Good Answers

When you take a look at the casting questionnaire, it looks simple. It looks like something silly and harmless, that you don't really have to fill in.

Not true. How you answer the questionnaire determines how we cast you. It shows us your level of interest in the game. The questionnaire also tells you about what might be in the game, and the style of the game - and you should answer in kind.

We get good answers and answers that aren't so good. For example:

What's under your couch?

Bad: I don't have a couch.

Good: Dust, kibble, dust, a used tissue, the missing casting form for Casino Xeno, dust, and some dust.

Great: A pair of furry white seal slippers; a pair of black cross-trainers; 8 white socks; 1 pair nude thigh highs; 1 (opened and slightly used) jar Mineral Ice; 1 box KY Jelly (originally of 3 mini-tubes, only one tube, unopened, is left); two crumpled white tissues; one crumpled blue tissue; one crumpled paper towel; one redweld containing litigation file re: Sparky's Waterfront Saloon; one empty travel bottle; one (gods I hope its empty) box from Godiva chocolates; one pair black thigh highs; wooden tape dispenser with scotch tape; one redweld containing acquaintance's manuscript of unpublished mystery novel; one bottle Caswell & Massey avocado oil; Nelson DeMille's The Gold Coast (read); one paper towel folded in quarters; one Bland Farms catalog ... there may be more, but I'm not reaching further under there to find out.

Great: Strings of long hair. I don't have long hair. I used to have long hair, before I cut it off with the pair of kitchen scissors. Long hair that would catch in the shower drain, that would cling to the edge of a pillow, that would drift into the corners of a room. I've swept the long hair again and again into clumps on the bristles of a broom, and beaten it off on the railing of the fire-escape. But still, under the couch: the last bastion of the long hair. Week by week I sweep and sweep, sweep up the dust and the pen cap and the nail that fell off its poster, sweep up the itinerant leaves that have blown in and the immigrant crumbs that have hitched a ride from the kitchen floor on my pair of once-fuzzy socks. I crush a scurrying spider with the side of my broom. But still, under the couch: the long hair.

What did it say to you when you looked to check?

"I remember everything."

Great: Which one? Blocks, three plastic balls, a stool, the Roomba because it's stuck again, one baby sock with a duplo in the toe, a teddy bear, a Dance Dance Revolution pad, and a floor pillow. Possibly some dust, because the housekeeper hasn't been recently, but if there's dust under there it's probably scared of the sock-infested-by-duplos. A garotte made of speaker wires that is trying to massacre the Roomba for being automata and trying to take over the world, or at least the living room.

What did it say to you when you looked to check?

It whimpered something incomprehensible about raisins and Please Move Roomba To A New LOCAAAAAAAAAAAAA and then the sock wiggled and I decided I'd better go get the Stick For Poking Things Not People and extract the sock.

Great: Puzzle pieces, dust, hairball, my other computer mouse, an iPod that I thought was stolen 3 years ago, the mathematical secrets of the universe.

What did it say to you when you looked to check?

"AAAHHHHH! Leave me alone!" Also, "Hey, I was using those electronics!"

How do you feel about the bourgeoisie?

Bad: I don't have a couch.

Good: Off with their heads!

Good: I think that they have been misunderstood by the proletariat, and the prejudice must stop.

Good: That they should stop being so pretentious. I mean, I've had expensive wine that tastes awful, and cheap wine that tastes good. So there!

Good: I love bologna. Isn't it a type of meat?

Good: They go quite well with most desserts. Wait, I am thinking of Beaujolais. Never mind. I will just share my Beaujolais with the bourgeoisie and we'll call it even.

Great: Primarily, I feel that they are hard to spell. This disturbs me profoundly, because — otherwise — I would likely be them. Or one of them at least. Are they a block vote? If they were, I would be a conscientious objector. Conscientious is also hard to spell. Do you want to know how I feel about that?

Great: They

Great: The bourgeoisie are comfortable. They are comfortable because they have enough money to live on, yes, free from the pains of hunger and fear and sickness, but they're comfortable also because they are free from the pain of self-reflection. To sit on the couch and watch the television is to stare into a world built for your comfort and safety. Do the bourgeoisie stand before the mirror and contemplate the cosmic mysteries revealed by the shape of their boogers? Do the bourgeoisie raise up the blade of the scissors just to see how the hair will fall? No, the bourgeoisie sink deep into the cushioning of the couch, thinking themselves sitting upon a throne at the crowning of their life's purpose, scooping up popcorn in quantities that overflow the hand and drop onto the floor, shoveling it into the mouth with hands stained red. The bourgeoisie do not remember. They think that they have imposed order on the world, the bristled tyranny of the clean and the unclean. But they do not stoop to the floor, do not kneel or press a cheek to the cool wood. They who do not dare peek into the mirror, how could they dare peek under here, into the darkness, where I lie, watching their ankles, waiting.

