So there's this guy named Carl. Carl lives in Idaho. Not the part with potatoes and ranchers, no--he lives in the other part of Idaho. The part that nobody talks about, mostly because it's just a bunch of cul-de-sacs, stray shopping carts, and a single llama named Debra who refuses to be sheared. Anyway, Carl is a mild-mannered man who has two hobbies: collecting commemorative spoons and meticulously organizing every issue of National Geographic since 1973 by the color of the explorer's socks on page 17. He's never missed a day. One Tuesday (because this only could have happened on a Tuesday), Carl wakes up, looks out his window, and sees two Mormon missionaries--Elder Jensen and Elder Pineapple. Yes, Pineapple. It's a long story involving a Hawaiian mission trip, a fruit costume, and an unfortunate incident with a parrot named Reggie. But I digress. So these two missionaries are biking down Carl's street when suddenly a portal opens up in the middle of the road. Not a metaphorical portal, mind you. A literal, swirling, time-space-bending wormhole just hanging out between the recycling bins and a rogue flamingo lawn ornament. Now, Carl is no stranger to weirdness--he once found a DVD of Shrek 2 in his cereal box--but this, even for him, is new. The missionaries stop, stare at the portal, and say, "Well, we better see if there's anyone in there who'd like a pamphlet." So they go in. Inside the portal is... Utah. But not modern Utah. It's like Utah circa 1870, except everything's made of marshmallows and everyone speaks exclusively in interpretive dance. Elder Jensen, being prepared for such situations (he did take that one elective in "Portal Theology and the Doctrine of Interdimensional Hospitality"), decides they should split up. Jensen goes to find a bishop made entirely of soft-serve ice cream (naturally), and Elder Pineapple finds a talking goat named Brother Kevin who's very interested in discussing the finer points of The Book of Mormon but keeps getting distracted by squirrels doing backflips in unison. Meanwhile, back in the real world, Carl has decided that he too must enter the portal. Not because of spiritual yearning, mind you, but because he accidentally dropped his rare 1986 "Utah Centennial" commemorative spoon into it while trying to swat away an aggressive wasp (named Leonard, who, for the record, holds a grudge against Carl from a past life when Carl was a cactus). Once inside, Carl immediately realizes he's underdressed--everyone's wearing suits made of Jell-O (lime green, obviously). He's issued a mandatory welcome hat shaped like the Salt Lake Temple and given a unicycle. The unicycle is key. Because in this version of marshmallow-1870-Jell-O-Utah, the unicycle determines your spiritual status. Carl, unfortunately, can't ride his. Not because it's broken, but because it's sentient and extremely judgmental. Meanwhile, Elder Pineapple is elected temporary prophet by a council of sentient hymnbooks, while Elder Jensen uncovers a conspiracy involving time-traveling raccoons trying to rewrite the Doctrine and Covenants as a comic book. Carl, still spoonless, finds himself accidentally starting a rival church based on interpretive spoon choreography and gains three devoted followers, one of whom is just a hat. At this point, the portal starts to collapse because someone (probably the raccoons) left a crockpot on in the 4th dimension, and so the whole group--including the missionaries, Carl, Brother Kevin the goat, three sentient hymnals, and an inexplicably angry moose--all dive back through the portal just before it seals. They land, of course, in a Walmart parking lot in Provo. Elder Pineapple looks around, adjusts his tie, and says, "Well, that was a productive afternoon." Carl finds his spoon lodged in a vending machine and walks home in silence, unsure if any of it was real--until he finds a tiny green Jell-O cube in his shoe with the words "See you next Tuesday" carved into it. He never talks about it again. read more