Why I Should Never Be Rich

Some of you may have heard me joke about reasons why I should never be rich. For example, I would enjoy offering people money to do demeaning things. Part of this discussion extends from the poo dollar prank that some of you may be familiar with. For example, would you knowingly pick up a poo dollar? What about a poo five? Ten? Twenty? At what denomination would you pick up currency that had fecal matter on it? That's a fascinating question, and one that I'm sure that hasn't been explored in research. Similarly, I would love to figure out things like how much money it would take for reasonable people to let me dump a gallon of cold clam chowder down their pants. Or to let me push them into a mud filled kiddie pool with all of their clothes on.

Part of this is my fascination with behavioral economics. And part of this is that I love the idea of doing bad things to people with no repercussions.

So, today on the Quad, there were some folks trying to raise money for cancer research, or something like that. What were they offering? Awesomeness for a buck. They had a "Pie a Nerd" booth. They had kids dressed up as nerds, and they would let you shove a paper plate filled with a mound of whipped cream into their faces for $1. Bargain. I have to say, that if they had charged $2, I probably would have still been happy to contribute to cancer research. At $3, you start pushing it. So, needless to say, I was happy with this value.

There were three people working the booth, so I put my $3 on the table and asked to pie each of them. I wasn't going to do anything particularly mean, like yelling "look!" to get them to open their eyes before I pied them. However, I did savor my moment. After they got ready for their pie in the face, I took advantage of the time to just hold it there for a second, just to watch them flinch. This is sort of like asking whether you would prefer to be slapped in the face 10 times right now, or to be slapped in the face 5 times, at random, unknown times. Not knowing when it's coming makes it all worse.

That's not to say that I wasn't paying attention to my technique. First of all, you want to start low, and go upward, at an angle. This helps get the whipped cream into the nostrils. Additionally, if you slow down a bit, you can time it with their breathing. If you time it so that you get them when they inhale, you can get a little extra whipped cream up the nose. I even considered hanging around and just blowing a few more bucks at the pie stand. Sadly, I had to get to office hours. However, I definitely noticed that I had a little extra spring in my step as I was walking toward office hours today.

If you get the chance to pie someone for a relatively low price, you should definitely take them up on it. Trust me. It will brighten up your day.

-Chairman