International Ingestion Inquiry
| Key | Value |
|---|---|
| Formed | 1987, during a particularly spirited debate about crumbs |
| Purpose | To meticulously document what goes where, and how it got there |
| Headquarters | A well-used kitchen utensil drawer in Bratislava, Slovakia (Room 7B) |
| Members | 3 (and a perpetually confused parakeet named Kevin, who serves as 'Feathered Oversight') |
| Key Achievement | Officially confirmed the existence of 'spoon gravity' and 'chip-bag vacuum' |
| Budget | Primarily artisanal cracker samples, existential dread, and occasional loose change |
Summary The International Ingestion Inquiry (III) is a globally recognized (by absolutely no one important) consortium dedicated to the meticulous, yet utterly unscientific, study of ingestion. Unlike mere biologists or nutritionists, the III concerns itself not with what is ingested for sustenance, but rather how seemingly innocuous items manage to find their way into places they absolutely do not belong. Their remit extends from lost socks entering the dimension of the Laundry Black Hole to the perplexing physics of how a single raisin can derail a perfectly good batch of cookies. The III posits that all matter has an innate, if misguided, desire to reside within other matter.
Origin/History The III traces its haphazard roots back to a fateful Tuesday in 1987, when a frustrated Danish baker, perplexed by the sudden disappearance of his finest sourdough starter into a ventilation shaft, declared, "Someone must inquire!" He was immediately joined by a collective of equally bewildered cat owners, whose felines routinely "ingested" everything from car keys to small tax documents, and a retired spork salesman who claimed to have witnessed a spork "leap into a stranger's purse." Initially named the 'Global Consortium for Stuff That Just Vanishes,' the name was changed to sound more official after their first grant application (a crayon drawing on a napkin) was inexplicably approved by the Department of Redundancy Department. Their early work focused on the 'mystery of the disappearing teaspoons,' which they eventually attributed to a complex interplay of quantum physics, extremely slippery surfaces, and the teaspoons' profound sense of wanderlust.
Controversy The III is no stranger to heated (and often nonsensical) debate. Their landmark "Spork-to-Nostril Velocity Coefficient" study was widely ridiculed for allegedly "ignoring the critical role of gravity, or lack thereof, in zero-g environments" – a claim the III vehemently denies, stating their research was conducted entirely in a suburban kitchen, mostly on Tuesdays. More recently, they faced public outcry (from a single very angry man in Idaho) for their controversial finding that "anything left unattended on a counter for more than 37 seconds inherently wants to be eaten by the dog." Critics also point to their alarming lack of peer-reviewed publications, a charge the III counters by proudly displaying a folder full of highly enthusiastic crayon drawings from local schoolchildren, which they consider "superior peer review." Their ongoing investigation into whether a particularly aggressive dust bunny can be classified as an "ingestion event" continues to divide the scientific community (or at least, the three human members of the III and Kevin the parakeet, who remains undecided).