The situation game: right at the top of the Great Chain of Being.
There once was a situation game, and this is how it is played...


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"As happy as a nun weeding the asparagus..."


07/22/03 Right on the heels of the new 80s High School Situation is another update for yous: The MovieLine Situation.

Don't forget to read (or reread) all of the old situations (and other things!) in the "vault." And, of course, also and always cool is the Intersection of Indecision.

As always, we encourage submissions, queries, comments, concerns, salutations, &c. via e-mail. Even if you just want to tell us you hate us. Or say hi.





***Introduction***



The situation game (a.k.a. moral dilemma) will soon replace charades as the "party game" of choice, as charades is essentially a dying dinosaur confined to the arid environments of dusty parlor rooms. In the situation game, you think of a completely bizarre situation, and you and a friend (or multiple friends) each share your opinions on what you would do in the unlikely event that this situation would acutally arise. BE CAREFUL as these discussions may become quite heated and could bring to the surface frightening aspects of your friends' personalities never before realized.


***To begin, an example...***



A common type of question in the situation game asks if you would forsake something in order to achieve perfection in every other aspect of whatever it is you are talking about. For an example of this type of situation, let's consider The Grape Situation.

Imagine you meet a man (or woman, depending on your gender preference) who is perfect in every other way, EXCEPT...(by the way, this is how a lot of the situations of the situation game begin), EXCEPT...he/she must suck grapes (seductively yet kind of disturbingly) every day for ten minutes or else he/she will go completely insane (and take you with him/her). Would you marry/live with this otherwise perfect being (perfect meaning your personal ideal mate, not some annoyingly perfect demigod/goddess) or would the grape sucking be too much for you? KEEP IN MIND: you must act as if this situation is real - if you just laugh it off, the game is destroyed. Trust us, this is the only way it will be any fun.

Another important note is that, for the situation game to work, each moral dilemma usually requires clarification. For example, in the Grape Situation, a question such as, "Does this urge to suck grapes come upon him randomly, or can he just schedule a time during the day (such as 3:41 a.m., when I'm asleep) for sucking grapes?" may be asked by one of your friends who is considering the dilemma. The presenter of the situation must then clarify the situation to make the conundrum as difficult to evaluate as possible.


***And Lo, The Situations***



You should pretty much have the hang of how to play the situation game by now. The point of the situation game is to invent your own situations that require thought, evaluation, and introspection, but the following is another classic, tried-and-true, never-fail situations for your situationing pleasure...


THE THIRSTY MAN SITUATION



Imagine that you work at a large, chain-type grocery store, such as Cub Foods, Mega Pick 'N' Save, or Copps. This job is your sole source of income, and due to your severe personality disorder(s), it is near impossible for you to get any other job. While you are working one day, into the store comes a man of apparent origin being the Middle East of several hundred years past. He is riding a camel , wearing a turban, and his parched olive skin is peppered with sand. In he rides, tired body slumping, sliding slowly off of his camel onto the ugly linoleum grocery store floor.

"Water," he groans, dragging himself down the aisle to the bottled water section...understandably, he quenches his thirst with a bottle of Evian. Not American Evian, either, but Swiss Evian, a full $8.50 per bottle. He pours over his head another bottle, and another, and another. In addition to that, over wanders his camel, purple camel tongue hanging down, dry as sandpaper. The man speaks no English, except, of course, for the word "water." You try explaining to them that there is a drinking fountain just around the corner, but they seem not to understand. After taking the camel by the reigns and dragging him away from the Evian, you lead them to the drinking fountain.

"Water!" cries the man, and falls face first into the shiny metal fountain. He is there for hours; his thirst never seems quenched, and the camel is draping the entire area in camel fur. After an indeterminable and rather awkward period of time, the man jams his camel's head into the fountain. It gets stuck. The man then heads back to the Evian to quench his thirst with some more Alpine H20.

By this point, most of the customers have been scared away, except for those intent on purchasing bottled water (which, what is left of it, is being rapidly consumed by a still very thirsty seeming man) and those intent on using the drinking fountain (which has a camel stuck in it). WHAT DO YOU DO? (And, NO, to just let your manager handle it is NOT an acceptable solution. That is antithetical to the entire philosophy of the situation game.)

The rest of the situations and non-situation things can be found here. How innovative!

***NEW: The MovieLine Situation***

***COMING SOON: The Assman Situation***

The situation game website was created by and is copyright ©2000, 2001, 2002 & 2003 the Julia (the only Julia whose name is preceeded by a definite article) and Jessica, Hater of All Sinister Clowns (which would be all clowns).