Would You Rather...

...be able to read everyone's mind all the time, or always know their future?

This is a toughie. Hearing all the thoughts that swirl around could surely drive a girl insane pretty darn quick. All those accents, first of all! And the setting everything to a little tune. Not to mention the insecurities and the psychotic ramblings, and the random, never-to-be-fulfilled, spontaneous desires -- whether of the jumping-on-a-stranger or -in-front-of-a-bus variety...

As if it didn't go without saying at this point, my own thoughts keep me plenty busy, thanks.

On the other hand (and here is where my occasional and shocking altruism rears its inconvenient head), if I had to see  what lay in store for every single person I ran into, I'd feel obliged to become some sort of superhero/preacher on constant spoiler alert -- warning strangers of the consequences of their every minute decision:

"You don't want eat that supermarket sushi!"

"Take the bus today, just trust me!"

"He has CRABS!"

(Yes, that last one I probably would holler at those decibels. I've never had crabs, myself, but I almost did. And, as a preventive measure, I took the cure. It ain't no fun, I tell you what. So if I were a superhero I think I'd make crabby (becrabbed?) people my bete noire.)

Anyhoo, it's also true that, in seeing people's futures, you might get to see some things that are good. Prizes won, professional success, certain hated houses burning down, the births of lots of babies (if you like that sort of thing, or the non-births of lots of no-babies if you don't) -- maybe just a really good night's sleep for a change, or that long-awaited, elusive, healthy poo. These are all good tidings, tidings I'd be thrilled to be the bearer of.

Although, when they say you'd "know" their future, do you suppose that means you'd actually see it? Hm...

Because those last few tidings that I listed, I'm really not so sure I'd want to watch.

You're up! What would you rather do?

If You Went To Jail, They'd Make You Sell the Buick, Anyway.

Hey kids!

It's Would You Rather Wednesday!!!!

Yay!!!!

What does that mean? Well, Jimmy, it means I ask a question from my magic box, and all the boys and girls get to take turns giving us their answers!

Oh don't you worry, little Georgie, there aren't any wrong answers in this game!

Sound like fun? Yes? Yay! Let's play!

Now sssshhhhh... Gather 'round and listen close...

The category is Appearance/Embarrassment, and the question is: Would you rather...

Meet your greatest heroes and vomit on them -- OR -- in trying to meet them, be arrested and publicly accused of stalking?

Okay, here's the thing. First of all, most of my heroes are dead, so der. Obviously, I would totally rather puke on a dead guy than get accused of stalking one.

Right, Joe?

Secondly, any of my heroes who are actually alive, I probably have already ralphed on 'em at one point or another.

Right, One Friend?

Yeesh!

But okay. If there were an alive hero-person I could think of whom I hadn't already blown chunks at, then I guess I would rather show them the old technicolor yawn than get arrested and publicly ridiculed for mooning after a b-list celebrity like some defrocked Catholic priest.

Right, Father?

Besides, something tells me my alive-hero-person might just worship the porcelain goddess occasionally his own self.

Right?

Whoops, I forgot to say: Now you're up! What would you rather do?

Would You Rather...

.. be one of five survivors on Earth -- OR -- be the only earthling on another inhabited planet?

Discuss!

Oh, me?

I'd rather be the only survivor left on Earth. But if you could put the other four unlucky bastards far enough from me -- like on the South Pole or something -- and I get the rest of the whole entire planet to myself, then I'd rather be here with them than on the Death Star with a bunch of ugly, one-eyed, probably telekinetic ooga-boogas.

(No, as a matter of fact, I'm not having a very good week. Not at all. Why do you ask?)

Now you're up -- what would you rather do?

Everywhere You Go...

Hey, kids, it's...

Would You Rather Wednesday!

No monkeying around this time! Just the first question off the top of the pile! Say whatever comes to mind! After we get the small print out of the way!

Small Print:

This game is really called Zobmondo.

Blah blah blah.

Okay ready? Gather round!

The category is Pain/Fear/Discomfort, and the question is...

Would you rather, for the rest of your life, live in 110-degree weather -- OR -- five-degree weather?

