Judgement Day (a.k.a. Panel of Judges 2).

Often times they say that you should not judge a book by its cover.  I think more realistically it should be that you should not always judge a book by its cover, but that sometimes it is ok, especially when it has a buff pirate on it and you can see his nipples.  You know what that book is going to be about.  Who holds a sword like that?  Come on.  Anyways, this can also sometimes be true of people (see: Panel of Judges).  But the ridiculous clichés like “You can tell a lot about a person by their shoes” as I previously discussed, or something equally absurd like “You can tell a lot about a person by the company that they keep”, you will find, are not accurate barometers of personality and character.  Like I discussed when I dissected the shoe argument, there are probably cases where the latter argument could still ring true.  

When someone hangs around a bunch of snobs, it can sometimes be safe to say they probably are themselves rather snobby.  However, just because someone lives within a society of mountain gorillas, it does not mean that they, in fact, are a mountain gorilla.  Maybe they don’t even like mountain gorillas, maybe they spend most of their time talking about the king and queen gorillas behind their backs to the plantains.  You don’t know.

Anyways, if 'shoes' and/or 'company kept' are off the table, but you still would like to effectively try and judge a book by its cover, then here are a few accurate ways to gauge someone’s personality, just by observing some random thing about them.

You can tell a lot about a person by…

the number of cats that they have.

I’m still working on the algorithm a little, as well as the graphs and flow chats and whatnot, but essentially depending on the number of cats, this is what you are saying to the world:

1 Cat: “I love my cat, cats are awesome.”

2 Cats: “I love ALL cats, I’m a cat person.”

3 Cats: “I love my cats, probably a little more than I like people.”

4 Cats: “Sparky and Mittens are my babies and they will never leave me, not like my lousy kids.”

5 Cats: “Last week I knit myself seventeen Christmas sweaters, all with cats on them. My cats.”

6 Cats: “The local kids say my house is haunted.  It is.”

7 Cats: “I speak cat… MEOoooooW Rehhhrr!”

8 Cats: “The urine that you smell is mostly feline, but also mine, mostly.”

9+ Cats: “SHMARGLE GLUB! Darrrrrr, Gabaraga WEE dee fwaaa? Hahahaaaaaaaa…”

It also says a lot about a person if they claim that they are striving to become the crazy cat lady / man / hermit / wildebeest.  Mostly it says 'stay away' or 'keep away from children'.

Increase in cats, increase in crazy, which, if you have a cat, makes total sense.  

You can tell a lot about a person by…

the size of their pit stains.

You can tell if they are nervous, have recently exerted themselves, or whether or not they are wearing antiperspirant.  Depending on how far down and widespread the stain is, you can tell how long they have been feeling anxious, warm or physically strained.

There’s a scene in ‘Superman 3’ (or maybe it was number four, there’s no way for me to remember, really) where Superman is lifting an enormous ice block or person or something and has atrociously large pit stains all down the sides of his best blue tights.  I’m not sure that Superman actually would sweat, and especially not when he is somewhere in Antarctica like he was in this particular scene.  What this tells us is that this ‘actor’ is not actually Superman.  Now the fourth wall is broken and I’m back to reality.  Thanks a lot, Hollywood.  Next you’ll tell me that the mall Santa Claus is not the real Santa.  Well, then how did he know I wanted a pony? How did he know?

More importantly than all of that, if someone is wearing a light gray shirt on a hot humid day, so that it clearly accentuates and highlights the tremendous pit stains, you can tell that they do not have much in the way of foresight.

But seriously, how was I supposed to know the office would be this warm today?

You can tell a lot about a person by…

whether or not they plug their nose when they jump into a pool.

People that do this may as well be wearing one of those bathing cap bonnets like in those old synchronized swimming videos (with the rubbery flowers and the metal snap button strap across the chin).  No matter a person’s age, when you see them doing this, they immediately look about four years old.  For the record, at four, I already did not plug my nose.  I already knew that I did not want to look like a weenie (see: Weenie Roast). Get your shit together!  One thing you can tell about these people is that they clearly are not comfortable in the water, and they’ll be the first to go when the whole world floods.  

Hopefully when it does happen, it will be less like ‘Waterworld’, and more like ‘The Little Mermaid’, what with the musical numbers and magically delicious crabs.  Seriously, Sebastien would make a sweet crab roll.  Hot buttered soul.

Either way, the nose-pluggers are fish food.

Well, that, along with my previously stated guidelines (see: Panel of Judges), ought to get you started along a path of judging books by their covers, only when it is completely acceptable to do so.  Or not.  You be the judge.

That’s it.  I’m going home sick, these are gargantuan pit stains.