Undifferentiated Anxiety

This is what One Friend and I call it when you have an unwarranted nervous/guilty feeling in your stomach. It doesn’t count it you’ve done something to deserve it, like throw up all over your bridesmaid’s dress at your brother’s wedding, and it doesn’t count if you’re about to embark on something frightening, like work. It has to be just out of the blue, for no reason, hence the name.

I’ve got it right now, something fierce. And the only cure I’ve ever found is exercise. So I can’t write this morning, I just can’t. I have to go climb nonexistent sets of stairs and fling ten-pound weights around, then keep sitting up and lying down until the fight-or-flight feeling fades. If I don’t, I’m afraid I’ll wind up with an Undifferentiated Ulcer.

And that would be even more boring to have to read about than this.


P.S. Do not type “ulcer” into Google and click “images.” I’m telling you: do not.

Let's Play the Would-You-Rather Game!

The game is really called Zobmondo, and you can buy it here. That way, we can think of this as free advertising and not copyright infringement!

The way it works is, there are cards with all these two-choice questions on them. They're divided into categories: Pain/Fear/Discomfort, Appearance/Embarrassment, Food Ingestion, Ethics/Intellect, and Random. I'll ask a question every Wednesday, sometimes more than one if the one that comes up isn't interesting, and then I'll leave some space before I answer it so I don't, you know, unduly influence your response or anything.

The Ethics/Intellect ones are my favorites, but the food ones used to make my sister sick -- especially when she was pregnant -- so I'll give you a heads up before I ask one of those. The only rule is that if you're going to play you have to choose: you're not allowed to say "neither" or come up with a third option.

Actually, in the box there are more rules. In the box, they've come up with a convoluted way to turn this into an actual game where somebody wins. But that's no fun. I bought it to use as a conversation starter. Usually after a few drinks. And usually around a campfire. So...

Gather round!

The category is Pain/Fear/Discomfort:

Would you rather: go to sleep on the cold floor - OR - on a comfortable mattress with no sheets and an indistinguishable, sticky stain on it?





Yuck.

Okay, first of all, we have to assume you're not allowed to flip the mattress, because that is the most obvious answer -- right? So I guess what I would rather do would be to sleep on the floor than on somebody else's sticky stain. Because the floor would keep me awake with its hard-coldness, but I wouldn't be able to sleep on the stain for all the whispering. In my head. About the goo.

But I know that what I would do would be different.

What I would do would be to try to sleep on the floor, and then, after hours of bruised hips and sleep deprivation (unless I was drunk, in which case zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz), I'd decide it was maybe only honey -- you know, from all the bees? -- and crawl up on top of the fetid thing.

But I wouldn't taste it.

You?


Happy Would-You-Rather Wednesday, everybody! What would you rather do?