See, they didn't pick their numbers very well. Everybody knows that subtle differences between numbers can make all the difference. To wit:

One (this is not the funny number) of the funniest seconds in the history of film occurs towards the end of Planes, Trains and Automobiles. Steve Martin and John Candy (you're already halfway to a pretty good second right there, I must say) are in the back of a freezer truck. They're hugging themselves and shivering, and Martin turns to Candy and says "What do you think the temperature is in here, anyway?" And John Candy answers "I don't know...

"One?"

I'm sorry, but Bwah ha ha ha ha!!!! And it would've been nowhere near as funny if he'd said "zero" or "negative one" or "absolute zero." Or, for that matter, "five."

But then again, maybe it was just in his delivery. I remember seeing on a clip show or something somewhere that Imogene Coca decided the funniest number she could possibly say was "thirty-two." And she was right. You had to hear it. It was hy-freakin'-sterical. But thirty-two ain't funny when I say it. The funniest number I can say is "eighty-seven." (Either that, or "sixty-twelve." But "sixty-twelve" is not really a number.)

I suppose, though, that when they wrote this question they weren't trying to be funny. They were, most likely, trying to be dire. I maintain, however, that the numerical theory stands. Some numbers are more dire than others, and not least when temperatures are concerned. And I'm not talking about strict differences between cutting-off points, like between 99 and 100, or under and over the boiling point.

Oh, hey, speaking of either 100 or the boiling point---

Fahrenheit is both more comedic and more dramatic than Celsius. I mean, a scale of 1-100 between freezing and boiling may make perfect sense for all scientific writing and for 99% of the world's general population, but the fact remains that "It's 44 degrees outside!" just doesn't have the same woe-is-me punch as "It's a hundred and twelve!" Plus, um, not for nothing, but who can tell me what the freezing point of water is in Fahrenheit? Anyone? Imogene?

Thank you. I rest my case.

Okay, so, back to the question: 110 or 5, for the rest of my life. Fahrenheit, I'm assuming, yes? Christ, I hope so! 110 Celsius is like Mars-hot. And 5 Celsius is practically cookout-weather.

All right, well, I'm a girl with a little extra padding, so I choose 5.

But do you see how it would have been funnier if it was 7?


Now YOU'RE up! What would YOU rather do?

I'll Remove the Cop, But Not the System

My favorite commentor this week is Amanda, because she always notices my tags -- which are something it never occurred to me that people would notice. Yesterday, she envied my ability to write a post about "camping, Fanta, pee." And what feels like a looong time ago, she noticed that I had seven separate posts tagged "toilet" (it was really August 4, and the number of "toilet" posts has since gone up to 9).

I can't link to Amanda, because she doesn't have a blog. Or, rather, I suspect she does,but she doesn't want any of you-all to see it. Because she comments with a blue line, but when you try to follow it you get the Blogger Stay-Out Screen. That's okay, Amanda -- if that is even your real name -- you don't have to share your thoughts on toilets and pee with the world if you don't want to. But riddle me this:

If you don't share your profile, how, then, did I come to know you're in Australia? Am I psychic? Or did you "accidentally" share that information? Or is it all a giant subterfuge?

Oh, shit, you're not really District 1 Councilor Victor Pap III, are you? And here's me, forgetting to make a joke about your name in yesterday's post!

Anyway...

Welcome to Would You Rather Wednesday, everybody!

For the record, the game is really called Zobmondo and you can buy it here.

Ready? Okay! Gather 'round...

The category is Random, which means it could be anything, but judging from this question I'd say it falls under the category of either Ethics or Embarrassment, depending on your answer. Would you rather...

As a bank robber, realize after you get inside the bank that you overlooked one security camera -- OR -- one security guard?

Oh, gosh, criminal justice. I haven't had to think about this shit since the accident...

Okay, as the robber, I've got three goals: 1. Get the money, 2. Get away, and 3. Get away with it. And neither the cameras or the guard have any effect on #1, so we'll discard it.

Now, the cameras -- although they're pretty daming evidence preventing #3 -- are virtually useless stopping me from #2. Unless some vigilante pulls one off the wall and hits me with it. The guard, on the other hand, could either shoot me on the spot, or be a witness in my trial. Or both.

