As a public service, this publication, in cooperation with OmniTech Industries, a wholly owned subsidiary of MultiNatCorp, is happy to provide the following reader survey. Please, read the questions over carefully and answer as best you can.
When you have finished the survey, feel free to use it to train your dog or other household pet. If you must, mail it to the main offices of OmniTech Industries, which are located somewhere in Central America. Whatever you might do with it, for heaven’s sake DON’T SEND FINISHED SURVEYS TO US! We’re understaffed as it is!
1) How accurate do you feel opinion polls are?
a) very
b) not very
c) better than my uncle Al’s arthritis
d) better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick
e) I’m sorry, but I only read The Enquirer
2) Who were the Toronto 27?
a) just a bunch of crazy kids
b) the cuts from this year’s Argos training camp
c) nobody knows. That’s classified information, the bearer of which is liable to get a fine of not more than $5,000, a prison term of not more than three years and 48 straight hours of Green Acres (although that has been banned in some provinces as cruel and unusual punishment – if in doubt, consult a TV critic)
3) Are you experienced?
a) oh, sure. I’ve been to a Stones concert
b) it depends; does walking nude along the beaches of Montmartre, watching the sun set wrapped in the arms of that certain someone and indulging my slightest whom or appetite count as experience, or have I just been wasting my youth?
c) by the time you reach my age, you better be, sonny
d) no, but I’m willing
e) wait. Let’s define our terms. These days, being experienced doesn’t mean getting high, it means making your first million. Umm, no, I guess I’m still not experienced…
4) Why does smoke always blow into the face of a non-smoker?
a) because if it didn’t, all that research on the effects of second-hand smoke on laboratory rats would be wasted
b) the tobacco companies have a deal with the manufacturers of air conditioning systems to punish people who don’t smoke
c) the tobacco companies have a deal with the manufacturers of iron lungs to help them move their product
d) oh, you’re just blowing the situation out of all proportion
5) What section(s) of the paper do you read on a regular basis?
a) the comics
b) Yuri Andropov’s advice to dead Russian Premiers column
c) the obituaries
d) Moe Allen’s column on the care of waxed fruit
e) the horoscopes (but I don’t believe a word of them)
f) “Entertaining” by Mila Mulroney
g) other
6) What is the summer solstice?
a) what the Pope wears to Mass in summer
b) a psychedelic rock band of the 1960s
c) Aunt Bertha’s disease
d) Sting’s real name
7) Why does a young man’s fancy turn to thoughts of love in the Spring?
a) because in Winter, a young man’s fancy more often than not turns to thoughts of getting his car started
b) because that’s when the string bikinis come out
c) because that’s when the ink in the wells of poets thaws out and they are first able to write about anything
d) because it beats watching the snow melt
8) Will you accept the charges?
a) I don’t even own a telephone
b) no, darn it, and I’m prepared to fight this thing right up to the highest court in the land! $2.73 is too much!
c) it depends: AC or DC?
d) it depends upon whether or not I want to hear what the person on the other hand has to say. But, then, I’ll never know unless I do accept the charges, will I? I guess we’ve got a classic Epimenides Paradox here, and – hee hee – we all know how painful that can be
9) What, in your opinion, has been the greatest failure of mankind?
a) not feeding the world’s population
b) not finding a cure for cancer
c) not perfecting a male contraceptive
d) Jean Chretien
10) What is the name of your favourite love song?
a) “Love’s Algebra Lesson”
b) “Hot Lovin’ Disco Boogie Inferno”
c) “Mushroom Love”
d) “Piston Engine of Love”
e) “Just a Cop on the Love Beat”
f) “Fissionable Material of Love”
g) other
11) Who is Viktor Korchnoi?
a) a Soviet dissident
b) a Soviet chess Grandmaster
c) a dissident Soviet chess Grandmaster
d) Wally on Leave It To Beaverski
12) How can we let something like this come between us?
a) it’s too big to get out of the way
b) we’re basically shallow people
c) look, Bill, Sally is pregnant. Pregnant! Do you understand what that means? If you’re not going to do, well, the right thing, then I will. But, I won’t respect you in the morning
d) I don’t want to brush it away! You brush it away!
e) because I’m in love with Jack
13) What’s love got to do with it?
a) have you ever seen Jack? Everything!
b) nothing. (Can’t you see I’m lying, you crazy Bolshevik fool, you. Lying to protect you. Lying because love is the only thing that really matters, but you’ll never know because you’re too busy plotting the overthrow of the free world…)
c) actually, love is an emotional intellectualization of a natural physical urge that was necessary, Darwinianly speaking, to propagate the species, but which no longer…
13a) Don’t you ever stop?
a) …umm…no longer has any import because of the large number of human beings already populating the world. Love…
14) You are on a bus. The driver asks to see your student card even though you paid the full adult fare. As you sit down, you notice that a man is looking at you. The man looks like Casey Kasem, only his voice isn’t quite so grating. The sound of small arms fire can be heard from the back of the bus, but it turns out to be a baby’s ghettoblaster. The bus drives three blocks past Neptune before the first passenger gets off. The driver stops for a coffee, giving 12 people the opportunity to sneak off the bus. The more people get off the bus, the more crowded it seems to become. A little old lady hits you with her umbrella because you didn’t offer her your seat, even though the seat next to you is empty. You are past your stop and past caring. What is the driver’s name?
a) Gus
b) Ed
c) Joe
d) 23975
e) don’t know
15) What are you in for?
a) six months for stealing the toupee off the head of every influential used car salesman
b) three years for inciting a riot when I accidentally told a joke at a Progressive Conservative Party leadership convention
c) life for practicing philately without a licence
16) Philately? What is philately?
a) an unnatural lust for a talk show host named Donahue
b) just another in a series of birth control methods not approved by the Roman Catholic church (surely, you’ve heard of the Philately Method?)
c) oh, no, you don’t: philately will get you nowhere
17) How can I be sure that you’re sincere?
a) I haven’t removed my raincoat
b) my boyish grin. You’ve got to trust my sincere, boyish grin!
c) because I don’t do this with every person who reads my column, you know
18) How high is up?
a) oh, ’bout that high
b) high as a kite
c) high as an elephant’s eye, which, come to think of it, isn’t really that high at all
d) it depends on what it’s taken
e) …is actually a recent historical development, and can be traced back only a few hundred years. This proves that love is…
19) Is time really relative?
a) no, but Einstein is a relative
b) yes, but only at speeds approaching that of light, so it isn’t really relevant
c) to what? I’ve heard that for over 40 years, and nobody ever says what it’s supposed to be relative to! I’m getting angry…
20) How have you supported What the Heck Do You Know?-mania?
a) letters to my MP
b) walked in the protest rally
c) bought tickets to the show
d) proudly flushed my completed surveys down the toilet
e) other
f) …probably obsolete
