Let’s go back to the age of indestructible Nokia cell phones, to the time when you connected to the internet through dial up, and let’s pretend it’s once again cool to have frosted tips and answer random questions.

One.  Are you a death virgin (have you had anyone close to you die?).

Two.  When you die, do you want embalming, cremation or other?

Three.  Who is your current crush?  (Had to throw that one in there for old times’ sake)

Four.  If you could choose, would you rather die having sex, or die while saving an old person from drowning?

Five.  Would you rather die slowly (so that you could say your “good-byes”) or fast (so that you could have minimal pain)?

Six.  Does the most epic way to die necessarily involve Chuck Norris?

Seven.  Do you believe in the afterlife?

Eight.  On a scale of one to ten (with 10 being the highest), how would you rate your fear of death?

Nine.  Should voluntary active euthanasia be legal or illegal?

Ten.  Have you ever touched a dead person?  If so, how would you describe that experience?

Eleven.  If you died today, would you be happy with your life?  If no, what would you regret?

Twelve.  What do you think is worse: outliving your spouse or outliving your children?

Thirteen.   If you could come back as a ghost, who would you haunt?

Fourteen.  Worst death ever in a movie?

Fifteen:  If you believe in God, do you think he knows the day, hour and minute when you’ll die?

Reach back, grab some nostalgia and answer these question in my comment feed.

In the turbulence that is death, our minds can be tossed about like a ship in the throes of a storm.  If not for the ballast of scripture and truths learned from generations before us, we might have been overcome, directionless and lost in the vastness that can be grief.

Some of us have memorized such inspirational quotes.

Others of us have framed them and hung them in places that we see daily.

Maybe it’s the Bible that sits on our bed stand that has the page containing Psalm 23 stained with tears.

The book that we read right after the death of our loved one that touched our very soul … and started the healing process that seemed to be out of reach.

What was the scripture that inspired your faith?

What was the book that helped heal your brokenness?

What was the quote that you read over and over and over?

Let’s make a list …

“God knew the exact day ‘Bob’ was going to die.  He knew we’d be sitting here today, mourning ‘Bob’s death.  Not only did God know when ‘Bob’ was going to die, but he knows the exact day … the exact hour … and the exact second that you’re going to meet him face to face.”

Wow!

That’s a pretty bold statement.

I remember when I was young, I would often think to myself, “If God knows when I’m going to die, I wonder if he could tell me?”

He hasn’t told me yet …  and I’m rather glad he hasn’t told me if he does indeed know.

I mean, can you imagine?

Can you imagine knowing the day, hour and second you’re doing to die?  It might be depressing.  Or it could cause us to live life up to the fullest.  It could cause us to be the person we’ve always wanted to be, but could never find the motivation.

I think I’d put a countdown clock on my wall, that would display the amount of years, months, days and hours until my “Death Date”.  Or maybe I wouldn’t want the clock … that might be rather unnerving.

It would certainly cause me to take out an insurance policy. If I knew I was going to die early, I could take out a huge insurance policy and let my wife live like Angelina Jolie after I die … she could adopt a whole country load of kids and buy that stretch limo HUMMER that she’s always wanted!

Or maybe I’d do everything in my power to beat death.  Maybe on that specific day, I’d lock myself up in an atomic bomb shelter.  Or maybe, I’d just check myself into a hospital the day before I’m supposed to bite the dust.

If you were sure God told you your death date, would you tell anybody else? I think I’d keep it quiet.  For one, nobody would believe that God spoke directly to you … and they’d have an even harder time believing that he told you your date of demise.

Who knows what I’d do?

*****

So, what do you think?  Does God know your death date? Below is a little survey you can take.

It’s all anonymous, so even though many people might consider the last two or three options as heretical, if indeed you choose one of those “heretical options”, you’ll still be an anonymous heretic.

And, if you’ve thought about stuff like this before (God’s foreknowledge, etc.) and want to talk about it, I’ll be happy to engage ….

You have to answer at least one “verses” question. Lurkers are always welcomed here on normal days, but today is not a normal day.  It’s Monday.  And it’s quiz day.

Let’s start with some easy warm-ups.

1. The Classic Cartoons: Disney Short Cartoon Classics (Donald Duck, Mickey and Minnie, etc.) vs. Warner Bros. Short Cartoon Classics (Bugs Bunny, Porky Pig, Wile E. Coyote).