And if we're going to assume I'm not one of those jackasses who wears a "Mount Holyoke College, Class of 1990" t-shirt to pull heists in, or writes the stick-up note on her own deposit slip -- which we are going to assume, and I'm sorry if that is against the rules -- then even the camera shouldn't be that big a problem at the trial. Because I'm also smart enough to wear a hood, and a baseball hat, and sunglasses, and to bind my breasts and -- what the hell -- let my stray chin hairs grow in for a month or so before.

Hey man, at that point? I might as well go ahead and wear the MHC t-shirt. They'd only wind up looking for some post-op FTM anyway.


Oh, yeah, so to sum up: I'd rather find out that I overlooked the camera.

Stuck? Stuck. Stuck!

The lesson we learned from our whopping response last week was: avoid the morbid questions. (And also: HPH is funny!) Okay, got it. No make-you-puke questions and no make-you-think-about-your-own-death ones, either. Roger that.

Now, let's skip the preliminaries this week and just dive on into this Kierkegaardian conundrum, shall we?

Welcome to Would You Rather Wednesday!!!!!

Blah blah blah rules and stuff.

Ready? Gather round!

The category is Pain/Fear/Discomfort (not the throw-up kind, I swear), and the question is: Would you rather...

Run barefoot in the snow for 15 minutes -- OR -- stick your tongue to a frozen flagpole?

Now here's the thing: I wouldn't want to run for fifteen minutes, period, never mind the temperature or the status of my footwear. As I said to (psycho) Gerry the other day when I found out that he (nutsily) runs the Boston (insane) Marathon: I don't run unless somebody's chasing me, and even then they better have a pretty damn big knife. And I do mean knife. There's no sense running from a gun, because a person doesn't have to be able to catch you in order to be able to shoot you, but it's pretty hard to get stabbed at from across the room. Unless the stabber has good aim. And the stabee has bad reflexes.

Anyway...

If we take that little bit of painful, frightening discomfort out of the equation -- if we say, instead, would I rather lick a flagpole or lie down in the snow for fifteen minutes? Well, then, that's a whole other kettle of soup.

I can lie in the snow. Don't think I can't. I ran away once when I was something like seven years old, and I lay in the snow in the front yard for hours waiting for somebody to notice I was gone. They never did, or maybe they did and they just didn't care, or maybe they did and thought it served me right for pouting. At any rate, I eventually gave up and came inside on my own. I'm lucky I did, too. I'm lucky I did not get frostbite out there! Unless, well, maybe it wasn't really hours after all. Unless maybe it was more like roughly the length of a commercial break in an episode of The Muppet Show. But still. It was scary. I think Sean Penn should make a movie about that.

As far as licking flagpoles goes, though, I've never done it. I did used to lick the freezer -- the little metal strip that keeps things from falling off the door. Oh, and the ice cube trays. Remember the old metal ice cube trays -- god, it makes my spine hurt just to think about them -- where you had to lift the metal arm to knock the cubes out, and it would make that awful, squeaky, squealy, screechy, snap? Seriously, I think one of my teeth just shattered like a wine glass at the sense-memory of the sound. In fact, if the question were "What is the best invention of the last thirty years?," the answer would have to be "Screw the internets, man! Plastic ice trays!"

But that is not the question, is it? No. The question, if you remember, had something to do with licking frozen things. And I did used to sometimes run my tongue along those ice cube trays just to feel the sense of panic when it stuck. It was a wee tiny cold rush of adrenaline -- like a little kiddy popper -- because it would stick fast, and fast, but it would only take about a minute to thaw off. Over the course of these random minutes here and there, I formulated a theory that if you brought a jug of warm water out there with you, you could probably pour it down over the frozen flagpole to free your tongue. But I never had the jugs to test it out.

What I'm trying to say is: I don't want to run for fifteen minutes -- and yes, you did hear a whine and a foot stamp in those italics -- but I don't want to spend the rest of my life having to fish my tongue out of my pocket every time I need to lick a stamp or something, either.

So I guess (sigh) that I would run.

Now who's going to volunteer to chase me with a knife?

Can't Stop, Sorry!

Hey, everybody, it's Would You Rather day!

