american nerd survey

Suppose you're given $50 and told that, in one hour, a grizzly bear will be sent to kill you. What do you do?

Dave Indish: Buy some Acme bear repellent, spend the change on tacos.

Mark Kalar: First I run home to put my $50 in the mail as a donation to the RNC, in hopes they can pass more lenient gun control laws - it's unlikely I'll make it to a Fleet Farm in North Dakota (the nearest state without a "cooling off" period to buy a firearm) in time to buy that gatling gun I so desperately need. Hopefully the next victim of a bear attack in Minnesota will be able to avail themselves of their god-given right to an assault rifle to protect himself and his family. Luckily, from watching Tremors I know a few household chemicals in the proper proportion can make a powerful explosive (I can't tell you which ones for fear American Nerd would be put on the NSA's shitlist). I gather said chemicals from under my sink, swipe some PVC pipe from a nearby construction site for casing, and I wait. If I’m going down, that bear and hopefully a city block or two are going with me.

Stephen McClurg: I would borrow someone's DV camera with a fully-charged batteryand find a nice piece of open land. The $50 would go to:

1) whiskey
2) Two jalapeno and olive pizzas
3) Some sort of matching underwear set, preferably Underoos with cape (possibly homemade to save money for better whiskey)

I'd grab a blanket and my copy of Beckett's Endgame and take all of the items to the open area of land. Next, I'd change into underwear and cape. Most of the hour would be spent consuming whiskey and pizzas while reading. At first alert of the grizzly, I'd turn on the camera and run like hell while trying to stay in frame. Hopefully one of my friends would take the tape to Werner Herzog so he could make a documentary--something like The Grizzly's Bitch.

Keith Pille: I thought about making a Craigslist posting offering $50, eternal glory, and a shitload of bear meat to the first person who'd show up and protect me. That might work as a fallback, but I think my best bet would be to go hole up at The Nook, a very narrow bar in St. Paul with few entrances and exits. I figure I can't fight the bear, but maybe I can wait it out. I barricade the entrances lay low, and live for a month on liquor and beer nuts. Maybe I get some action from my Craigslist posting, maybe I don't; but I bet the bear eventually starves or loses interest and goes on a mauling rampage.

Don Pizarro: First, I'd beat up the person who gave me the $50, thinking he/she must have something to do with the plot to assassinate me with a bear. If not, I wouldn't even apologize. I'd say, "Hey, life's a bitch. At least you don't have a bear after you."

I'd pocket the $50, run home, strap every bladed weapon I own (Real bladed weapons, not the Klingon knives they sell on QVC at three a.m.) around my waist like Bill the Butcher in Gangs of New York, and me and the bear are going to go at it mano to mano. And, when I find out who sent it, I'm gonna have "sharp words" for them, too. See, that's how you handle your business, where I come from.

Simon Riordan: Buy a train ticket. A mauling on Amtrak is the kind of publicity they need these days. Amtrak - anything can happen!

Jonathan Shipley: Pay a friend I know, a bounty hunter named Chip O'Doule, to kill the bear. Of course $50 won't cover the cost of killing the bear (Chip always says "I at least need a Benjamin to do sumpin' like dat") so perhaps Chip could simply shoot it in the foot so I could run away and the bear couldn't catch me.

Clint Weathers: In Critique of Pure Reason, Kant opined that it is immoral to deny a rational creature the freedom to make its own decisions and consequently the results of those decisions. Being a devout Kantian, I would allow the bear to show up and kill me.

Being also a Buddhist, I would look on at the bear from my next life as it develops arterial sclerosis, heart disease, and type II diabetes from eating a fat guy. We're high in cholesterol and triglycerides.

The $50 can be given as an in-kind donation to the Hennepin County (Minnesota) Home For the Occupational Therapy of Wayward Women, often referred to by its business name, "Deja Vu."