I have developed an unhealthy, morbid obsession with locked threads. Whenever I see one, I have to open it to see what kind of lurid event caused its premature death. It’s like looking at a car wreck on the freeway. Of course, most of the time, it’s something stupid, but still, I keep looking, searching for I don’t know what.
For me, the biggest thrill is when manhattan or Arnold W or UncleBeer swoops in in a cold fury and spits wrathfully “That’s IT!!! I’m CLOSING THIS THREAD!!!” But they haven’t quite completed the arcane ritual that closing a thread requires (I like to imagine them running out to the corner bodega for black candles and a capon), and you slip in deftly and say, “I fully agree with the OP.”
There’s definitely a morbid curiosity to seeing that padlock isn’t there? We’re addicts: we just HAVE to know why it was locked. So you read it even if the OP sounds stupid or uninteresting. And it resembles foreplay, the way anticipation builds to the inevitable conclusion until finally…
…oh yes…
…a mod comes in and finishes it.
Was it good for you?
Actually it’s even more like sex than I first thought: sometimes the end is satsifactory and sometimes it isn’t. Sometimes you feel like yelling “YEAH BABY!!” and other times “WTF???”
I am always so disappointed when the thread has been closed by request. Where the hell is the fun in that? huh I ask ya?
Funny, I was thinking the same thing today. They’re like traffic accidents, I have to see them and know why they happened.
I had my first thread closed last night, but UncleBeer. It was so … liberating.
I can’t resist them. I swear I hear them calling…
“Luna, oh Luuunaaa…
Come on, you know you want to…”
Click
I know, I’m weak.
Just in general.
Y’know, if you want a real thrill, I could lock this thread up for you. 
You tease Slythe!!!
Hmmm. That would be ironic, no?
Ooh, ooh, ooh! Smeghead, request that this thread be closed and piss off aha!
aha, send a ten-spot and I’ll keep this thread open forever.
any counter-offers?
Wait - so aha does not want me to not request that slythe keep this open, which he will do unless he gets money…
Aaaah! I’m confused! Do I want this thread open or locked? I don’t know! <<Whimpering softly to myself>>
See - this is why I never start threads.
Well Smeghead, with threadposting comes great responsibility.
Hmmm… that sounds like a cheesy comic book…
Spider-thread, Spider-thread
Friendly neighborhood Spider-thread
It’s not going to be the same if you lock it now. You have to be a little more curmudgeonly or the thrill just isn’t there.
nope … sorry. Ignorance shining through here as I did not realize that you could tell a thread was locked! (you mean all those shiny pictures MEAN something???)
I’m still waiting for the day when one of my threads gets locked. It would be an honor to have started something controversial.
I have never NOT opened a locked thread. “Ooh! Ooh! What’d they say to get it locked?! Threats against Cecil? Bomb recepies?”
And then it turns out…“Oops! I accidentally hit new thread, not post reply! Can you close this for me?”
Aaargh!
I FULLY AGREE WITH THE OP!
I FULLY AGREE WITH THE OP!!!
Wait.
Damn.