meet the new Chris, same as the old Chris.

Here is a true story.

When I was in grade school, maybe age 7 or 8, my best friend Kenny had his birthday party at McDonald's, which was considered a fun sort of thing at the time, since you did it at one of the good McDonald's with a playground attached. The party was managed by some unsuspecting high school girl, and at some point she corralled the kids together to play "Guess The Number, Win A Prize" where she would write down a number, etc., which ordinarily might occupy several minutes, except they invited me.

(I think we were sitting on the floor, which is pretty gross to think of now. Maybe they mopped first, maybe it was a rug, I dunno. Obviously we couldn't see the pad she was writing on.)

"Okay, guess the number."
"Eleven!"
"Uh...right. How'd you know?"
"I watched you count everybody before you wrote the number down."

A pause.

"Uh...okay. New number!"
"Eight!"
"What?"
"I saw the end of your pen while you wrote, an '8' makes a distinctive...shape..."

Another pause.

"Okay, you can't play any more."

Fair enough.