# OMG, that was so contrived! (Open Spoilers) **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [February 2, 2012, 2:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/omg-that-was-so-contrived-open-spoilers/611485 "2012-02-02T02:03:57Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2012, 4:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/omg-that-was-so-contrived-open-spoilers/611485/21 "2012-02-02T16:40:51Z")
> [@Sister\_Vigilante](#): > > _Tarzan_. > > He finds books, including ones with pictures, amongst his dead parents’ belongings. From this he learns he is different from the apes and therefore must not go running around naked and not to ahem, fool around with them either. By looking at children’s books with pictures of animals and other things, with their names underneath, he learns to read and _also how to speak perfect English_. When he meets Jane he is able to converse with her and the rest of the group with ease. > > The TV show and heck, even the Greystoke movie was more realistic than this. > > I read this long ago so if I am misremembering, please correct me. You’re almost correct – when he meets Jane he can _read_ English, but not speak it 9there was no one to teach him how to speak English). He, in fact, learns tio speak French before English. Tarzon, like Frankenstein’s Creation, is one of the Great Autodidacts. The Remarkable Coincidences come long before this – Tarzan loses _both_ his parents, but doesn’t get killed himself, at just about the same time his Ape foster-mom Kala loses her baby. And the two find each other. Pretty unlikely set of circumstances, but when you consisder that on the continent of Africa the human babny who gets adopted by apes is _white_, the odds go outrageous – in Kipling’s _Jungle Book_, after all, Mowgli is Indian. You’d think it’d be more likely that an adiopted kid would be a native, rather than an unlikely visitor. ---
**Author:** ![Barkis\_is\_Willin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a183cd/32.png) [@Barkis\_is\_Willin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Barkis_is_Willin)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2012, 4:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/omg-that-was-so-contrived-open-spoilers/611485/22 "2012-02-02T16:41:03Z")
> [@Nzinga\_Seated](#): > > But does that count as contrived? I mean, the author could have easily written the story as though rule changes happen all the time. I thought a contrivance was to twist the story in an implausable way to force an outcome. In this case, the author didn’t. The author _could_ have twisted the story to reflect that rule changes like this are common, but he opted not to. Or I don’t know. I think I’m confused. But it wasn’t written that way, which is why the whole scene plays out rather awkwardly and unnaturally. The outcome that is finally reached in THG is absurd enough that is not merely a series of unbelievable coincidences, but also a mighty effort by the author to break her own rules multiple times. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2012, 4:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/omg-that-was-so-contrived-open-spoilers/611485/23 "2012-02-02T16:45:29Z")
> [@bup](#): > > _ **Les Miserables** _. Jean Valjean keeps running into the same people over and over and over, and Marius keeps running into the same people over and over and over. > > Jean has the strength of ten grinches plus two, can leap over the walls of nunneries, can invent a slight enhancement to the production of something or other and become the richest man in the land… > > _ **A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court** _. One of the best in the whole history of western culture, when the protagonist (Hank?) recalls the date, time and place of a solar eclipse from a thousand years before, and happens to be transported back to within an hour of that very crumb of timespace. That one’s always bothered me, too. I wrote a _Teemings_ column about it, because it’s a trope that’s been re–used. It shows up in H. Rider Haggard’s _King Solomon’s Mines_ at almost exactly the same time – but at least \*they[/.i] actually had an almanac. I’d throw the whole idea out as blatantly unlikely – except that the eclipse gambit was actually used (successfully!) twice in history – once by Columbus and once by “The Prophet” Tenkskwatawa. They both had almanacs, too. . [http://www.teemings.net/series\_1/issue16/calmeacham.html](http://www.teemings.net/series_1/issue16/calmeacham.html) ---
**Author:** ![jackdavinci](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackdavinci/32/3259_2.png) [@jackdavinci](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jackdavinci)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2012, 4:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/omg-that-was-so-contrived-open-spoilers/611485/24 "2012-02-02T16:47:36Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > I don’t find this a contrivance – under the appropriate conditions, it’s a strong possibility. You might as well fault Arthur C. Clarke for not having enough oxygen aboard in his story _Breaking Strain_ I tend to think of it as the penultimate contrivance story, because it’s barely more fleshed out than a pure hypothetical dilemma on par with “if you had to choose” games or brainstorming thought scenarios. No