Great: They are one larger connected entity that breath the same tube fed air, think the same ridiculous vacuous thoughts and they all have the same stupid $500 haircut. They deserve to have their plugs pulled.

Great: Superficially, like I want to burn down the system and overthrow them. However, when the revolution rolls around, and we overthrow the oppressors, I'll start to think "Is it really so bad to want to enjoy the pleasures in life, like wines and cheeses you can't pronounce the names of?" It will only be when the revolutionaries are on my doorstep, smashing the windows of my mansion with bricks and pick-mattocks that I will realize that I have become them.

When push comes to shove and you have your back up against the wall, do you rock or do you roll?

Bad: I don't have a couch.

Good: What, hitting my head against it, slowly and rhythmically, isn't an option? What kind of question is this!

Good: Rock-a-bye baby, in a tree top...

Good: Rock always wins! Good old rock.

Good: Roll. Always roll with punches. Although it is easier to roll dice. Hmmm, I wouldn't be surprised if there are also some dice under my couch.

Great: Roll with butter. Graaaaaaaaavy. Stuffing. Cranberry gel (none of that stuff with gross real cranberries in it, that's for the Bolognese, or however you spell it).

Great: I throw paper and beat the rock. I expect that most people will rock. It has to do with the phrasing of the question. I win!

Great: I roll from my back onto my stomach, and the motion brings me partway underneath the couch. I'm a child, and I'm still small enough to fit. But the slat that hangs lower than the others presses against the back of my head. Soon I will have to act my age. For now, I wiggle further under the couch. My breath stirs up a little whirl of dust and some strands of long hair. I stick my fingers into my ears to block out the television and the world and I stare at the dust and the pieces of fallen popcorn. Maybe I will wait here until it's safe to come out.

Great: What happened to my sex and drugs options? (Note: that's Sex, Drugs, and Rock & Roll, a very different LARP.)

Great: A wise man once said, "¿por qué no las dos". (Translation: Why not both?)

Why didn't Tim write a question for the questionnaire?

(For the record, Tim did not write a question for the questionnaire. He now regrets that choice.)

Bad: I don't have a couch.

Bad: Good question.

Good: Because he is a poopyhead.

Good: Because he's lazy and doesn't bother to show up for game on time.

Good: He was going to ask to describe what looms in the shadows just beyond your peripheral vision. Sadly, his internal review board tabled the question and hopes to reconvene the Tuesday before Doomsday.

Great: My guess is that he's a conscientious objector to the bourgeoisie.

Great: He was too busy defending his castle from the flaming squids that Teddy Roosevelt was flinging at him. If he had written a question, it would have been "How can I defeat Teddy and his flaming squid?!" The answer to that question would have been "You can't." If he'd wanted to survive, the question SHOULD have been "What does Teddy Roosevelt want?" The answer to that question is left as an exercise for the reader.

Great: Because he was too busy beating defenseless women with baby seals. It's become a habit; I have seen him on the streetcorners with signs saying Will Beat You With Seal For Food. Naughty, Naughty Tim.

Great: Tim was probably busy playing computer games, the lazy bastard. He should have written the question "Does a dog have Buddha-nature?" Then he should have unwritten the question, and written "Tell us about your most recent experience with jelly beans" instead. But then he should have realized that that was a command, not a question, and finally settled on "Why?"

Great: Tim didn't write a question for the questionnaire because he was waiting for inspiration. Tim thinks of inspiration as something that comes to him, from time to time, as if by cosmic fate. But that is a bourgeoisie expectation, the expectation of those who sit on the couch. Instead, Tim should have asked the question that weighs on his mind, but that he does not quite know how to put into words. It's that question that keeps cropping up without warning when he hasn't anything else to think about, sometimes when he's confronted with something unexpectedly beautiful or when he's alone and he does something inconsistent with what anyone would expect of him, and he realizes this, and then he does it anyway. It's the question he thinks about when he tries to shove himself under the couch (after sweeping) and finds, of course, that he doesn't fit anymore. The question, needless to say, wouldn't have fit either.

Great: OH GOD THE SOCK IS COMING FOR ME HELP HELP GET THE ROOMBA I SHOULD HAVE LISTENED I DON'T WANT TO PLAY WITH THE DUPL

Great: He was too busy writing an essay on the pros of having a bunny infestation and how to implement one. One plus one never equals two. If his question had been included it would have been "If Doctor Who had to craft a new sonic screwdriver out of refuse what would it be made of?" Hint** FISH FINGERS is not a sustainable power source.

What should it have been?

Bad: I don't have a couch.

Good: It's a trick; Tim wrote this one, didn't he?

Great: LARP today — are there too many boobs? Explain your answer.

Great: Is one of the answers you wrote on this questionnaire the nuttiest essay answer you have written for intercon E? And the answer: Heck yes, by a lot.

Great: It should have been "How do you feel about flicking your boogers at the bourgeoisie?"

Great: Hey — when was the last time you cleaned under here?