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of rigorous analysis and therefore etc. etc. etc.?”
    â€œYou are making fun of me.”
    â€œI’m telling you that I want and will buy the T-shirt that you prefer,” Carla says.
    â€œAre you sure? Because you’re saying it in this way that it sounds like maybe you’re making fun of me.” Susan Falls begins to shiver, and then she begins to cry—not really, but hypothetically.
    Susan’s hypotheticals often end sadly and hardly ever make their point with force. Disregarding the ever-present effect that the Wheelchair Factor has on her confidence, the Sadly Ending Hypothetical Factor is the number one reason for why she can’t bring herself to engage Carla Ribisi in conversation. But back to trickery:
    The considerer will arrive at two interpretations of “Carla Ribisi appears to have a big ass,” each one implicated by the other:
    A. The actual size of Carla Ribisi’s ass cannot be known at this juncture (snowpantsed).
    B. Carla Ribisi’s ass is a mystery.
    Susan Falls has, by now, watched enough TV and studied enough social and cognitive psychology, she hopes, to soon fulfill her dream of becoming one half of a powerful and revered creative team at Leo Burnett. Susan knows about attribution. She knows self-perception theory. Susan knows that for every considerer, there is a specific amount of time, designated x , that must be spent considering a thing before the considerer becomes aware that she has spent time considering the thing. Moreover, Susan knows that after the considerer has considered an as-yet-neutral (unvalenced) thing for x , that thing will appear to the considerer—unless she is someone who suffers from terribly low self-esteem or clinical depression—to be a good (positively valenced) thing, for the (non-depressed, self-esteeming) considerer knows she wouldn’t spend her time on a thing that wasn’t good. Therefore, once the mystery of Carla Ribisi’s ass has been considered for x , the mystery of Carla Ribisi’s ass is good. And all good mysteries are good to solve, so solving the mystery is also good.
    In order to solve the mystery —in order to see Carla Ribisi sans blue snowpants—one would have to spend time with Carla Ribisi, time enough to wind up in places where wearing snowpants would be out of the question: dressing rooms, beaches, showers, etc.
    If Carla is a smarty—and Susan is sure that Carla must be, for Susan wouldn’t otherwise waste so much time gawking at and thinking about her—then Carla, to ensure that any given considerer’s x be met or surpassed, would stretch out this getting-to-know-Carla time for as long as possible before letting the considerer see her without snowpants, for in being kept from seeing what Susan will call Carla’s true ass for x or longer, the considerer, always considering, would work the previously outlined self-perception algorithm, but this time the considerer would transpose solving the mystery with true ass , itself, such that not only would to solve be a good thing, but true ass (the solution) would also be good.
    If Susan Falls were to create a successful television advertising campaign for Carla Ribisi’s ass, the only two things she would have to figure out would be (1) how much time x equals for the average viewer, and (2) how to make the campaign compelling enough to keep the viewer considering it for ≥ x .
    If Susan Falls could pull that off, then even if the viewer were to start with a bias (e.g., “prefers big asses,” “disdains small asses,” “abjures jacked-up small asses that look bigger than they are”), the bias would, by campaign’s end, be made irrelevant; whether im- or explicitly, the viewer would, once her x was met, reach the same conclusion as Susan:
    Any ass worth spending all this time on must be some really good ass.
    CHAPTER 130,024
    AN ACCEPTANCE SPEECH
    The other brilliant aspect of Carla