engineer would allow ever allow a complicated craft that human lives depended on to be used either with such a minuscule tolerance for error, or such reckless launch safety checks. It’s almost on par with the man chained to a railroad switch story. At least Breaking Strain’s dilemma involved an accident and some actual interpersonal conflict. ---
**Author:** ![Strassia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e8c25b/32.png) [@Strassia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Strassia)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2012, 4:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/omg-that-was-so-contrived-open-spoilers/611485/25 "2012-02-02T16:50:36Z")
> [@MsWhatsit](#): > > I just read _The Hunger Games_, and while there was a lot, and I do mean a _lot_, of deus ex machina contrivance in it, the bit that annoyed me the most was: > > [spoiler]Never in the history of the Games have they changed the rules mid-stream! Never! But they are changing them now to allow two winners! Except a handful of pages later, when oops, they change them back again! Just kidding, ha ha! > > Also, there was a lot of buildup with this “foxfaced girl” and how clever and smart she was, and you’re led to expect that there is going to be some big confrontation. Like, this girl is _so_ clever and smart that the protagonist of the book is going to have to deal with her at some point, and outwit her at her own game. Yeah, no, the foxfaced girl succumbs offscreen to accidentally eating some poison berries. Tra la la.[/spoiler] > [@Barkis\_is\_Willin](#): > > Yeah, I was going to say pretty much the entire Hunger Games series is contrived as hell. The first one you mentioned was, indeed, particularly infuriating. But you forgot to mention that… > > They changed the rules YET AGAIN!!! after the final two pretended they are going to eat some poison berries. So it was: > Rule change! > Nope, just kidding! > Ok, just kidding about the just kidding. Rule change in effect! I think you both missed the point: [spoiler]The games are meant to keep the regions in line, but they also need to keep the citizens of the capitol entertained. There are always twists and surprises to keep the interest of the capitol. The whole point of the first two rule changes was that they were fake. They never intended to let them both live. The game masters are like the producers of any other reality show in most ways. They use editing and changes to the rules and conditions to build a story line to keep viewers invested. Once the love story angle became popular, it made for a more tragic ending to build up their hope and allow them to commit and then pull the rug out from under them and make them choose who would live and who would die. The final rule change was also not contrived as it was forced on them by the actions of the protagonist. The government needs a victor. The joint suicide pact force them to decide between no victor (and therefor no victory tour) or allowing two victors. Either way would be dangerous for the government because it showed they could be thwarted. [/spoiler] ---
**Author:** ![SciFiSam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/47e85d/32.png) [@SciFiSam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SciFiSam)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2012, 4:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/omg-that-was-so-contrived-open-spoilers/611485/26 "2012-02-02T16:59:15Z")
> [@hogarth](#): > > Charles Dickens was a master of the contrived coincidence. For instance, in Oliver Twist, when Oliver goes out with the gang of thieves the first time, by sheer coincidence they end up robbing > > the best friend of Oliver’s late father. > > Then later, when he goes out with the gang of thieves for the second time, by sheer coincidence they end up robbing > > Oliver’s late mother and her guardian > > Yeah, right. Well, not his late mother (that’d be difficult even for Dickens :D) but his Aunt. I suppose you could claim that Monks was behind both those crimes being chosen for Oliver, but being Dickens it was just his usual contrivances. ---
**Author:** ![MsWhatsit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/eb8c5e/32.png) [@MsWhatsit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MsWhatsit)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2012, 5:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/omg-that-was-so-contrived-open-spoilers/611485/27 "2012-02-02T17:01:57Z")
Again, re _The Hunger Games_: [spoiler]I don’t buy it. There’s a line in the book about how there has never been a rule change in the history of the games. And yet there are three in this one! If you’re going to let the game creators capriciously change the rules at a moment’s notice, then set it up that way from the beginning. Having this game that has set rules that everybody knows, which never, ever change, and then throwing in some rule changes at the very end just to shake things up a little bit feels completely contrived and ridiculous, to the point that it pulled me right out of the story, i.e., “Oh, the author wasn’t sure how to move the plot forward, so she’s introduced this extra element. Sigh.” I could go on a lot further with my dislike for _The Hunger Games_ and how disappointing I felt it to be, but that would range pretty far afield of this particular thread topic. :)[/spoiler] ---
