27 June 2005

A Way to Characterize

Saturday night, I attended a little late night get together with some friends and their co-workers. It's been quite some time since I hung out with any friends. We drank beers and barbequed. A cop stopped by to tell us to keep it down. He scoped the scene and saw nothing crazy was going down. In fact, we were all pretty mellow, but he had to do his job. I've never seen such a laissez-faire cop in my life. But, that's not the point of this post.

Right before leaving the party, someone opened a book on topics for discussion. The young woman didn't finish reading one of the prompts before someone else posed the question, "What subjects would you be least likely to discuss with strangers?"

Nobody answered except me, "Anything sexual, of course." Laughter and slight shuffling followed my response. Lots of mumbling followed the stir. The interrogator asked for something more. No one responded, so I added, "The cruelest thing you ever did to another living being." This got people to start vocalizing instead of uttering under their breaths. But, I was on my way out the door, so I don't know what ever became of the discussions.

My guess: the group never had the tougher discussions. Maybe it was too "Truth-or-Dare," or maybe it was too telling in such a small forum. Then, I thought what a perfect way to write. Grab a book of discussion topics and answer them from the perspectives of multiple characters. Go for some outrageous questions like "If you were stranded in the New York City Subway system for one week, what one item besides money for food would you bring?"

1 comment:

Theresa said...

You're a clever one! I want to play Questions with you. Try a couple of these for fun, http://2hotchiks.blogspot.com/2005_04_01_2hotchiks_archive.html