A short story by Kilgore Trout, a character of Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.'s. Mentioned in Vonnegut's book Timequake, the story goes something like this:

"On the matriarchal planet Booboo in the Crab Nebula, there were three sisters whose last name was B-36. It could be only a coincidence that their last name was also that of an Earthling airplane designed to drop bombs on civilian populations with corrupt leadership. Earth and Booboo were too far apart to ever communicate."

Another striking coincidence: Booboo's language was very similar to Earth's English.

All three sisters B-36 were very attractive, but only the painter and the short story writer were popular. Everyone thought the other sister, who was a scientist who only talked about thermodynamics, was boring and couldn't stand to be around her. Secretly, she wanted to make her sisters feel, "like something the cat drug in."

Booboolings could be programmed socially through talking. An adult would say something about what was going on that would indicate the correct response a child should have and when the child grew up it would be hardwired in.

Nim-nim, the bad sister, worked with the lunatics she spent time with as a child to developed television equipment. The television shows were very popular because no one had to think anymore and they were very pretty. Her two sisters started to feel terrible because people stopped looking at paintings and reading because no one wanted to look at things that were boring when they could look at the bright animation on a television screen.

Young Booboolings were now grew up without imaginations. They no longer read sweet and happy stories to one another face-to-face. As a result, "Booboolings became among the most merciless creatures in the local family of galaxies."


All quotes taken from Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.'s book Timequake The above node paraphrases a part of Timequake.