**Author:** ![hogarth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hogarth/32/1773_2.png) [@hogarth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hogarth)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2012, 6:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/omg-that-was-so-contrived-open-spoilers/611485/28 "2012-02-02T18:08:18Z")
> [@SciFiSam](#): > > Well, not his late mother (that’d be difficult even for Dickens :D) but his Aunt. Oops! I cut out the word “sister” during editing. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2012, 6:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/omg-that-was-so-contrived-open-spoilers/611485/29 "2012-02-02T18:15:44Z")
Most of these examples are not contrivances, which, strict speaking, is using a whole bunch of unlikely events, not just a coincidence or two. It is fiction where the mechanism of the story shows through, not one that uses coincidences (which are the heart and soul of much great fiction; read Shakespeare some time). In my example of **The Proposal** , there was so much laboring to produce the result. You had to have a bathroom that didn’t have a place for extra towels. You had to have someone taking a shower without having a towel ready when she came out. You had to have someone strip naked – but not in the room, on a porch outside. You had to have the yappy dog so that Sandra Bullock would be delayed in getting the towel long enough for Reynolds to strip down. You had to have Reynolds wearing earbuds so he doesn’t notice Bullock is taking a shower. You have to have them running across the room for no particular reason and not looking where they were going. **That’s** a contrivance. Not just a coincidence. Not just an odd reaction or two. But a series of them that work to show that the writers were working so hard to get a final result that the entire narrative structure falls apart and you can see nothing but the mechanisms being used. A good writer could have achieved the same result by simply having Bullock step out of the shower, find no towel, then dart out of the bathroom to get one, and finding Reynolds standing there having removed his clothes. It wouldn’t have been any funnier, but it would have been far less contrived. ---
**Author:** ![MsWhatsit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/eb8c5e/32.png) [@MsWhatsit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MsWhatsit)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2012, 6:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/omg-that-was-so-contrived-open-spoilers/611485/30 "2012-02-02T18:17:37Z")
> [@Barkis\_is\_Willin](#): > > But it wasn’t written that way, which is why the whole scene plays out rather awkwardly and unnaturally. The outcome that is finally reached in THG is absurd enough that is not merely a series of unbelievable coincidences, but also a mighty effort by the author to break her own rules multiple times. Oops, missed this exchange earlier. Yes, pretty much what **Barkis** said. ---
**Author:** ![Odesio](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/odesio/32/20003_2.png) [@Odesio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Odesio)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2012, 6:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/omg-that-was-so-contrived-open-spoilers/611485/31 "2012-02-02T18:25:59Z")
> [@Sampiro](#): > > A few of them live in Las Vegas and Rick cold very well have a business relationship with them (the music and toy shop owners who’ve been on several times and the museum curator; ordinarily a curator might _happen_ to be a qualified appraiser as well, but the two jobs not only aren’t the same but aren’t that related and in fact most museums have strict “WE DON"T APPRAISE” policies). The curator never appraises the items as he never assigns them a monetary value. He simply authenticates them. As a museum professional myself, I would never authenticate something for a third party. If I was wrong, I might open my organization up to legal trouble we wouldn’t want. I sometimes get people coming in who want something authenticated/appraised but I never appraise something because it violates my professional ethics to do so. I will provide them with the names of people who do appraisals but I always give multiple names in order to avoid accusations of collusion or favoritism. ---
**Author:** ![Barkis\_is\_Willin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a183cd/32.png) [@Barkis\_is\_Willin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Barkis_is_Willin)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2012, 6:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/omg-that-was-so-contrived-open-spoilers/611485/32 "2012-02-02T18:31:09Z")
> [@Strassia](#): > > I think you both missed the point: > > [spoiler]The games are meant to keep the regions in line, but they also need to keep the citizens of the capitol entertained. There are always twists and surprises to keep the interest of the capitol. The whole point of the first two rule changes was that they were fake. They never intended to let them both live. > > The game masters are like the producers of any other reality show in most ways. They use editing and changes to the rules and conditions to build a story line to keep viewers invested. Once the love story angle