The Canonical Answers

[dr_tectonic]

Just in case you ever need them, here are the canonical answers to a variety of questions. These are hand-crafted artisanal answers, laboratory-tested for best effect. They can be applied to any question of the appropriate form.

The first, and most important one, is that if someone asks "Can I ask you a question?" the canonical answer is "Is it in French? Because I don't speak French."

Question: "How do I... ?"
Answer: "Integrate and divide by 5."

Question: "What should I do with [some object]?"
Answer: "Set it on fire, throw it in the Charles [River]."

Question: "Where is...?"
Answer: "I ate it," unless the object in question is actually consumable or a person, in which case the answer is "He/She/It evaporated."

Question: "Why...?"
Answer: "To spite you."

Question: "How come...?"
Answer: "Because God hates you."

(Note: these two answers are actually interchangeable in certain circumstances, but the rules governing the exchange are complicated and I won't go into them here.)

Question: "Who [did some action]?"
Answer: "It's all Bradley's fault." (Bradley being finagler. Don't worry if you have no idea who he is; it's still his fault. Our testers are currently evaluating whether this answer should be replaced with "It's all Perlick's fault." We will send out a recall notice if this canonical answer proves to be more effective.)

Question: "When..."
Answer: "Last Tuesday," unless last Tuesday is a plausibly the date in question, in which case the answer is "The late Proterozoic."

I may have left some out. Please speak up if you know of other canonical answers that I didn't mention!

Comments

[nehrlich.livejournal.com]

Yay! Thanks for posting these!

Except that it's _definitely_ Bradley's fault. Even if you claim it's my fault, I can plausibly be blamed on Bradley, so it's still all his fault.

[dr-tectonic.livejournal.com]

The accuracy of an answer has nothing to do with whether or not it is the correct answer to that class of question. You'll have to present this argument to the Canonical Answer Revision Team and see what they have to say.