2.  Presidential humor: Barack Obama vs. George Bush.   Both have their own types of humor, with one being rather dry and often unintentionally funny (Bushisms) and the other being rather intentional and witty (anybody catch the recent Donald Trump satire?).

3.  TGIF Sitcoms: Family Matters vs. Full House.  I so had a crush on Stephanie Tanner, but Steve Urkel is possibly a top 10 character in sitcom history with classic lines such as, “Did I do that?” and “I’ve fallen and I can’t get up!”

The warm ups are over.   Now, it’s time to put your seat belt on, flip your Chuck Norris sunglasses down and bring it!

4.  Late Night Jimmies: Jimmy Kimmel vs. Jimmy Fallon.  One Jimmy, two Jimmmy, three Jimmy, four … I don’t know who I love more?

5.  Loser Dad Cartoon Characters on Fox: Peter Griffin vs. Homer Simpson.  Perpetuating the stupid, lazy dad stereotype for the past couple decades; yet one does it better than the other.

6.  Supporting Sitcom Actors: Cosmo Kramer vs. Dwight Schrute.  I have Dwightian tendencies, so you’d think I’d like the Schrute.  Not so.  I thought my idiosyncrasies were original until they became popularized in one Dwight.

7.  Causing an Early Death Humor: Three Stooges vs. Jack Ass Crew.  Supposedly, Curly met an early grave from one to many knucks to the head … and eventually in Jack Ass 4 or 5 or 6, the stunt escalation is gonna cost somebody.

8.  Family Teams: The Wayans (In Living Color, Wayans Brothers and My Wife and Kids)  vs. the Farrelly Brothers (Shallow Hal, Dumb and Dumber, There’s Something About Mary).

9.  British Humor: Monty Python vs. Mr. Bean.  You’d think this is an easy “verses” since M.P. consistently produced sketches that blow SNL’s out of the pond, yet Mr. Bean was no slouch.

WARNING: extremely difficult question approaching.

10. Jewish Comedians (of which there are many, and to make it more difficult, you can only choose one): Jerome Lester Horwitz (Curly Howard from Three Stooges) vs. Sacha Cohen (Borat, Ali-G) vs. Adam Sandler vs. Billy Crystal vs. Woody Allen vs. Mel Brooks vs. Andy Samberg vs. Lewis Black vs. Jerry Seinfeld. Did I miss any?  Probably.  Because the Jews own Hollywood.  But this list is pretty stout.  Mozel tov with this question.

EXTRA CREDIT: Leading Ladies Tina Fey vs. ______________   I was thinking about pitting Jane Lynch, Sarah Silverman, Amy Poehler or Anna Farris against Tina, but this one’s a gimme.  If you can name someone who rivals her, you automatically win.

OPEN QUESTION FOR EXTRA, EXTRA CREDIT: Best sitcom on TV right now AND best sitcom you watched as a kid.

Here’s my list 1. WB, 2. Obama, 3. Full House, 4. Fallon, 5. Griffin, 6. Kramer, 7. Stooges, 8. Farrelly Bros, 9. Rock and 10., Sacha Cohen. EC.  Don’t have answer.  E.C.2.  30 Rock and Home Improvements.

NOW FOR YOUR LIST.

In elementary school, if I was cruelly left out, instead of punching the kid in the face, or simply walking away, I’d do the thing that really earns points with the male sex … I’d cry.  If I got bad grades … my eyes would well up and I’d sniffle and try and hold back the tears.

I’ve grown out of crying, cause I’m all manly now.  But there are a few things that can still bring out the boy in me:

Yoga. This one is funny and true.  Have you ever tried to do yoga?  It’s so hard for those of us with hobbit legs that it almost can make us feel … well … small.

Math and science. Left handed + right minded ≠good math skillz.

Dancing. I’m awful at dancing.  No joke.  The last time I felt tears produced by frustration was when I took dance lessons a couple years ago.  The dancing instructor focused on my suckiness and tried to help me, but it only made things worse.

The Funeral Business. I have all this pedigree (being that I have 10 generations of funeral directors in my blood), but being the introvert that I am, I always feel super insecure because the funeral business is a field for extroverts.  I question myself a couple times a week, thinking, “Why are you a funeral director?”

And lastly, Mondays. At this very moment, I’m crying … on the inside.

If you’re tough enough, what are the things and/or people that make you feel small?