became popular, it made for a more tragic ending to build up their hope and allow them to commit and then pull the rug out from under them and make them choose who would live and who would die. > > The final rule change was also not contrived as it was forced on them by the actions of the protagonist. The government needs a victor. The joint suicide pact force them to decide between no victor (and therefor no victory tour) or allowing two victors. Either way would be dangerous for the government because it showed they could be thwarted. > [/spoiler] Yes, I get the point, but it would have made slightly more sense and felt less awkward if the rule had been “two can survive” from the very beginning of the games and they only made the rule change at the end. The way it’s written, with those rule changes all happening in the span of literally a few pages, just feels like clumsy story telling. I get that The Hunger Games is wildly popular, so I am well aware that my opinion is the minority. ---
**Author:** ![Alma](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecd19e/32.png) [@Alma](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alma)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2012, 7:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/omg-that-was-so-contrived-open-spoilers/611485/33 "2012-02-02T19:07:51Z")
> [@Barkis\_is\_Willin](#): > > Yes, I get the point, but it would have made slightly more sense and felt less awkward if > > the rule had been “two can survive” from the very beginning of the games and they only made the rule change at the end. The way it’s written, with those rule changes all happening in the span of literally a few pages, just feels like clumsy story telling. > > I get that The Hunger Games is wildly popular, so I am well aware that my opinion is the minority. I thought the point was that the government can do whatever the hell it wants so they’re going to put the romantic pair together only to force one to kill other at the end. The gamemakers planned it from the beginning, or at least once they both became popular in the game. It served to emphasize that the districts and their children are only pawns. That’s why their rebellion was so odious to the capitol. ---
**Author:** ![Push\_You\_Down](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/push_you_down/32/9095_2.png) [@Push\_You\_Down](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Push_You_Down)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2012, 7:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/omg-that-was-so-contrived-open-spoilers/611485/34 "2012-02-02T19:33:18Z")
> [@RealityChuck](#): > > Most of these examples are not contrivances, which, strict speaking, is using a whole bunch of unlikely events, not just a coincidence or two. It is fiction where the mechanism of the story shows through, not one that uses coincidences (which are the heart and soul of much great fiction; read Shakespeare some time). > > In my example of **The Proposal** , there was so much laboring to produce the result. You had to have a bathroom that didn’t have a place for extra towels. You had to have someone taking a shower without having a towel ready when she came out. You had to have someone strip naked – but not in the room, on a porch outside. You had to have the yappy dog so that Sandra Bullock would be delayed in getting the towel long enough for Reynolds to strip down. You had to have Reynolds wearing earbuds so he doesn’t notice Bullock is taking a shower. You have to have them running across the room for no particular reason and not looking where they were going. > > **That’s** a contrivance. Not just a coincidence. Not just an odd reaction or two. But a series of them that work to show that the writers were working so hard to get a final result that the entire narrative structure falls apart and you can see nothing but the mechanisms being used. > > A good writer could have achieved the same result by simply having Bullock step out of the shower, find no towel, then dart out of the bathroom to get one, and finding Reynolds standing there having removed his clothes. It wouldn’t have been any funnier, but it would have been far less contrived. At least once a week my wife yells from the shower for me to get her a towel because she forgot to grab one. We keep our towels in the hallway closet. That kind of comedy works on the build up–the audience KNOWS what’s going to happen. It’s not shock, it’s reward for seeing the train coming. In the theater there were people going “OhnoOhnoOhno!” and getting the giggles. Your solution is to have Ryan Reynolds just there naked..without explanation? ---
**Author:** ![bup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/6bbea6/32.png) [@bup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bup)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2012, 7:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/omg-that-was-so-contrived-open-spoilers/611485/35 "2012-02-02T19:54:24Z")
> [@RealityChuck](#): > > Most of these examples are not contrivances, which, strict speaking, is using a whole bunch of unlikely events, not just a coincidence or two. It is fiction where the mechanism of the story shows through, not one that uses coincidences (which are the heart and soul of much great fiction; read Shakespeare some time). The ultimate metric, it would seem, is whether the non-likelihood of events pulls you out of the narrative - if the suspension bridge of disbelief snaps and drops you into the canyon. I feel comfortable saying both the multiple unbelievable coincidences in Jan Valjean’s life, and the Connecticut Yankee’s recollection of, and need of, the time and place of a particular solar eclipse, are contrivances that weaken the narratives substantially. ---