Only -- argh! Now that I’ve given myself permission to skip the stupid questions, they all seem stupid and I can’t stop flipping through the stack in search of a better one. (I don't want to hear a single lousy crack about the indecisive promiscuity that that entails.) So here’s what I’m going to do: find my favorite comment from this past week, and pose the first question I come across that starts with the same letter as that person’s name. Ready? Here I go, off to peruse your pithy posts…

Okay I'm back. And the winner is: Chris! Because “house goiters” is both funny, original, and mildly disgusting, all while being manifestly not a poo joke – of which lord knows we have more than our fair share around here as it is. (Although, don’t get me wrong, this is not a hint that that's going to change. You may rest assured: at The House and I, there will be poo.)

Now, let’s not forget that the game is really called Zobmondo, and you can buy it here. If you’re going to play you have to choose one or the other of the choices given – you can’t say “neither” or come up with a third option. Wild speculation as to the interpretation of the wording of the question, however, is most certainly allowed. Because who really does know what the definition of the word “is” is, after all?

Okay? Gather ’round!

The category is Ethics/Intellect (my favorite!) and the question is: Would you rather…

Constantly relive the three best days of your life until you die – OR – live just one more year starting today?

Oh man. I have big hopes for this next year. But then, I had big hopes for this past year, too, and look how well that turned out for me. Are we assuming the three best days of my life already happened? Do I get to choose them? Or could it be some speculative future best days that I get to make up? Could I be skinny in them? How long would I live? Would I know I was living the same three days over and over again, like Bill Murray in Groundhog Day – or would I be more like Drew Barrymore in 50 First Dates? If I could be Drew Barrymore, then I’d probably choose that. But then again, I’d probably choose whatever option would let me be Drew Barrymore, even if it meant drinking from the fishtank and the toilet water, so that’s not really fair.

All right, I’ll start over. Theoretically, I see that living the same days over and over again – even if for a hundred and fifty years, and no matter how fantabulous they are – isn’t really "living" in the existential sense. But when I so much as contemplate choosing to die in one short year I feel myself fixing to hyperventilate, even though I know it’s just pretend.

So my answer is this: if I have to make the choice and then carry it out knowing that I made the choice, I choose the three-day option. After all, I could always off myself if I got bored. But if it were to be just spontaneously magicked down and I’d have no idea, I’d choose the year.

And now I’d best get back to writing, just in case.


For the record: I wrote this before Jenni told me she got shushed at the library for laughing out loud at the house poop. Otherwise, she just might have won, and we'd be answering a question about ... about ... well, I can't seem to find a J-starting question right this second. And since I don't have to, I'm going to stop looking.

If You Knew Time As Well As I Do...

Before I launch into Would You Rather Wednesday, I'd like to extend a Very Special Welcome to beardonaut, who comes to us all the way from Sweden, courtesy of Google's "show me a random blog" button. He came, he saw, he decided to stick around. So therefore...

Welcome to the Nuts Club, bearie (may I? or shall it be Mr. Donaut?)! Now, on with the show!

Okay everybody, pretend I'm that really-fast-talker guy who used to do commercials for FedEx, back when they still had the time to be called Federal Express. Ready?

The game is really called Zobmondo, and you can buy it here, and if you’re going to play you have to choose one or the other, you can’t say “neither” or make up a third option.

Got it? Now gather round!

The category is “random” -- which means it could be any of the previously-played categories (peeking ahead, however, I'd say this one qualifies as "Pain/Fear/Discomfort") -- and the question is:

Would you rather spend the rest of your life in a space station -- OR -- in a submarine?

Funny story:

When I was in college, I had the opportunity to live in a submarine. We all did. It was yellow, and--

Oh no wait, that wasn't real.

Well, I got nuthin, then, so I'll just answer the question for a change:

I would rather spend the rest of my life in a submarine. Because, since they didn't say otherwise, I assume I could at least steer it around and see different things once in a while (coelacanths, geoducks, anglerfishes, protogynous hermaphrodites). If I were in a space station, all I'd ever see would be the same-old space junk. Plus broken toilets. And lady astronauts in diapers.

Unless -- hey, wait a second! Can we keep George Bush in office for a little while longer? (Of course we can: just elect McCain!) Because I bet if we did, and if I could just find within me a bit more patience than I usually muster, the WWIII light show from outer space would be spectacular. And if you add in the bonus that I'd probably be one of very few earthlings still alive, then --- well, that doesn't sound like any fun at all.

Submarine, then. Definitely submarine.

Now you're up: What would you rather?

