Procrastination Opportunist

Well of course I'm Guildenstern; it's the best of a rather poor choice isn't it? It happens to the best of us, you know. Sometimes two super clued-up guys can just get totally sucked in. (That's another story; mine is of two suckers who got sucked in - hence the title.) A number of years ago now (the more the better), Dom and I saw the 'earn $500 in a flash, simply by answering several general knowledge questions' ad. Thinking that two heads were better than one, we dialled the 0900 number, and prepared to start raking the cash in. After a couple of false starts and goofy oops-I-pushed-the-wrong-button kind of errors, we finally started getting somewhere. Yes! I knew the capital of Turkey was Ankara! Surely not many people could have gotten that right in the past... Wow, I even knew James Dean was driving a Porsche Spyder when he died! Man, we were on our way to untold wealth, only limited by the amount of times we could call this number in a day!

Of course it all came crashing down. "How many cubic metres of water were drained from Lake Michigan when it was emptied in the middle of last century? Type the answer into your phone as hundreds of thousands." I narrowed it down at least; it is not 560 000.

Those phone things are a gyp. The phone bill didn't exactly tuck the three calls discreetly away either. Mum saw them immediately and circled them, which I saw and paid up for immediately. Ushj - she didn't even suspect it might have been me; she was going to confront the little boys about it and not even demand payment, just contrition. So I learned my lesson:

1) Don't give yourself up until you're sure you're found out;

2) Even then, blame Dom;

3) Research Lake Michigan's entire history thoroughly before playing;

4) And the history of pretty much everything else while you're at it.

And you'll win! I'll drink to that!