The plane you’re flying on begins to get slightly bumpy:

a) It’s just a little normal turbulence due to this sudden windstorm.

b) The pilot just discovered his beautiful fiancé is in love with another man and now he doesn’t want to live anymore. And he’s taking us all down with him!

As you sip a Diet Coke, a new health report comes out proclaiming artificial sweeteners have now been proven to cause dementia:

a) Uh huh, and next month they’ll say people with higher IQ’s drink six diet colas daily.

b) As you choke and sputter on the carbonated amber toxin, you can feel your brain cells dying off one by one, and you no longer remember your own middle name.

Your coworker pays you a compliment by saying how funny you are:

a) You say “thank you” and return the favor by remarking that she always brings a smile to your face as well.

b) Start a humor blog complete with an online store that sells mugs and tee-shirts with humorous original sayings on them, but first design a greeting card line called, “Cracking You Up!” while simultaneously securing an agent familiar with booking into the comedy circuit.

It’s been an hour and your kid hasn’t responded to your text.

a) He’s probably distracted having fun.

b) Somebody’s got him in an old basement with bad reception and he’s covertly trying to activate his “Find Your Phone” app so you can send the authorities just as his Android is roughly yanked from his frail hands while a deep voice growls, “Your mother will never hear from you again… unless it’s in her dreams!”

The receptionist leaves a voicemail saying the results from your routine blood work are in and asks you to return her call.

a) What a great office — they’re so careful about the privacy laws and not leaving overly detailed messages.

b) Something tragic showed up in your hemoglobin (probably from drinking diet sodas) and this woman didn’t have the heart to leave the specifics in a recording so you’re going to have to go in for a face-to-face meeting and as the doctor tells you to please have a seat in his large back office, he’ll glance to his desk at the framed photos of his own sweet children, and say a little gratitude prayer that it’s you and not him.

The busboy in the restaurant keeps staring at you as he clears the dishes from the next table:

a) You must remind him of someone he once knew.

b) He’s fantasizing about asking you out on a date, but it’s going to hurt his feelings when you decline unless he gets promoted to a waiter, but that will never happen since he looks like the type who arrives late to work every day and he’ll get into a motorcycle crash before he ever straightens out his act because he has issues proving his masculinity to his father.

At the check-out stand in the grocery store, the credit card you pulled out has suddenly vanished:

a) You’re getting so careless nowadays, you must’ve put it back in your wallet before you even used it.

b) Okay, so where’s the camera? You’re on that new show where the magician catches people off guard with clever tricks making them think they’re losing their mind because they don’t know they’re being filmed. You knew you should’ve straightened your hair this morning!

At the pediatrician’s office, you observe all the children on the floor, playing with other kids and sharing toys that belong to the doctor.

a) It’s great to see little ones so well-adjusted and socializing early in life.

b) Why don’t all parents wear shirts with little beads, buttons, bells, and whistles sewn on the front so their children can sit happily in their laps and self-entertain — thereby avoiding all the germs in places like this? They’d sell like hotcakes online and you  can call them “Activi-Tees”

At a wedding, the fish entree is not seasoned to your liking:

a) You send it back because rumors of chefs spitting in the food are largely unfounded.

b) You’re certain the salmon was laced with cyanide and this plate was actually meant for the man seated on your right because he’s been having an affair with the beautiful fiancé of the chef, who used to be an airline pilot but lost his job when he flew erratically into a windstorm because of a jealous rage.

QUIZ RESULTS: Subject to your imagination, but mostly “b” answers suggest a career as a writer, inventor, or paranoid parent.

*Credit for the phrase, “Inflammation of the Imagination” goes to Dr. Bradley Shapero.