Ready to be shocked? New research shows that one in three Americans are “enemies of the people.” Even more shocking, most enemies of the people don’t even realize it until they are already in the early enemy stage, when it’s too late.
Here are some questions to help you determine who, amongst your family and friends, might be an enemy of the people, and more important, whether the enemy might be YOU.
1. Are you prone to temperamental spells that ravage crops and cause water shortages?
- No, I have the utmost respect for crops of all kinds.
- Yes, I singlehandedly started the potato famine and am needlessly diverting water into the Pacific Ocean as we speak.
2. Do you live in the cells of healthy hosts and multiply quickly, prompting their white blood cells to increase and cause a list of uncomfortable bodily symptoms?
- As a bacteria, I like to think of myself more as a community organizer who can often be found in pricey fermented drinks.
- Yeah, I live on the subway pole, what of it?! Those are some nice gloves you’ve got there. Too bad you can’t put leather in the dryer. I live in your purse now!
3. Are you a radioactive dinosaur which appears unprovoked in the middle of Japanese cities, purposefully destroying infrastructure while innocent people scream and run?
- If I were a dinosaur, even a radioactive one, I would probably be one of those cute guys that are no taller than a large toddler and nibble on small trees, but only the trees you want pruned. I’d play fetch, too!
- Everything except the fictitious part. Did I mention that on top of being cretaceous and radioactive, I’m also menopausal? (Reptiles totally get menopause. Yes, they do.) RAAAAAHRRRRR!
4. Do you hibernate for seven years in the earth like some sort of species of tiny demon, only to rise from the ground in droves and fill the sky with brown clouds of flying exoskeletons and a sickening hum?
- Well, that just sounds like some sort biblical curse. No way.
- Yes, but if there were more programs for my kind to stream underground, we’d stay there for longer than seven years. With every season of Game of Thrones, we stretch it out.
5. Do you, each day, steal a small piece of vitality from your victims, eventually leaving them withered and unrecognizable to even themselves?
- I’ve been known to borrow the odd pair of pants, but never vitality, to my recollection.
- I have been told that I am but a slow, steady reminder of mortality and that I overtake all in the end. So, yes.
6. Are you a prehistoric shark that terrorizes a seasonal fishing town where teenagers are attempting to lose their virginity before summer ends?
- I can’t even imagine being such a monster as to interfere with clumsy teenage virginity-loss.
- Honestly, they had it coming. People should stay on land!
7. Are you relied upon trustily for unfettered access to the World Wide Web, but when someone is trying to unlike a mistakenly-clicked-on two-year-old picture of an ex, you’re just like, “Haha, I’m on a smoke break, dummy”?
- I’m as solid as Tom Hanks’s marriage.
- I cut in and out like a rude child in line at an ice cream truck staffed by a shirtless man.
8. Are you humidity?
- I—no.
- Remember that shower you took this morning? Good, because memories are all you have, as it was futile.
9. Do you rouse the innocent and exhausted moments before they drift off by suddenly positing questions like, “Has anyone ever eaten an owl?” and “What would ten-year-old me think of my white mini-van?”
- No, bedtime is no time for such questions; you just think about riding in a flying chariot with Winnie the Pooh and Sam Rockwell as you peacefully drift off.
- Look, I know it’s late and you need to be up early, but the most important thing right now is that you figure out exactly when and how you are going to die so you’re prepared. Maybe it’s tomorrow!
10. Have you ever done any of the following for money:
- Helped a regime oppress any group of people based on race, gender, economic status, or place of birth?
- Lied on a daily basis, while being recorded, to an entire country, to support the lies of an even bigger liar, who happens to share your political agenda?
- Actively encouraged the political success of a person in your family who, you know from firsthand experience, is not mentally or emotionally stable, nor of solid ethics, in the hopes that you would look good by comparison and possibly ensure political footing for yourself and your spouse?
How’d you do? If you found yourself answering “Yes” to more than zero of the above questions, better get yourself a Marvel nickname and dig out an underground bunker, because YOU, my friend, are an Enemy of the People! Congratulations!
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Rumpus original art by Kaili Doud.
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