Welcome to this weeks exciting installment of “What Would You Do?” (For the remainder of this Blog I’ll need complete audience participation. When ever you see the words “What Would You Do?” I need you to say, in your most robust and enthusiastic game show audience voice, “What Would You Do?”. Ok, let’s practice. On three. Ready, One, Two, Three “What Would You Do?” That was pretty weak and I know most of you are just pretending to say it but aren’t really saying it out loud. Let’s try it again. This time on two because I think two always feels a little left out. He doesn’t get to be first like One, and he’s never the magic number like Three that, once his name is called, everyone yells whatever it is they’re supposed to yell. So on two. Ready, One Two “What Would You Do?”. Not much better but that’s fine. If it makes you feel a little uncomfortable I understand. I am, after all, only over here sacrificing my life, spending nearly a year and a half away from my family, in constant danger and peril for you to exercise the very freedom to not say “What Would You Do?” So if it’s too much for me to ask for a little audience participation because it might take you out of your pathetic little comfort zone I understand. Grandma, if you’re reading this you’re allowed to not say it if you don’t want to. The rest of you have no excuse. Well, maybe my Pastor and his wife because they both survived cancer. So my Grandma and my Pastor and his wife, but everyone else has to say it. Ok, back to the game.
This is the Blog game show where you, the reader, get to decide what you would do if you were faced with certain, shall we say, real life experiences. For those of you tuning in for the first time, I assume that’s all of you since this is the first time I’ve ever actually done this, let me go over the rules of the game. I will present each contestant with a situation and a list of possible answers. Since the game is called “What Would You Do?” there are no wrong answers. However, since these are real life situations that have already happened there is one answer that could win you a trip to the always exciting lightning round. In fairness sake and for believability I have only chosen events that have been witnessed by Myself and at least one other person. If you don’t believe these events happened references can be made available upon request. If you pick all the answer to the situations that actually happened you will advance to the most exciting round of Blog Game Show play America has ever seen. When I say that I’m banking on the assumption that America has not yet seen any Blog Game Shows therefore mine wins the most exciting category by default. Ok, put on your thinking caps and get ready to play “What Would You Do?” (You forgot to say it already didn’t you?) If you’re more of a visual learner feel free to recreate these scenes at home if you feel it will help you better picture the situations.
Situation number one: Imagine yourself in a foreign country surrounded by local nationals whose customs and habit differ from your own. Let’s say this country has a national sport and that sport is soccer. Let us further assume that the country is fairly poor so they don’t really have soccer fields anywhere. They just play soccer anywhere there’s enough open space to kick a ball around. Let’s pick a spot I like to call the big dirt field in front of the building I work in. The scene looks something like this; Plowed up dirt and rocks with the frame of a soccer goal on each end but no nets, lot’s of palm trees, and lots of dust. On any given occasion you can see anywhere from 4 to 12 stray dogs roaming around the dirt biting each other. I know this because I count them every few days to see if we have any new ones. The Organization that runs the compound, we’ll call them, oh I don’t know, The Iraqi Army, decides they want to hire you to be the sports coordinator for the organization. You know, get some games together, get the organization physically fit, build some team work and confidence in the members. At this point let’s assume you are a local national. If you feel you’re under qualified don’t worry. The person that was actually chosen in the real life situation didn’t have any experience or skills either. Let’s just say you know somebody and that somebody is willing to create a job for you out of thin air and isn’t really going to require you to do anything anyway or even to show up for that matter. You never know, you may even get a Bronze star when it’s all said and done. But I digress. So here you are on your first day of the job. You figure you should at least do something incase anyone ever asks you for proof that you actually did something. You get a few of the guys out on the field and realize that the ankle deep soft dirt is not really all that conducive to playing soccer. Your first clue was the solid dirt cloud hovering at about shoulder height all around the field. You figure the best thing you can do is sprinkle a little water around to keep the dust down for the short term, but long term you’d like to plant a little grass so it looks nice and is easier to play soccer. A capital idea embraced by all. The only problem is the whole thing is located in a desert and the nearest water faucet is about 300 meters from the dirt field. Being the shrewd problem solver you are and drawing on your extensive background and skills outlined earlier in the situation you stop and ponder your options.
You could:
A) Nail a few hoses together until you have a long enough hose to set up a sprinkler to water the area.
B) Have one of the water trucks that sprinkles water on the dirt roads to keep the dust down dump a little water on your soccer field.
C) Stand in the middle of the road and wait until you see the suction truck that sucks all the crud out of the septic tanks and chemical toilets. When you see him ask him to empty his truck full of solid human waste, urine, blue port-o-podie water, and who knows what other disease spreading contaminates all over the field where you plan to play soccer in the next oh say 30 minutes. Then when asked how you could possibly think this is a good idea just keep repeating in broken English, “I just want to do good things. I just want to do good things.”
D) Just look at the dirt and say if Allah wanted grass to be there he would have put grass there and who are you to interfere with what Allah does and doesn’t want. And then go take a nap.
Wait! Don’t answer yet, in “What Would You Do?” You get to save all your answers until the end.
