thematically fickle

Sam and I have a little game we like to play that involves an ultimatum of sorts. I like to think of it as a version of Would You Rather (Example: Would You Rather sleep with Dennis Hastert or Tom Delay, death is not an option) with monetary compensation attached. Which actually makes it more like Indecent Proposal except that the object of our deal, as a rule, doesn’t usually resemble Robert Redford. At all. The other day, we saw a homeless man downtown whose feet had not seen shoes in any number of years and were seriously revolting to look at what with the caked mud and fungus, to say nothing of his lovely jaundice-hued pedicure from last season. Sam made the proposal: Would you suck his toes for a million dollars?

HELL NO was my answer which then launched the same conversation we have every time we play this game where I maintain that a million dollars isn’t worth what it used to be and where Sam maintains that my standards are too high. Incidentally, when I posed the same question to him, Sam said HELL YES he would suck that man’s toes for a million dollars because, you know, there’s Listerine. The outcome of all proposals is generally the same because to my shock, Sam will basically do anything (and I do mean ANYTHING) for a million dollars and I will pretty much do nothing for a million dollars. Call me stupid but there just isn’t enough Listerine in the Costco storehouse to entice me into most situations. At least I can sleep at night knowing that when The Rapture arrives and frogs fall from the sky, Sam is going to make sure that our family survives.

HOWEVER. Someone sent this to me yesterday:

I think I’ve finally found something for which I can compromise my family values. And though it is one of the most stomach turning, dirty acts I could ever, ever engage in, I wouldn’t need the one-million-dollar-carrot dangling in front of my nose.

So it is that I am willing to throw myself on the sword (or toothpick, as it were) for the good of humanity: I am officially volunteering to do The Job for the survival of all mankind.