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Fictional Problems
Fictional Problems
...This is back! I haven't seen one of these for a really long time but I was looking through some Cricket mags and I found in the Letterbox a couple posts from a Fictional Problems thread. So I'd like to start a new one!
Guidelines: basically, you make up a fictional problem. You're stuck somewhere, or you've been kidnapped by alien bunnies, or you need to get somewhere but there's a field of daggers in front of you. You have 3 things with you--really, anything at all--and everyone else has to come up with solutions for you that involve those three objects. I'll start...
Help! I'm trapped in my house because there are giant car-sized rats laying seige to the block! I only have a flashlight, a can of tomatoes, and a hot pink Sharpie. What do I do?
...To be fair, I wasn't actually that creative with mine. Oh well. I'm in a hurry.
submitted by Leafpool, age Finite, This side of reality
(February 21, 2018 - 11:08 am)
(February 21, 2018 - 11:08 am)
Take the tomatoes and open the can. Put them on a rod made from the flashlight and the sharpie. Stick it out your window. The rats will start eating the tomatoes, leaving them distracted. Then, you can run. And then I come in and scritch the rats behind the ears and give them yogis. As a rat lover, I’m offended by this scenario.
(February 21, 2018 - 2:17 pm)
(February 21, 2018 - 7:53 pm)
I like the idea!
Okay, step 1
1. Use the can of tomatoes to break open a window in your house
2. Shine the flashlight in all the rat's faces, effectively blinding them
3. Fling away the pink sharpy, hopefully the rats will chase it as a distraction from you
4. Whack the giant rats on the head with the tomatoe can, herding them away
5. Run away as fast as possible.
(Optional)
6. Pay for replacing broken window.
Here's one for me: Help! I'm trapped in a library, with evil squirrels eating away at all the books (I rather like squirrels, BUTT NOT WHEN DAMAGING LIBRARY PROPERTY), and all the librarians are panicking, (And unfortunately the Librarians have not arrived because of unfortunate magical ley lines) being very unhelpful. I have only a full edition deluxe-sized Oxford Dictionary with me, some overpriced mountain dew, and a small onion, the latter two objects not supposed to be in a library. What do I do?
(February 21, 2018 - 8:29 pm)
Step 1: chase the squirrels out the door with the onion (Squirrels hate onions)
Step 2: slam the door and barricade it with the Oxford Dictionary.
Step 3: drink the mountain dew
step 4: go to the lowest window you can find.
step 5: open the window.
step 6: jump out the window and hope it's not twenty or more feet off the ground
step 7: RUN LIKE A MADMAN!!!
step 8: look around to see if the squirrels are chasing you
step 9: sigh in relief
step 10: VICTORY DANCE!!!
(February 21, 2018 - 11:24 pm)
Thank you! *Scribbles on borrowed pice of paper from the library* Okay, plan A. Any other solutions before I possibly break my leg? (Although you're right, I never would've thought of barricading the door with a dictionary, but man, those things are HUGE you could literally kill someone with it)
(February 22, 2018 - 2:54 pm)
Make the librarians cry with the onion so they can't see, then drench the squirrels with Mountain Dew, which was acually overpriced because it was highly corrosive, and whack them with the dictionaries, until the squirrels are all out of commision, then return the dictionaries and clean up the Mountain Dew as best you can, then casually walk out the door as the librarians confusedly rub their eyes and ask what happened.
(February 24, 2018 - 10:09 am)
Oh but Blue Moon, normal rats are nice, just not giant car-sized rats. Even then, even giant car-sized rats have to eat sometime. The problem is just that they're not especially picky about what they eat.
(February 21, 2018 - 8:31 pm)
Leafpool:
Option One:
I am assuming that giant rats don't like pink light. I have never met a giant rat, so I'm not sure if this is true. I am also assuming that they don't like tomatoes, but the same applies.
Color on the flashlight with the pink Sharpie so that it now shines pink light. Open a ground floor window and hop out. Shine the flashlight in the eyes of the surrounding rats so that they stay away. Also, dribble tomatoes on the ground in front of you to keep the rats away. Walk calmly away and go the nearest police station, where there are capable people who can deal with the rats.
Option Two:
You're in a house, right? The house has a phone, doesn't it? Call 911! Then sit calmly with a book until the rats have been dealt with.
(This may be cheating.)
Chinchilla:
Option One:
Walk around the library methodically plunking your dictionary on the heads of the squirrels so that they become unconscious. If they are too fast to escape, pour Mountain Dew in front of them to cause slipping and keep them from escaping.
Option Two:
Oh come on, just call 911!