Situation number two: Imagine if you will that you are the driver of a small flat bed truck and you have four or five guys in the back of the truck. It’s about lunch time and you and the four or five guys have just gone to the local food establishment, for the sake of argument we’ll say it’s the Iraqi Chow hall, to get enough Styrofoam containers of chicken and rice to feed your whole battalion. You leisurely drive up to a place I like to call the front steps of the building I work in so you can deliver the tasty salmonella infested treats to your fellow soldiers. You carefully pull up to the curb so you don’t spill even a single tasty grain of rice on the ground, only to realize the front of your truck has just burst into flames. Ok, Keep cool you can get this one. Your next step would be what? Take a minute and ponder while we play the theme song to “What Would You Do?” which, oddly enough, sounds exactly like the theme song to jeopardy only a half step higher. Do do do do do do doooooo, do do do do do/, da do do do do. Do do do do do do doooooo. Doop da do doooo doop doop doop Ba Boomp.
Ok, here are your choices:
A) Grab the hose you just ran over that is always turned on spouting precious water into the drought torn desert 24 hours a day 7 days a week and easily douse the flames saving yourself, your fellow soldiers, and the Styrofoam containers of food.
B) Use the very same hose, which is long enough to reach the fire, but instead of dousing the flames with the hose you instead repeatedly fill and empty a single liter bottle onto the hood never actually making contact with the fire but doing a good job of getting the side of the hood wet just incase the flames make it to that particular spot before the gas tank explodes.
C) Throw all the Styrofoam containers out of the truck onto the sidewalk, the reason for which you’re not entirely sure. Stop drop and roll even though you’re not on fire prompting the other four or five guys to do the same. So now not only are you not putting out the fire, you’re just getting dirty and the Americans are now pointing and taking pictures.
D) Choose C first and then when you realize the situation isn’t getting any better, or maybe because the American’s hysterical laughter peaked your curiosity as to what could be that funny, you get up off the ground, dust yourself off and decide to try out choice B about 10 times until an American with a fire extinguisher pushes you out of the way and puts the fire out in about 0.425 seconds.
Alright, Judges do we have time for one more situation in the regular round of play on “What Would You Do?” Our panel of expert judges is telling me we have time for one more situation. Here we go.
Situation number three: You are a local national electrician in a third world country. You’ve been contracted by the Americans to run some plastic conduit and electrical wires in all the rooms of a building where the American soldiers are living. The building is made of concrete and brick so in order to fasten anything you’re going to need to drill holes into the walls and ceiling. You have some wire cutters, an electric drill with a masonry bit, a screw driver with a half melted handle and scorch marks on the shaft (this is important later because it suggests a certain pattern in your level of electrical knowledge), an assistant that just stands there and, using a crude form of sign language, asks if the Americans have any Fiki Fiki magazines he can look at, and a ladder that you built yourself out of scrap wood. The ceiling is about 13 feet high and you need to run the conduit out to the middle of the ceiling for what turns out to be no real reason at all because after the job is done you don’t even hook anything up to it. You have already worked out some sort of borderline magic trick/voodoo thing to keep you and the ladder balanced while you stand on the very top rung while extending your arms all the way to their fullest extent just to be able to barley skim the ceiling with the very tip of your middle finger. However, the electric drill you’re using doesn’t seem to be working anymore. You climb down from your ladder and scratch your head pondering what you should do next.
Your options are:
A) Try the drill in another outlet to make sure the one you’re using hasn’t been disconnected but immediately dismiss that as a foolish thought because you’re pretty sure it has power. After all when you stuck your screw driver in it a minute ago it popped real loud and shot fire up your forearm causing you to throw the already half melted and charred screwdriver across the room.
B) Cut the plug off of your drill and strip the ends of the wires. Next you just shove the bare wires into the slots on the 220V outlet hoping that solves the problem and doesn’t reward you with the same electrical magic show the screw driver trick did
C) Send your assistant to the basement to stand in ankle deep sewage and water because the sewage pump is broken and randomly flip switches and pull fuses out of the main fuse box to the whole building having no idea if he’s helping or not because he’s three floors away.
D) After about 4 seconds of deliberation you decide a combination of a little bit of A followed by a short pause for medical reasons, and a simultaneous execution of B and C would best solve the problem.
(Now for continuity in the story pretend you just heard a buzzer go off back stage)
Oh, that buzzer means the end of our regular play. Ok, I need each contestant to post his or her answers in the comments section so I can see who advances to the always exciting Lightning Round on “What Would You Do?”
“What Would You Do?” has been brought to you in part by our good friends in the IRR reminding you to get an unlisted phone number, caller ID, and a Post Office Box.
And also by a local Army Recruiter near you who would like to say “Just because my lips are moving doesn’t mean I’m not telling the truth. When I said they only use the IRR after the draft what I really meant was chances are good you’ll be recalled and sent off to war five years after you get out of the regular army. They’re really both the same thing when you stop and think about it.”
Tune in next time to see who the lucky winners are that advance to the always exciting Lightning Round on “What Would You Do?”
(Picture the camera pulling back to a wide shot of the set and me shaking hands and making idle chit chat with the contestants and periodically looking in the general direction of the camera and laughing at something witty I just said as the credits roll up the screen way too fast for anyone to read.)