I don’t know about you, but I don’t remember my childhood in developmental stages … I just remember “CHILDHOOD.”

After reading the question below of “What was your favorite childhood toy?”, you might say, “Well during my toddler stage when I was unconsciously focusing on my motor skills, I loved sucking on Barney’s head, but then in elementary school my favorite toy was Optimus Prime.”

These questions below are NOT questions to be over analyzed with distinctions that give you multiple answers.  I’m looking for you to make those tough decisions.  You have to pick ONE answer that defines your childhood.

The rules are, as always, you don’t have to answer all the questions, but AT LEAST answer one.  Oh, yes and thanks to my friend and brother-in-law, Cameron Hess, you can now answer the questions with your facebook profile!

1. Aside from Christmas, what was your favorite childhood holiday?
2. What was your favorite cartoon?
3. What did you fear?
4. Did you have a favorite toy?
5. Was that favorite toy yours, or somebody else’s?
6. What was your favorite game?
7. Is your adult personality different from your childhood personality?
8. Did you have a favorite music group?
9. What did you think you’d be as an adult?
10. Did you pursue those childhood dreams?

Here’s my answers: 1.) Easter, cause I loved the egg hunts. 2.) Transformers, hands down.  3.) Monsters … and if you ever saw my childhood home, you’d believe they lived there too!  4.)  Yes … it was the 3 foot transformer and 5.) I didn’t own it, but Robert Gill did.  Still jealous.  6.)  Baseball.  Didn’t have a game system as a child.  7.)  The same immature, annoying personality … it’s just been scolded enough that it rarely shows.  8.)  DC Talk, baby!  9.)  A missionary.  10.)  Yes … still pursuing those dreams as they’ve matured.

The only prank I ever fell for was a stupid ESPN prank where Dan Patrick was reporting Pete Rose had been pardoned and was eligible for the Hall of Fame.

The only April Fool’s prank I ever succeeded in pulling off was switching out my parent’s sugar bowl contents with salt.  The coffee was extra bad that morning at the Wilde home some 12 years ago.

One year I did try the cellophane over the toilet seat … didn’t work … thankfully.

About two weeks ago, my good buddy told me about some non-April fool’s pranks that were pulled off by a guy at his college who had a prank IQ that was off the charts.  If there was Mensa for pranksters, he’d be El Presidente.

One prank took weeks to plan, involved the secretive recruitment of a small platoon of grunts and involved the genius of the mad scientist of pranksters.  Seriously, this prank genius better be working for some Black Ops government program, cause if he’s pushing paper in some corporate building he’s wasting his God given gifts.

On an early Saturday morning – around 2 AM — this platoon went through the parking lots of a fairly large Campus that shall remain nameless and opened all the unlocked car doors.  They then propped a stick between the front seat and the horn of the car (BEEEEEEEEPPPP), and then proceeded to lock the doors and shut them.  They did this to about 100 cars.

Being the weekend at a college campus, some of the car’s owners were still in residence, while others had bolted for the weekend, leaving their cars unlocked in the safe hands of campus security.  Those trusting, absentee car owners came back to a dead battery, as well as tired and angry dorm brothers and sisters on Sunday evening.

Below is a classic prank by the guys from www.collegehumor.com.  It’s rather long, but you can skip around to get the gist of it.  Pretty well organized … pretty well executed.

So, where’s your prank IQ at?

Ever pulled off a stunt that you would happily claim as your brainchild?

Or, ever pulled off a minor April Fool’s joke like the one I mastered?

Share.  Please.  Boast if you will.

Even if you have a low prankster IQ such as myself … please, let the group learn your lesson of failure vicariously.

We get to the check out counter and low and behold, who’s in front of us but The Coupon Guy. You know this person … the one who scours the Sunday Paper looking for coupons like a 49er dug California during the gold rush.  The guy who keeps a pair of scissors in his pants at all times in case he happens to run across a succulent piece of savings pon.  And then, after they found some great deals … that promise to save them loads of $$$ … they go out and they buy stuff they never needed in the first place just so they can say they saved money.  

This guy had about 25 random and unconnected items in his cart (it’s not like he was buying stuff to work on a project), and as he gets up to the counter, he reaches into his tight pant pocket and pulls out a month’s worth of folded and wrinkled coupons.  Now, as if matching the coupon with the item isn’t hard enough, the poor cashier had to try to unwrinkle each coupon so he could scan the barcode.

