Tuesday, March 25, 2003

What If..... I am a big fan of the hypothetical question. I think this stems in part from the fact that I've been on a lot of long, long road trips in college debate vans, and in part from the fact that I live in a fantasy world. Here are some of my favorites, and the correct answers: Q. If you had to move to a desert island with only ten people you know personally, who would they be? A. I'll spare you my own answer, but suffice to say that this one gets a lot more difficult as the emergence of children forces you to move friends off of the island.  One of my friends presently reading this got the boot when Reeve was born in January.  I won't tell you who's now off of the official list. Q. If you could excel at any one job, what would you choose? A. There are only two possible answers here: NBA player, or President of the United States. As I get older, I lean more towards the President, as I could finally set things right.  But I would enjoy myself more in the NBA. Q. If you HAD to kill one person on earth, and you would definitely get away with it, who would you choose? A. My friend Brad S. Thompson insists that the correct answer to this question is "John Elway." But I suspect it's actually Osama bin Laden. Other candidates include Saddam, Kim Jong Il, Pope John Paul, Bill O'Reilly, Dick Vitale, and Celine Dion. Q. If you could go back in time and witness one historical event, what would you choose? A. If you're of that persuasion, you may pick "The Birth of Christ" or "The Parting of the Red Sea" or "Joshua Fit the Battle of Jericho." But I'm going with the "The Big Bang". Q. Worse--blind or deaf? A. Blind. Q. Worse--no arms or no legs? A. No arms. Come on. This isn't even close. That's way worse. Q. Worse--Bush I or Bush II? A. II. Q. If you had to give up two of the following for the remainder of your life, which would you keep: Sexual Activity, Food and Drink, Sleep? It is assumed that you will suffer no ill health effects from giving up food and drink or sleep, and that you won't be in a situation of perpetual craving. Masturbation counts as sexual activity. A. This is a personal favorite of mine, perhaps my all-time favorite, though really it's quite clear cut. Let's break it down. --Sleep. If you answer sleep, I have no respect for you whatsoever. Either you're not thinking closely enough about the question, which is shameful, or you actually would rather live celibate and foodless in order to be unconscious 1/3 of the time. I know people that have insisted on this answer. These people are not my friends. The thing is that while I enjoy sleep, if I had no physical need for sleep that would be GREAT. Think of how much more you could get done! The only downside is the loss of intimacy from being unable to share sleep with someone else, but what the fuck ever. So sleep is out. As I see it, if you're under 30, you pick Sex, and if you're over 30, you pick Food. Don't get me wrong--I'm all for sex. But at this point in my life, giving up Thai food and candy (though not Thai candy) would hurt more than giving up sex. I once got into a vicious argument with someone about this--they insisted that if I didn't pick sex, I wasn't having good sex. I retorted that if they didn't pick food, they weren't having good food. And so it goes. Five years ago my answer would have been different, but now I'm old. Am I sharing too much? I consider this to be a litmus test of friendship. If you're under thirty and you pick food, then you are clearly too uptight to hang out with a cool and laid back guy like me. If you're over thirty and pick sex, you are some sort of sex-crazed beastie that obviously doesn't have time to be my friend, because you're having sex all the time, clearly imagining yourself to be one of those barely legal hot and horny co-eds that I hear about in my email every day.  Plus, you wouldn't have a full appreciation for the dinners I might invite you to.    3:27:22 PM    Let's hear it. []