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(originally published in Encore Magazine, 6/5/87)
Something went wrong with my watch last week, and I arrived at a doctor's office 70 minutes early for an appointment, which left me two options — 1. Practice coughing, or 2. Leaf through the obligatory waiting room magazines. I chose the latter.
"The Seven Sisters," as the women's magazines of largest circulation are sometimes called, were well represented, at least through March, 1986. There's something disturbing about finding these periodicals, with their emphasis on mental, physical and emotional perfection, in a room full of people who have reason to believe they are in less than perfect condition. What reaction to articles like "Lackluster Nails? Cut Your Hand Off!" was the woman to my left, with her arm in a sling, supposed to have?
Trying to find a niche in the prevailing mood of a doctor's waiting room, I decided to concentrate on the magazine quizzes. I am referring, of course, to the multiple choice gems like "Are You In the Right Job?", "Are You Timid or Terrible" and "Are You Daring Enough to Wear a Red Sequin Cocktail Dress?". Rapidly thumbing my way through my doctor's library, I discovered more than two dozen of these things and noticed a great deal of overlap between them. This seemed like a waste of time to me, and so I made some notes, isolated the general topic with which the quizzes seemed to be concerned, stripped them to their essential elements and created the following test, with which you can accurately pigeonhole yourself as the women's magazine editors do.
Test — Are You Stupid Or What?
1) When preparing to cross the street, you look two ways. They are (circle one below):
a. East and West
b. Left and Right
c. Up and Down
d. Harmless and Festive
2) The bus you are riding jolts over a pothole, and you loudly and resoundingly pass gas. You:
a. Point to the sleeping derelict two seats back and wrinkle your nose
b. Say nothing and pretend to scrutinize the eggplant lasagna recipe in this month's Cosmo
c. Say, "Oh, I must have stepped on a duck"
d. Ask the people around you if that's their stop coming up
3) Your spouse comes home for dinner several hours late, drunk and singing something about dogs. You:
a. Haven't prepared dinner for your swine of a spouse anyway and have probably changed the locks on your home.
b. Renuke dinner in the microwave, serve it again and pretend nothing is wrong.
c. Have long since eaten both dinners and consumed all of the wine
d. Have found someone else to serve dinner to
4) You are trying on shoes, and the clerk accidentally knots your laces together. You (circle one below):
a. Panic, fall to the floor and gyrate mindlessly until you are put out of your misery
b. Only shop selfserve shoe stores and so are yourself the clerk
c. Quickly wrap your feet around the clerk's neck and strangle him with the laces
d. Say, "Yes, thank you. Ill wear them out"
5) Representatives of a new storefront church knock on your door trying to distribute literature and generate interest. You:
a. Let them in, serve them arange juice, talk to them for hours and accompany them on their rounds for the rest of your life
b. Take polite evasive action by saying, "No, thank you. I"m still working on last week's issue of The Watchtower
c. Turn the dogs loose
d. Don't answer the door
6) Your purchase at a neighborhood convenience store totals $6.71 and the clerk asks you if you have a penny. You (circle one below):
a. Don't understand the queation
b. Put at least one item beck on the shelves and ask the clerk to try again
c. Root in your purse for 16 minutes, pile all of your worldly goods on the counter, and, as the line behind you reaches three blocks in length, feel what you think is a penny, only to pull it out and find that it is a Chiclet of uncertain vintage
d. Simply say, "No," and let the transaction proceed
7) You're listening to the radio, and the announcer offers a free "MegaBurger" Tshirt to the ninth caller. You:
a. Already have a "MegaBurger" T-shirt
b. Have the radio station's number programmed into your phone, time everything perfectly and win the Tshirt
c. Forget everything in your frenzy, trip over the phone cord, finally get through to the station and threaten to sue if they do not give you a "MegaBurger" Tshirt
d. Aren't really paying enough attention to the announcer to catch the offer
8) Your neighbor goes into labor at 2 am. while her husband is out of town
and calls you for help. You:
a. Hear the message three days later when you play back your answering machine tape
b. Have nursed suspicions about your neighbor's pregnancy for some time and immediately call Weekly World News
c. Boil water and roll up your sleeves
d. Get your act together in four minutes, drive your neighbor to the hospital, and become a godparent
9) You forget about daylight saving time and arrive at work an hour late for a meeting that can make or break your company. You:
a. Set off the fire alarm as a ruse upon first entering the building so that you can slip into your office unseen
b. Bounce cheerily into the meeting and ask, "Ain't this time change thing the damndest thing you ever did see?"
c. Call the office with the excuse that you were delayed by being mistakenly crowned Empress of Bulgaria on your way to work
d. Don't have to worry, because you'd never be invited to such an important meeting anyway
10) You are on your way to market in, say, Bolivia, and you're leading a cow. Some stranger in a checked jacket pops out of the bushes and offers you three beans for the bovine. You:
a. Take the beans, which grow overnight into an immense vine, which you climb, etc.
b. Sing the first two verses of "Hit the Road, Jack"
c. Ask suspiciously if you're going to have to come up with a penny for change
d. Believe that the world will end on Thursday and so are not concerned with the future
For every letter "a" you circled, give yourself 0. For every letter "b," give yourself 1 point. Two points for "c" answers, 3 points for "d's."
If your score is between 1 and 10, you are probably blonde, would look great in a red sequin dress, but may not always button it correctly. If your score is between 11 and 20, you are an energetic, conscientious self-starter. Save this form and attach it to your job application at the doughnut factory. If you scored between 21 and 30, intellectual pursuits are mare your style. Use this form as proof that you are qualified to teach at the university level in West Virginia. If you scored between 31 and 40, clean the mascara out of your calculator and try again. The maximum score is 30.
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