1. What do you do when your teenaged children say that they hate you?
a) resolve to spend more of their college funds on beer nuts and alcohol
b) make a notch on a piece of paper next to the number of times you told your parents that you hated them – when your child’s number exceeds
your own, it’s time to sit her or him down for a talk…or increase his or her allowance…
c) sympathetically ask them to explore their feelings…then ground them for several lifetimes when they do
2. What do your shoes say about you?
a) nothing, if they know what’s good for them
b) I don’t know – I haven’t been on my shoes’ Facebook page for quite a while – but, I mean, we seem to get along, so they probably aren’t – you know what? Excuse me, but I think I better log in…
c) wh…what have you heard?
3. Who would win in a fair fight: Saturday Night Live‘s Church Lady or Kids in the Hall‘s Chicken Lady?
a) the Church Lady, because the Chicken Lady is…you know…not brave…
b) The Chicken Lady, because the Church Lady would be waiting for divine intervention
c) Captain Kirk
4. The current promotional campaign slogan for Coke is “Open Happiness.” That doesn’t seem to leave much room for improvement – what is their next slogan most likely to be?
a) Inject Ecstasy
b) Jam Nirvana Right! Down! Your! Throat!
c) Go back to the Beginning and Just Try to Enjoy Our Beverage
5. In 2014, Saudi Arabia beheaded at least 34 people, ten times the number beheaded by the Islamic State. In some cases, they left the bodies in public as a “deterrent” to others. So, umm, if we’re so appalled by barbaric behaviour, why aren’t we going to war with the Saudis?
a) our right wing politicians envy their policy of not allowing women to drive
b) it would disrupt bilateral trade in head scarves
c) you’ve been writing about politics for decades – when are you going to stop being surprised by political hypocrisy?
6. That’s a good question. When am I going to stop being surprised by political hypocrisy?
a) next Tuesday
b) I don’t know – when’s good for you?
c) oh, bless your soul, don’t ever become so jaded that political hypocrisy no longer surprises you! If that ever happened, I’d have to start reading Dave Barry, and the prospect fills me with dread and no little amount of gas…
7. Do drones have a place in healthcare?
a) yes – even a metal death dealing machine would be welcome as long as it made house calls
b) no – bad doctors should be forced to kill their patients the old-fashioned way
c) have you ever had to sit through a lecture from a receptionist at a doctor’s office about being on time for your appointments despite the fact that the doctor always keeps you waiting at least half an hour before seeing you? If you had, you wouldn’t have had to ask this question!
8. What’s the difference between a “counterterrorism operation” on foreign soil and a war?
a) seventeen points in popular support
b) who gets to tell the public the good news at the press conference
c) the civilians who die will be grateful that their lives were sacrificed for a worthy cause rather than an imperialistic venture
9. The New York police department has told black youths that they had to stay out of predominantly white neighbourhoods unless they were doing something “productive.” What would satisfy the NYPD as being productive?
a) nearly destroying the world economy by selling billions of dollars worth of repackaged junk mortgages as AAA rated bonds
b) selling people office space above the tenth floors of buildings “because sea levels rising due to global warming won’t reach that high…probably…”
c) breakdancing
10. Complete the analogy: Fox is to news as…
a) Ebola is to being healthy.
b) Iraq is to a peaceful, healthy nation-state.
c) John Boehner is to an effective political leader.
11. How can you achieve a satisfying work/life balance?
a) by dying
b) it’s easy, really, as long as you know how to navigate your children through 11 dimensional space
c) stopping reading magazine articles about how you can achieve a satisfying work/life balance would be a good start
12. According to the Canadian Revenue Agency, foreign charities can only be eligible for tax credits if they are involved in disaster relief, humanitarian aid or “activities in the national interest of Canada.” What constitutes “activities in the national interest of Canada?”
a) undermining opponents of oil patch pipe(line) dreams
b) hockey historology and beaver preservation
c) whatever the Prime Minister says they are (and, frankly, aren’t you glad you don’t have to worry your pretty little head over it?)
d) other (okay, worry your pretty little head over it)
13. Both the federal and Ontario Liberals have publicly admitted that some of their male members (oh, grow up!) have harassed women. Why does this seem to happen to Liberals more often members of the other parties?
a) because there aren’t enough women in the Conservative Party to harass and the NDP is made up entirely of genderless angels
b) because the Conservatives run their party like a business (they send complaints of harassment to committees where they will languish and die) and the NDP runs its party like a Three Stooges movie (they’re too disorganized for anybody to deal with harassment allegations seriously)
c) because Liberals define “party discipline” in a much different way than Conservatives and the NDP do…those cheeky bastards!
14. Canada is energetically involved in wars against such nouns as drugs and terrorism. How would its position on climate change best be described in martial terms?
a) the war on guppies
b) the war on people who don’t scoop after their animals poop
c) the war on procrastination (but, you know, it’s not really a high priority for us, so it can wait…)
15. When Speaker of the House John Boehner first announced that he would be suing President Obama several months ago, the rationale was that the Chief Executive’s signing orders were unConstitutional. This week, his reason had something to do with immigration reform. What will his rationale for the lawsuit be next week?
a) alienation of affection
b) knowingly selling defective products that caused burns over 87 per cent of Boehner’s body
c) the sky is blue
16. Will the lawsuit ever be filed?
a) naah – Boehner is getting his legal advice from Zeno
b) sure it will – because threatening empty lawsuits in order to throw red meat to your increasingly rabidly batshit crazy base is a sleazy political tactic, and John Boehner is an honourable man
c) lawyers – waddya gonna do?
17. A member of the Harper Government has pledged to protect the “Canada brand.” What part of Canada’s international reputation was he vowing to protect?
a) peacekeeping
b) being an honest broker between warring nations in the Middle East
c) environmental protection
d) none of the above
18. Name a character in Shakespeare’s play Othello other than Iago.
a) Frangelica
b) Portobello
c) Jane
d) Elvis
e) other…please, PLEASE, PLEASE choose an other…
19. At what point does an obnoxious character on a sitcom make the show unwatchable for you?
a) the episode where Fonzie jumps the shark
b) the episode where he kills the entire cast and makes it look like the perpetrator is a popular character on another sitcom – a character who cannot take responsibility for his own multiple homicides is not a character I’m interested in watching!
c) I have yet to see a character on a sitcom that was so obnoxious that I wasn’t fascinated by him – now, if you had asked about my tolerance for perky roommates…
20. During World War One, why did so many die?
a) to inspire great poetry
b) to give us something to do with poppies other than smoking them
c) to make Attila the Hun’s rampages look civilized
d) umm…something to do with freedom, right? I don’t exactly know how that’s supposed to work, but newspapers have been saying it for weeks, so it must be true…