Beware the Wrath of Unknown Gods

Since I seem to have started a tradition here of thanking a commentor before launching into Would-You-Rather-Wednesday, I’d like to take the opportunity here to recognize Kim (a.k.a. pcklsoup). Welcome, Kim!

Kim commented for what I believe was the first time yesterday, and I’m thanking her here because what she said gave me the opportunity to tell the best off-the-cuff joke I’ve managed to come up with all year – maybe the best of my entire life!

In her comment, Kim said she googled Townville (see the post below for more on Townville) and that Tang is made in a place with that name. That’s not this Townville, of course, because this Townville is really called Weymouth – I just started calling it Townville for anonymity’s sake, back when I still cared about that sort of thing. Sometimes I still call it that just for yuks. Because it’s funny! Townville. Heh. But anyway, speaking of Tang…

Ahem:

On the 4th of July, we had the family over for a cookout. Somehow the subject of Tang came up and I mentioned that Johnny, for some reason, is particularly enamored of the stuff. We even have a glass pitcher with the logo on it and everything. It has iced tea in it at this particular moment, but look:

See?

When I said how much Johnny loves the stuff, my mom chimed in. “Oh,” she said. “Well, I’ll have to remember that next time you come, because I always have a box of it in the cupboard!” Or an envelope, or a tin, or whatever Tang comes in these days. (Hey, I said Johnny liked it, I never said I actually buy it for him. Ain’t I a bitch?)

“You do?” I said. See, Mom can’t eat sugar. She’s not diabetic or anything, just more like a hyperactive toddler: if she eats so much as a half a muffin, she gets really hyper and runs around and around and around until she gets sick and falls down. She deems it worth it for occasional things like wedding cakes and apple pie, but I couldn’t see her risking it for a cloying, fruity-flavored, powdered drink. “Why?”

“I use it to clean my dishwasher!” Turns out this is a household hint she’d read somewhere. “If you put Tang in the dispenser instead of soap and then run it, it cleans out the whole inside and all the pipes. Works great!”

And then I said, “Really? Sheesh…

“No wonder they broke the toilet on the space station!”

Ba dump bump! Thank you very much, ladies and germs! I’ll be here all week! Don’t forget to tip your waittresses!

Hoo-boy.

So now that that's over with, it's time to make with the Would-You-Rather. Let’s not forget that the game is really called Zobmondo, and you can buy it here, and if you’re going to play you have to choose one or the other, you can’t say “neither” or make up a third option.

Ready? Gather ’round!

This week’s category is Ethics/Intellect (my favorite!), and the question is…

Would you rather pry out the jewels from tenth century artifacts you found while hiking, then sell them for a quick 10 million dollars – OR – do your duty as a citizen and give the treasures to the state for preservation?

Before I answer, and before anyone decides to go all Elgin Marble on my ass, I gather from the question that you are going to pry the jewels loose (let's just say you're a hopeless kleptomaniac who took to the hills to try to control his tendencies, and just happened upon this big Red Flag), the only question is what you're choosing to do with them next. Let’s also not forget that this is hypothetical. Unlike the story I’m about to tell…

When Johnny and I were traveling through Europe – the trip we should never have taken, but on which we fell in really, truly love – we got in a HUGE fight on the Greek island of Paros. I don’t even remember what the disagreement was about, but it resulted in me marching off all by myself to see the butterfly forest that was supposedly just over that hill.

Or that one.

Or (fuck) that one?

Man, were my feet tired.

I never did catch those g-d butterflies, but I did walk through a little whitewashed town, I did see an old guy herding goats, and I did happen upon what I gathered to be an ancient praying-place. Not a full-fledged temple, exactly, but a little sort of hut with an altar and some writing on the walls. And, on the floor, there were all these little shards of old red clay…

I was going to show you a picture to give you an idea, but I can’t seem to put my hands on it right now. The piece, I mean. The piece I picked up and pocketed and trotted down the mountain with to show to Johnny. He was not impressed. He said I shouldn’t’ve did it. So obviously I marched up the next day and i put it back. Or, well, at least I later dropped it on the floor of the Acropolis. Sent it anonymously to Paros when we got back to the states? Threw it over the wall of the Greek embassy? Gave it to the guy who makes my pizza?

