My mother's shopping lists were ordered by rules known only to her. As you slid your finger down the columns of groceries and toiletries, you would invariably be stopped by something along the lines of "2dozjumHerbal Essences" or "1pepperoni TC," with the "TC" underlined twice and flanked by gnarled masses of pencil scratch-outs. When we were kids, we dreaded accompanying her to Wal-Mart, or worse, the Cosco at the edge of town, where the echoing rafters and limitless aisles seemed to mock the confusion into which we were inevitably thrown when handed torn-off fragments of the list. Of course, it was easy enough to see in hindsight that "2dozjumHerbal Essences" was merely the bastard child of two drunkenly weaving columns--we had been supposed to get two dozen jumbo eggs and a bottle of my mother's favourite brand of shampoo (ever inventive in creating proprietary abbreviations--"TC" standing for, what else, thin crust pizza--my mother scrupulously wrote out brand names in full). It was a little like ordering chemicals for a laboratory, sans any knowledge of chemistry--or, for that matter, laboratories, although my ignorance of the distinction between baking soda and baking powder cannot be entirely the root of my confusion. Eventually I--and my siblings--learned the difference between tomato paste and tomato sauce, and could readily distinguish one brand of laundry detergent from a similarly-styled knock-off, but my shame-faced trips back to the mothercart never ceased. I would track her down, most often in the produce section--she was usually loath to trust us with the delicate task of selecting the very best fruits and vegetables--and hand her back my portion of the list, asking for an explanation. Usually it amounted to a failure of awareness on my part--get the kind of soap we always get, of course! Question: After the end of grocery shopping with his/her mother, the author is: === The answer to the above question is
OPTIONS:
- frustrated
- happy
- not enough information
- wishing to do it again

Answer: frustrated

Question: I was a waitress at the New England regional chain Newport Creamery for seven years in Jr. High, High School, and College. In college, I needed money for school supplies, so in addition to slinging ice cream cones and "Awful Awfuls" at the Creamery, I picked up a few more jobs: working the dinner shift at a family restaurant, heaving trays of cocktails at a bar until 3AM, and cleaning houses. Needless to say, I was a wreck, and a big time abuser of coffee and cigarettes. One day just before my shift at the Creamery began, I slung back a huge coffee and hauled on a Newport cigarette in the kitchen (this was when you could do things like smoke in a restaurant kitchen.) I then went out to the dining floor and approached my first table, who had been given menus and was waiting for me to take their order. "Hi, How are you today?", I cheerfully asked the mother and her three daughters, all looking under 12. "What may I get you?.." Then, fade to black as a huge swooshing sound took over my head. Next thing I know, I'm on the floor, covered in blood, the girls are screaming blue murder, and my manager is shaking like a leaf as he coddles me. Apparently, I passed out right onto the table of the nice family I was waiting on, then fell back and whacked my head on the corner of a wall. I remember noticing that my kelly green polyester dress was an awful shade of bloodied brown. My main concern was that I had a hot date that night, and now I had to go to the emergency room! The ER doctor was able to sew my head up, and sent me home with a diagnosis of "syncope, unknown origin". After a few hours, I still felt spacey, but insisted on going on the date. I remember we went to a nice Italian place on Federal Hill! Here's the Garden City location, where I worked. Question: The manager probably believes that: === The answer to the above question is
OPTIONS:
- not enough information
- The waitress needs a raise.
- Something is wrong with the waitress.
- The restaurant should be closed down.
Answer: Something is wrong with the waitress.

Question: If you turned on the TV towards the end of 2002 you could have been forgiven for thinking that Britain had gone absolutely horseshit mental. Every week, it seemed, another pretty young girl from a nice family, who was happy and popular and always did well at school, was being kidnapped or murdered by what the Sun newspaper cheerfully termed 'evil paedo scum'. Naming and shaming was as popular a feature in the Murdoch press as Page Three girls and discounted holidays to Butlin's. Of course you can't blame parents for wanting to keep their children safe; that's pretty much the job description of a parent. And, on the face of it, the tabloids were doing a public service in warning us about the paedophile menace lurking in our midst. The problem came when it turned out that a huge number of these concerned tabloid-reading parents were also absolute fucking morons. For every story of an actual sex offender being driven from their house by a baying mob there was one like that of Dr Yvette Cloete, a doctor at the Royal Gwent Hospital in Newport, South Wales, who returned home from work to find that a group of 'concerned parents' had daubed the word 'paedo' on her front door in bright red paint. Dr Cloete was a consultant paediatrician. Easy mistake. If you're an absolute fucking moron. And so it was that one hung-over morning, after reading yet another story about vigilantes who had threatened to stone Maxine Carr, the girlfriend of Soham killer Ian Huntley, to death during her high-profile trial for perverting the course of justice, I decided to set up a website parodying this collective national madness. The result of two or three hours of hung-over labour was thinkofthechildren.co.uk, a spoof campaign site which claimed to offer a handy online guide for crazy vigilantes of all stripes to co-ordinate their crazy vigilante efforts. Although there are a few parts of the site I'm still a bit proud of, the majority of it was, I freely admit, satire of the lowest order. Question: What does the narrator think about the state of British TV in 2002? === The answer to the above question is
OPTIONS:
- It is absolutely mental.
- It is madness.
- not enough information
- It's ridiculous.
Answer:
It is absolutely mental.