why yes, I do use shoe polish to excess

I am enjoying my required psychology course, but let me just say that it isn't exactly what I expected. The field of psychology (which my teachers hinted at but I uneasily argued away) is entirely too prone to ridiculousness. Psychologists, in the name of science, snuff blindly around with their magnifying glasses and crooked little thinking caps and come up with findings in utter defiance to (or in entire obviousness to) common sense. Some of the things I am learning are very interesting and valuable, but I would say that much of psychology could be technically labeled "fluff."

As an example, the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory. This controversial test is used to detect heaven knows what in its takers. Probably whatever the person giving the test wants to detect. Some of its questions include, "no one seems to understand me," "I get all the sympathy I should," and "I like poetry." That is all I am going to say about that. A gentleman named Art Buchwald has a very refreshing position on the MMPI. Art is a good man. Here is his alternative test to the MMPI, and it is quite clearly as effective a tool as the original for tapping into the unconscious and providing a solid psychological analysis.

Ladies and gentlemen, sharpen your pencils in preparation for the North Dakota Null-Hypothesis Brain Inventory!

Please answer true (T) or false (F) to the following questions:
1. I salivate at the sight of mittens.
2. If I go into the street, I'm apt to be bitten by a horse.
3. Some people never look at me.
4. Spinach makes me feel alone.
5. When I look down from a high spot, I want to spit.
6. I like to kill mosquitoes.
7. Cousins are not to be trusted.
8. It makes me embarrassed to fall down.
9. I get nauseous from too much roller skating.
10. I think most people would cry to gain a point.
11. I cannot read or write.
12. I am bored by thoughts of death.
13. I become homicidal when people try to reason with me.
14. I would enjoy the work of a chicken flicker.
15. I am never startled by a fish.
16. My mother's uncle was a good man.
17. I don't like it when somebody is rotten.
18. People who break the law are wise guys.
19. I have never gone to pieces over the weekend.
20. I think beavers work too hard.
21. I use shoe polish to excess.
22. God is love.
23. I like mannish children.
24. I have always been disturbed by the sight of Lincoln's ears.
25. I always let people go ahead of me at swimming pools.
26. Most of the time I go to sleep without saying goodbye.
27. I am not afraid of picking up doorknobs.
28. I believe I smell as good as most people.
29. Frantic screams make me nervous.
30. It's hard for me to say the right thing when I find myself in a room full of mice.
31. I would never tell my nickname in a crisis.
32. A wide necktie is a sign of disease.
33. As I child I was deprived of licorice.
34. I would never shake hands with a gardener.
35. My eyes are always cold.


(source: Art Buchwald's North Dakota Null-Hypothesis Brain Inventory (1965). Quoted in Blumenfield, W.S. (1972). "I am never startled by a fish." APA Monitor, 3(9,10), 3, 14.)