I actively dislike Edwin Schrödinger, maybe not in the same way that I dislike Thomas Edison. I mean, I don’t want to go back in time and remove Schrödinger from history. (Tommy, hope that time machines forever elude me. Where tons of people will be on the “let’s take Hitler out” case, there will just be you and me… and a whole lot of volts. Historic karma, baby.)

On any given day, I don’t think about Schrödinger nor his boxed up cat. In truth, my brain mostly goes through a pattern of: “Why all the days? Song stuck in head. I should sing it.  Jay Jay Jay. GRRRRR! Seriously? OOO SHINY!!! Stupid song. Jay Jay Jay. So many words from one face. SHOO, kk? Jay Jay Jay. Do I have that song on my phone? We do not “hug” us. No no. Hands to ourselves. Audible! Story time! KITTY! Come back, kitty!! Jay Jay Jay. Ok, night night.” No seriously, that’s my brain on any given day. This is why it would be a bad idea to read minds. You’d just get slammed with a gigantic wall of nonsense and images. Well… at least from me.  But now and again that man and his box re-enter my world, and when they do I get irked.

It’s not that I don’t get the paradox. For some strange reason when I kvetch about it there is always someone who decides that my problem is clearly based on a gross misunderstanding of it, and if they just tried using little words I’d have my “oh! Now I see! It IS both alive and dead,” I’d be convinced that this was a great mental exercise. Of course, when they do try to explain it in a sad attempt to sway my thoughts, and declare, “golly, that is a neat mental game – alive? dead? We don’t know!,”  they never bring up quantum superposition, quantum mechanics, or the Copenhagen interpretation theory, which actually is interesting.  And it’s not because they know I’d get glassy eyed, hop onto a yawn Ferris wheel that I’d never exit, and would end up demanding more coffee and a pony to pat in order to be bribed into listening. No, they just want to take shortcuts, and try to bludgeon me into understanding that the cat is both alive and dead until it is observed. See? Get it? Again, alive and dead! ALL AT ONCE! My personal take on it is this:  you put a cat in a box with no air holes, you introduce a radioactive substance and poison, and you have A DEAD CAT.  So, in my unwillingness to open my mind to this bit of mental gymnastics, I tend to use my adult vocabulary and declare the whole thing as being both “stupid” and “irritating”. That’s also not a paradox! I observed it!

So, of course the stupid cat and the death box recently came up, and I was without caffeine, and had just entered into the “why all the days?” part of my day, which makes me less tolerant of things and more likely to see words as “too many” or “word drool” when a friend of mine figured something out. “She has a problem with it being a cat.” Yes! “Beth, imagine it’s not a cat, but…” and then he came up with something that didn’t involve a helpless animal being trapped and murdered. A light flipped on. I can play this mental game if this game doesn’t involve fluffy creatures. (By the way, if it was Schrödinger’s Flying Water Bug, I could get behind it being stuffed in a box – no problem there whatsoever. Much like my issue with Edison, the heart of my problem comes down to the animals. If the man had just electrocuted anything but dogs and elephants, I’d be fine with him trying to demonstrate the dangers of AC (or his ego, I always get those mixed up). For example, say he made his point by sacrificing himself – applied those 6600 volts to his face, then we’d be ok. (I “may” have an issue with animal cruelty and animal testing. You probably caught onto that.)

This brings me to boxes in general, and the one I currently have sitting on my table. It’s a long running joke that I don’t open boxes. I have no natural curiosity when it comes to what they might hold. I genuinely don’t care about presents. I like them, I’m thankful for them, but I’m not going to go nuts trying to guess what’s inside. So, earlier today I was thinking about that package, and how I have to open it, then it dawned on me “it’s Schrödinger’s cat!” Hear me out. Currently, it’s in an unknown state where it is both amazing, and incredibly underwhelming and disappointing. Right now it’s “special,” a state that will disappear when observed. Once opened the contents become just things I own (or in this case determine whether to send back). So, the box sits on my table with the best things ever inside, and the worst things I’ve ever seen.

Schrödinger should have gone shopping more – appealed to those with a softer, non-murdery, pro-animal side. Just sayin’. Maybe once I’m done with Edison, I’ll swing by to pick Erwin up, take him down 1930’s 5th Avenue – we’ll talk clothes, wrapped gifts, and making our theories accessible to everyone while simultaneously enjoying the magic of alternating current… and how nice cats can be.