Well, it’s just a little shard. It doesn’t even look like anything. For all I know, it was made the year before by Dmitri McHellenopolis in pottery class. Or it might even be the remains of a clay pigeon. Maybe Dmitri and his father shoot skeet all the time over that ancient altar/shed.

Yes, well, obviously I shouldn’t have picked it up, but I did, and I still have it, so there. I just can’t seem to put my fingers on it right now. I think it’s probably in the steamer trunk that my computer sits on, and I don’t feel like clearing everything off of it just to have a look. If it’s in there, it is safe – as safe as anything else in this godforsaken house, at least – I promise that.

But jewels? Jewels that were actually worth something? That were actually worth something like ten million dollars? Oh, no, man. That shit, I’d give back.

The five-fingered salute is one thing, but I don’t need no oogie-boogie curse called on my head.

You're up: What would YOU rather do?

¡Uy, Mi Cabeza!

When I inaugurated Would You Rather Wednesdays, it was not my intent to declare winners at all. The goal was merely to ponder oddball questions and implement discussions on same. However, as no decent debater would ever fess to: I know when I'm beat. And last week, we all were.

As you may recall, last week’s choice was between getting stood up for your prom or taking the date of your dreams and having them leave with someone else. The general consensus, with one or two exceptions, was that we would rather be stood up, but the winning answer came from my cousin Donna. I always thought she was so cool anyway when I was little, but if I’d known this I might have gone ahead and just decided to be her. Here’s what she said:

How's this. Both of my senior prom dates wore blue tuxes (1978). I had a date for the prom and one after the prom. And oh yeah, date at the prom took off with someone else. He was my old boyfriend. My new BF had a date that already bought a dress and I wouldn't let him officially "dump" her until after she got to wear the dress. But would I rather be stood up? No WAY! Being abandoned at the prom wasn't so bad, I got to socialize with more people I think.

Not only did she have two dates, but she managed to make that sound like a nice thing, and get sympathy for having one of them take off.

Winner!

I don’t know if there’ll be a winner this go-round or not, but we are off (like a proverbial prom dress). Just to remind you, the game is really called Zobmondo, you can buy it here, and 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.

Got it? Okay. Gather 'round…

The category is Food Ingestion, so the squeamish among you may wish to recuse (although, as Food Ingestion questions go, this one is not so bad)…

Would you rather suck down a 64-ounce frozen drink in 60 seconds – OR – eat the icing off two enormous wedding cakes?



Okay, here’s a story for you:

When I was fifteen years old (sixteen? I don’t remember) I did an exchange-student program thingy and spent a month (six weeks? two? I don’t remember) in Granada, Spain. While we were on the plane on our way over, our poor faculty chaperone’s older brother died, so pretty much as soon as we landed she got on another plane and went back home. Leaving us, a bunch of sixteen-year-old girls (and one not-so-lucky boy) alone for a day or so till her replacement came.

Did you know there is no drinking age in Spain?

That first day, actually, we didn’t do so bad. We were still intimidated by the strange money and the stranger language (a language which, incidentally, we'd all been studying for seven years, but those people don't pronounce their s's! Who ever heard of dropping a perfectly good consonant for no apparent reason? Weihd.). We did, of course, go immediately to a bar and order a cerveza, but then we pretty much just giggled and ran back to the hotel.

Her replacement, though, was a fresh-out-of-college 21-year-old, whose only response thus far to us acting up in class had been to say “You guys. Come on.” She had no idea how to rein us in on foreign soil. And when we discovered that not only could we order cervezas in corner bars, but could also buy Bacardi off of supermarket shelves, there was no stopping us.

Unfortunately, we were still sixteen years old. An age when “no stopping” and “Bacardi” ends in broken toilet seats and puke stains on hotel floors. ("What is that awful stain?" asked our Dozy Chaperone, and shook her head when we refused to answer. That was the extent of her disciplinary act.)

So the point is, I don’t know if I could or not, but I would much rather suck down the frozen drink. Because I like frosting (which is what that sugary stuff on cakes is really called, no matter what the printed game-card says). I like frosting a lot. And I don’t know what might happen if I ate two wedding-cakes worth.

But I do know I haven’t been able to enjoy a rum drink in twenty years.


You’re up: What would you rather do?