At this point, my patience left me.  I’m not a patient person to begin with (in fact, I probably have undiagnosed ADHD) and when it’s 8 p.m. and all I had eaten since lunch was Twizzlers, I’m even more impatient.  But, what can you do?  There’s only one check out line at 8 p.m. on a Saturday evening at Harbor Freight Tools and we had to wait our turn.

So, finally … and I kid you not … after about 15 minutes (it felt like 20) of pacing, looking at odd tools that I’ll never use because I’m not a handyman, I notice that the cashiers about done.  And then, wouldn’t you believe it, the guy pulls out his check book.

For goodness sake my man, first off, don’t you realize that all that junk in your cart is costing you tons of money … I mean sure, you saved $50 off retail, but you probably don’t need but 2 or 3 of your 25 items that cost you a total of $150.  Secondly, wrinkled coupons?  Come on, man.  And a check book?  Actually, I’m surprised you have a bank account and don’t hide your money under the rock in your cave.

So, this leads me to some questions for you.  Let’s make some distinctions: there’s like a scale of 1 to 10 for coupon users, with “1″ being “I hardly ever use them; “5″ being “I have a good relationship with coupons” and “10″ being one or two addiction steps higher than the “Coupon Guy” … “10″ is the type of guy who knocks at the door of the funeral home asking if we ever offer a two for one special.

The rules for answering the questions are as follows: you get three free passes if you don’t want to answer, but please … do answer one or more:

1.)  On a scale of 1 to 10, how would you describe your relationship to coupons?

2.)  If you have a normal relationship with coupons, how much on average would you say you save a week?

3.)  Do you have any experience with “groupons”?

4.)  Would you rather stand in line behind a Coupon Person or get stuck in traffic?

If you want to down the whole enchilada, you can cut and past the ten questions into your response so you don’t have to scroll up and down, up and down, up and down, up and down, up and down, up and down, up and down, up and down, up and down, up and down.

Even if you have a good memory – unlike me … who would have to scroll up and down for EACH question asked — you still might want to save that memory in your head’s hard drive for something more important, like that list of groceries you’re supposed to get after work, or the list your boss gave you to do for work, or that list that you gave yourself that you want to do during work while ignoring the list your boss gave you for work … like voluntarily answering my list that I gave you so you can momentarily forget about all the other involuntary lists you MUST do.

1. Are you left handed or right handed?
2. What’s your favorite season: winter, spring, summer or fall?
3. Do you initially react to a situation with your mind or with your heart?
4. If you could meet one historical figure (aside from Jesus), who would it be?
5. What is your favorite carbonated drink?
6. Would you rather be a great musician / artist or a great intellectual / philosopher.
7. What is one language you wish you could speak besides your native tongue?
8. How much money would it take for you to consider yourself “rich”?
9. If you could live anywhere in the world, where would it be?
10. Did you both notice and sarcastically laugh to yourself when you saw the grammatical error in the title of this blog?

Here’s mine: Left, summer, heart, Hitler as a teenager (I’d beat him up real good or make him fall in love with a Jewish girl), Pepsi Max, philosopher, Greek, one million, Charlie Sheen’s house, yes.

So, leaders of the world, show your cards:

1. (A) McDonalds           Vs.             (B) Chick-Fil-A
2. (A) Justin Bieber        Vs.             (B) Taylor Swift
3. (A) The Office            Vs.             (B) 30 Rock
4. (A) Apple                   Vs.             (B) PC
5. (A) CNN                     Vs.             (B) Fox News
6. (A) Jacob                   Vs.             (B) Edward
7. (A) Harry Potter         Vs.             (B) Lord of the Rings
8. (A) Twitter                 Vs.             (B) Facebook
9. (A) Kanye West          Vs.             (B) Charlie Sheen
10. (A) Starbucks             Vs.             (B) Dunkin Donuts

Maybe there’s one or two that you feel real passionate about.  I’m a huge Dunkin Donuts fan and have multiple reasons why the DD is better than the Bucks … reasons such as lower prices, the employment of the India culture, awesome donuts and the DD coffee doesn’t curdle when you pour both creamer and sugar substitutes into the cup (it’s really nasty).

If you want to rant on a certain “verses”, go ahead.

OR, give me your list.  Here’s mine: 1B, 2B, 3B, 4B, 5A, 6B, 7B, 8B, 9A and 10B.