Answering Reader Inquiries with the Unbridled Certainty of a Sarah Palin

I’ve mentioned before that I’m an avid skimmer of Parade magazine. Not a reader, just a skimmer. And the one feature I skim more closely than others is Walter Scott’s Personality Parade.

It’s right there in the front of Parade. Readers send in questions; the anonymous Personality Parade guy (Walter Scott is a pseudonym) answers them. Often the questions could easily be found with a simple Google search. But I’m guessing most of the readers have, shall we say, a pre-Google mindset (i.e. they’re really old).

Many submissions fascinate me because they ask for answers to seemingly unanswerable questions. For instance, a few weeks back, Pat Darbo of Bozeman, Mont., inquired, “What’s the greatest rock ‘n’ roll song of all time?”

The Personality Parade guy replied with characteristic certainty: “Otis Redding’s ‘Respect.'” OK, then. We’ve definitively determined the greatest rock ‘n’ roll song of all time! That was surprisingly easy.

Now that that’s settled, we’ve compiled a list of questions for Personality Parade – along with the certainty-laden answers we’d expect to receive. Here we go …

Q: What’s the greatest movie of all time?
A: Ben Hur.

Q: Who’s history’s most beautiful woman?
A: Cleopatra.

Q: Do we have free will, or are our actions predetermined?
A: Until his death in 2005, our actions were predetermined by Bob Denver. We now have free will.

Q: If God is omnipotent, can he create a boulder so big he cannot lift it?
A: Yes.

Q: I have a lump on my back. Is it benign or malignant?
A: Benign. But you do have a malignant tumor in your lung that won’t be diagnosed until 2012.

Q: Who really was responsible for breaking up the Beatles?
A: Charo.

Q: Why doesn’t my husband respect my career needs?
A: Because of the way you treated him that time in Zurich.

Q: Why is my car making a weird clicking noise?
A: The rear axle is shot.

Thanks to Matt Donlan for contributing.