Re: What would make you believe?

Wildepad wrote:
> A tall young man comes to your door. He speaks with a heavy accent and
> occasionally uses nonsense words. After a few pleasantries, he tells
> you that he's from a parallel universe that is a near duplicate of our
> own except that it's several centuries ahead.
> 
> His mission is to change our future.
<snip>
> What he can't do:
<snip long list>

He seems to have been selected and prepared specifically to _fail_ at 
this mission, for some reason. He really should have been sent with some 
kind of eye-catching gizmo to impress me with, I don't see why they 
couldn't build sufficient security into something like that to prevent 
it from falling into the "wrong hands".

Anyway, I'd probably listen to his story for about ten seconds before 
concluding he's a nut and shooing him off my porch, especially with the 
weather as cold as it is right now. My suggestion would be for him to 
write the numbers and name of the lottery and such on a card that he can 
hand to me, make his spiel, and then politely go away when I suggest 
that I'm not interested. That's probably the best he can do under the 
limitations given. No way would I _believe_ him, but if I've got the 
card on me when I'm in the store I just might give it a whirl. Highly 
unlikely though since I don't consider lotteries to be worthwhile either 
as an "investment" or as "fun".

A far better strategy would be for him to simply buy the ticket himself 
and hand _that_ to me. I'd pass it along to my dad, who actually does 
buy lottery tickets and so would check the winning numbers when they're 
announced.