Quizzes

pink roses yet again
Originally uploaded by mygothlaundry

Audrey snagged a copy of Real Simple from somewhere and brought it home. We're not much of a magazine household except for the New Yorker, which I have been reading my entire life and intend to continue reading for my entire life, despite the elitism, the cartoon contest on the back page that I hate with the passion of 1000 suns, the annoying ads for stuff I will never be able to afford and wouldn't want even if I won the lottery and the fiction, which is so often of the Overprivileged White Person Sits in Fabulous Kitchen in Connecticut and Ponders Last Affair variety. Wait, though. Not if - when, I mean. When I win the lottery. Power of positive thinking! The Secret! I already promised Miles a Rolls Royce when I win the lottery anyway, which purchase will seriously cut into my ability to buy hideous jewelry and mysterious financial bond thingies.

However, Real Simple, although I have often thought it should be called Real Expensive and pandering as it does to the demographic who believes that buying lots of stuff equals simplifying your life (a demographic to which I most firmly belong, hells yeah) turns out to have that good thing, quizzes. Who doesn't like magazine quizzes? Magazine quizzes used to be the shit, back in the day when you had to find an old envelope and a pencil to take them and the internet hadn't cheapened them by ceaseless repetition into nothingness. Back when they asked the real, the important, the burning questions such as "What is your fashion style?" or, in the case of Cosmo, "How much do you like oral sex?" as opposed to the inane Facebook variety that simply queries "Which boy band are you?" (O Town, not that I would take such a foolish quiz.) Therefore, Audrey administered a Real Simple quiz on my organization style to me with an old envelope and a pencil.

"Do you think everything should have a place and be in its place?" she asked.
"Um," I hazarded, "Theoretically. I mean, yeah, in a sort of Platonic ideal of a house. But, you know, that's impossible in real life."
"We'll say yes," she said firmly and wrote down a number.
"Do you prefer symmetry in artwork and in your home?"
"Gah! No! What a horrible idea!"
"Do you often drive with the empty light flashing?"
"What's the empty light? Oh, do they mean if you're almost out of gas? Well, of course."
"Do you feel guilty if you don't follow the rules when playing board games?"
"Honey, I feel guilty if I knock the little dog off the Monopoly board by accident (or the iron. Actually I had to remove the little dog from Monopoly years ago because otherwise the entire family fights over it. Including me.) Of course I feel guilty. But rules, now, I mean, define "rules.""
She glared at me. "Yes," she said, "I'm putting yes."

There was a silent moment or two of intensive calculation. "You're left brained." she said.
"Whoo hoo!" I cheered, "Wait. That's the bad one. That's the only one where left is bad and right is good, right? It's like that thing Noelle said about free radicals - they sound good but they're bad!"
"That can't be right," said my daughter, "No way are you left brained."
"No," I agreed, "Not possible. The quiz must be wrong."
"Oh wait," said Audrey, "I think I screwed up. You're right brained after all!"
"Yay! What does that mean for my organizational style?"
"It's hopeless," said my daughter sadly. "Hopeless."

See? Quizzes are useful.