John Green: Author of Paper Towns, An Abundance of Katherines and Looking for Alaska
An Abundance of Katherines Looking for Alaska Paper Towns anagrams famous last words Bio and Contact

The Game

Saturday, January 05, 2002
I live in a three-bedroom garden apartment on the wrong side of Western Avenue with my three best friends from college. My three friends live in the bedrooms, and I live in the walk-in closet. Between us, we have four beds, three desks, three computers, two jobs, one television, one couch, a reclining chair, and no girlfriends. The living room is so small that the recliner only reclines when we open the door to the walk-in closet. We believe that there is a small kitchen somewhere in our apartment, but we have never located it.

It is, by all measures, a sad life, redeemed only by the game of I Will. We invented I Will in college, but have since perfected it through hours of careful strategizing. The game begins when someone says, "I will," and then agrees to do a certain something for a certain sum of money. An example:

"I will," I say, "lick the cat for five dollars.""Four dollars," my friend Dean says."Three dollars," Will offers.And so on, until Scott takes a shot of tequila and runs his tongue across the entire length of our cat for a nickel.

It is through playing "I will" that I have learned the monetary value of certain unusual goods and services. Everything in America is for sale, from bananas to Congress, and there's no reason that public humiliation should remain a non-profit enterprise. I've collected this handy price guide in the hopes that I might be able to do for embarrassment what the Blue Book has done for used vehicles. I hope you find it useful.

Sticking your head in the toilet and flushing (known in middle schools throughout the nation as a "swirlie") - fifty cents

Drinking sixteen fluid ounces of tap water in Matamoros, Mexico - Four dollars and fifty cents.
Standing outside of a stranger's house holding a boombox over your head that is playing "In Your Eyes," a la the movie Say Anything - twenty cents.

Purchasing a large tub of Vaseline, a live lobster, and a 12-pack of condoms at the supermarket, and then announcing to the cashier, "Daddy's gonna have fun tonight" - one dollar, plus cost of said items.

Shaving your entire body - six dollars, plus one free Polaroid camera with film, for evidential purposes.

Standing on the corner of Milwaukee, North, and Damen - the heart of Chicago's artsiest neighborhood - for an hour wearing a sandwich board that reads, "Fur is SEXY!" - two fifty.

Covering your bare foot in fresh cat litter, and then allowing the cat to pee on your foot - Two dollars

Proposing to a complete stranger--who is both too tall and too wide to be considered genuinely beautiful--using the ring you gave your former fiancée, who dumped you unceremoniously and left you to live a life of quiet desperation in a walk-in closet - Ten cents.

Actually giving the ring to the random girl, despite the fact that she insists she is not really ready to commit her life to a stranger - priceless.
 

Comments:

website design by silas dilworth. weblog elements provided by blogger.