anything my sister in law did during her college years to become the professional she is today.  I say this because she is a wonderful person, a great doctor, and she has no qualms about giving you an enema using pvc pipe and a pressure washer....not the kind of person you want mad at you.