Plus, what's the bonus in being able to make someone think they're a chicken? (Question of the Day)

How could you ever trust a hypnotist?

I don't believe in hypnotism; I remember when a hypnotist came to our school in about the 8th grade, or maybe the 9th grade. I don't know, school is just a blur of never knowing what was really going on and doing reports at the last second.

Anyway, this hypnotist asked people to knot their hands together and then close their eyes and then listen to him and concentrate and then try to get their hands apart, and if they couldn't get their hands apart, they were chosen to go down and sit on a row of metal chairs and be further hypnotized, like having to act like a chicken and things like that.

I was able to get my hands apart, and so was not chosen by the hypnotist to be further hypnotized, and so I had to sit and watch as 8 of my classmates got chosen to go down there and be hypnotized into thinking they were in a desert or something, and all I could think was... fake.

Also, now, recalling this story, I'm wondering just what kind of education did I get, anyway? This may be beside the point, I suppose, or maybe it is exactly the point, but I can recall this hypnotism assembly, and I can recall another assembly in grade school where we went to watch a girl sing Heartbreaker by Pat Benatar. It wasn't Pat Benatar we saw; it was just some girl who was about 20 who sang the song Heartbreaker for us, and as I think back on that and other assemblies, I'm thinking maybe the fact that I spent my entire childhood being not quite sure what's going on here was less a fault in me and more a fault in the local school district.

So: this hypnotist got 8 kids down on 8 metal chairs and made them do funny things that everyone laughed at while they kept their eyes closed and jumped around like chickens or something, and I kept thinking fake fake fake, which is a natural reaction I have; I assume everything is fake up to and including every single story people tell on talk radio.

That's true: If you call a radio station and tell a story, and I am listening, I am in my mind (and sometimes out loud) saying fake fake fake to the story you are telling, so I'm on to you. I don't believe you for a second that your dad once met Bill Clinton in Las Vegas and stole his tie and that's why you were calling in about the tax breaks story. Fake fake fake.

Later on, after the assembly, I asked one of the kids who'd been hypnotized whether it was real, whether he could remember any of it, and he said "No," and I assumed he was lying, too, because I hate people and also was a little jealous.

But then, one day, recently when this memory came bubbling up as I drove home from work, and I began to be mad all over again that I was played for a sap at a school assembly, I reversed it and then thought to myself:

Okay, if hypnotism IS real, then you can't trust them because while you're going and pretending to be a chicken or losing weight or becoming a more positive person, how do you know they're not secretly making you into their slave, so that one day, that hypnotist is going to snap his finger and millions of people across America will suddenly stop playing Angry Birds and will march to New York and begin attacking everything in sight... while also acting like chickens?

I know what you're thinking: sell that idea to AMC, quick! Already on it.

In closing: your story is fake.