Cake and Potatoes: Schrödinger’s Child

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Has it been three minutes yet?

No, more like eighteen seconds.

Uuuuunnnnggghh!! The suspense!!

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Relax, Beau. If you think about it, whether or not we’re pregnant isn’t determined by that little plastic strip lying in there on the restroom sink. The reality was actually determined weeks ago, when and if we conceived.

So there’s no real suspense … This isn’t Schrödinger’s Cat.

“Scrotum’s Whom”???

Schrödinger’s Cat … It’s a famous thought experiment from the late 1940s. Picture this: A box containing a vial of poisonous gas whose release is determined by the 50% chance of a substance experiencing radioactive decay.

… Come again?

We place a cat inside the box and completely cover it from sight. So without looking, we know that there’s A) a 50% chance of the cat being alive and B) a 50% chance of it being dead.

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Now, if we apply the quantum theory of superposition, the cat—until we lift the cover to observe it—exists as both alive and dead, simultaneously.

[So right now, you exist as both pregnant and not pregnant?]

[And you exist as both a father and a non-father—if we were to apply the theory.]

… which, by conventional physics, is viewed as patently absurd.

“Superposition,” huh?

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Beau, where are you going?

To go punch that assistant manager—or whoever keeps making those announcements—in the face.

Bee-bee-bee-beep!! Bee-bee-bee-beep!! Whelp, that’s three minutes!

… The moment of truth.

Outta my way!!

Wha—??

Emergency!! Must … use … restroom!!

But she left a pregnancy test in there on the counter!

[Just a minute!] Slam!

...

[Frrraapp!]

Uuunnggghhh …

Jeepers, speaking of “poisonous gas”!

Yeah, babe, let’s go back to waiting on that crate of festering cabbage over there where the air is little better.

You go ahead, hun. I can’t take this suspense.

… Beau, honey, where are you go—?

Smoke break. I’ll buy a pack at the registers up front.

You’d leave me here to wait for the results of our pregnancy test alone?

Relax, I’ll be back before Little Bovine Blue finishes “blowing her horn” in there. And besides, due to the laws of quantum mechanics, Daddy Beau is here to keep you company.