My Scenario:
I accidentally traveled back in time to just before the extinction of the dinosaurs, and if I don't do anything, I will become extinct in the next ten seconds! Unfortunately, I do not know how I time traveled here. It had something to do with the three objects in my hands, but of course it might be easier to not figure that out and simply escape from the, uh, it depends on which story you believe.
Oh, yes, the objects in my hands.
1. A stone from the river
2. A cloak with mysterious markings
3. A chocolate cake that, surprisingly, doesn't look very delectable
(February 23, 2018 - 11:39 am)
Well, if you ask me, the items sound like the Deathly Hallows. The stone is the Resurrection Stone, the cloak with the mysterious markings must, of course, be the Invisibility Cloak, and... that means that the chocolate cake is left to be the Elder wand. I'm very sorry, I don't believe I can actually help you with this. Maybe put on the cloak and shout "Abracadabra" and see what happens.
(February 23, 2018 - 3:21 pm)
step one: take a single bite of the cake. (at least now your last meal was cake)
step two: wrap the cloak around you, I can only hope it's magical
step three: wait as a meateor* begins to zoom toward you
Step four: panic for no less than .2 seconds
step five: hold up the rock in front of you
step six: watch as the two rocks meet and explode on impact leaving you unharmed becuase of the magic cloak
step seven: celebrate and make friends with the dinosuars, they owe you, you saved them
step eight: accidentatly mess with patterns on the cloak
step nine: after ^ you turn the cloak into a time machine, the way you got there the first time
step ten: Yell 'BACK TO MY TIME'
Step eleven: grab Senour Bubbles the dino, and hold on tightly as you time travel back to your time.
step Twelve: thank me for saving your life :):P
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*I am a terrible speller person, I know.
(February 23, 2018 - 8:28 pm)
Hmmm.
1. RUN AWAY FROM THE ASTEROID!
2. Try and survive on only the not-so-delicious chocolate cake and make a shelter with the cloak.
3. Wait many, many years for other living creatures to come around, and try to build a time machine.
My situation:
Help! Everyone I know has forgotten about me, and I have been abandoned in the middle of nowhere with no sense of direction! All I have are:
1.Harry Potter and the Goblet Of Fire
2. Assorted Lego pieces
3. The first object you see when you look to your right. (Does that count?)
(February 23, 2018 - 9:32 pm)
Walk in a straight a line as you can, leave a trail of legos behind you, when night falls smash the lamp (the object I saw), to make a fire, and use paper from the book to keep it going and make it as smoky as possible so someone finds you.
(February 24, 2018 - 10:15 am)
Use the corner of one of the legos to scratch a message asking for help on another lego, spin the globe (object I saw) until it reaches 88 mph, then throw the lego with the message on it into said time machine, and read Harry Potter while you wait.
My Scenario:
Help! I'm locked in a sinking submarine in the middle of the Atlantic, and I only have a baseball cap, a bouncing ball, and a single post it note.
(February 24, 2018 - 1:35 pm)
Okay, Kitten, here's what ya do:
1. You throw the cake into the evil dinosour's face that is trying to kill you, it was probably poisoned, so it's either dead or has its jaws stuck together with pastry filling.
2. Then, put on the cloak and try to see if it makes you invisible. Throw the stone at any other dinsosaurs you see.
3. For the atsroid, keep the cloak on and burrow into the ground with the stone as quickly as possible, and then hide in a hole ten feet from the surface, hopefully it will make you less likely to die.
For you, Quill,
1. Use the bouncing ball to whack the hatch of the submarine open.
2. Swim upwards from the submarne, using you baseball cap to harness a giant bubble to pul you up.
3. Swim to the nearest land-like place.
4. Cry for dear joy while kissing the land and stomping on the sticky note.
(Optional) If you're now trapped on a desert island, write on the sticky note your co=ordinates, and then shve them in the baseball cap and hope they float to another person's boat.
(February 25, 2018 - 11:15 am)
STEP ONE: Use the hat as a trampoline to bounce the (already incredibly bouncy) bouncy ball so hard that when it hits the celing, the sub moves up a notch.
STEP TWO: Repeat step 1 until you reach the surface
STEP THREE: Open the hatch and swim to the nearest shore
STEP FOUR: Use the nearest pencil to write an SOS message with your and your parents' info
STEP FIVE: Use the sticky part to attach it to the bouncy ball
STEP SIX: Bounce the ball against the nearest hard surface as hard as you can and watch it fly toward civilization where people speak your language
STEP SEVEN: Wait. Eat emergency rations from sub (which you convineintly brought along) if necesary.
STEP EIGHT: Go home with the people who came and got you
STEP NINE: Do a victory dance
STEP TEN: Thank me for saving your life
(February 28, 2018 - 5:47 pm)