**Author:** ![well\_he\_s\_back](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/3ab097/32.png) [@well\_he\_s\_back](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/well_he_s_back)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2012, 8:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/omg-that-was-so-contrived-open-spoilers/611485/36 "2012-02-02T20:10:18Z")
Yay - in this thread I have discovered that someone else besides me is not in thrall to “The Hunger Games”. I struggled through it (despite it’s being written in the present tense, which I despise) only because I work in a high school library. I skimmed the sequels. Once again the mainstream flows along without me. as for the OP - contrivances obviously work better in comedies than dramas. In dramas they will \ruin your suspension of disbelief. ---
**Author:** ![cmyk](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cmyk/32/3353_2.png) [@cmyk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmyk)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2012, 8:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/omg-that-was-so-contrived-open-spoilers/611485/37 "2012-02-02T20:33:23Z")
The entirety of the movie [Flightplan.](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0408790/) It was a very unmemorable thriller to begin with, but all that I walked away with was thinking how everything that played out for the set up and resolution _depended_ on a series of random variables and the actions of strangers, which were completely unpredictable, so the antagonists seemingly pulling the strings would have no back up plan if things did happen to occur _just so._ It was like watching a bunch of Deus Ex Machinas stitched together in the guise of a taught mystery/thriller. Anyone can make a villain appear like a mastermind, if the story is so contrived that all his machinations depend on unlikely, unpredictable events and ridiculous scenarios. But your audience would have to be idiots to be impressed. It was so vapid, I can’t even think of one example, now. Just the vague notion of what I described above. ETA: Indeed, the top review sums it up nicely. [Linky.](http://www.imdb.com/user/ur8283330/comments) ---
**Author:** ![Superdude](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/superdude/32/13450_2.png) [@Superdude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Superdude)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2012, 9:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/omg-that-was-so-contrived-open-spoilers/611485/38 "2012-02-02T21:09:47Z")
The first **Back to the Future** has something like this. At the beginning of the movie, Marty (Michael J. Fox) and his girlfriend are sitting on a bench, when they’re interrupted by someone soliciting funds to save the clock tower, which was hit by lightning in 1955. Marty then goes back in time to 1955. He and Doc Brown know that lightning is going to strike the tower, and what day and time. They plan on using the electricity generated from the lightning strike to power the time machine’s flux capacitor, allowing Marty to return to 1985. The problem is that, though the clock stopped at the time that the lightening hit, there’s no indication of what _second_ the lightning strike happened, only the hour and minute. To further the drama, Doc Brown says that he’s calculated everything down to the second, including wind resistance. But when the alarm goes off to tell Marty to start accelerating, the car floods, and won’t start. Marty manages to get it started, and hits the wire running from the clock tower at the exact second that the power from the lightning bolt travels down the wire, generating the 1.21 gigawatts of electricity needed to power the flux capacitor. Had it not been for that delay when the car stalled, Marty would have hit the wire too soon, and not returned to 1985. Oh, and one other example: I used to deliver pizzas, and NEVER had a hot chick answer the door in a nightie, invite me in, and engage in carnal relations with me. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_waldo_pepper/32/12370_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2012, 9:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/omg-that-was-so-contrived-open-spoilers/611485/39 "2012-02-02T21:37:57Z")
> [@cmyk](#): > > The entirety of the movie [Flightplan.](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0408790/) Speaking of Jodie Foster movies, INSIDE MAN struck me as being contrived past the breaking point: she’s called in to play “fixer” during a bank robbery that’s turned into a hostage situation, and when hiring her Christopher Plummer makes clear that he’ll be equally delighted if his stuff is returned or simply destroyed – because, as he doesn’t want to spell out, that’s the only evidence that he collaborated with the Nazis. Minus that one little detail, I’d probably have suspended disbelief: _okay,_ I’d think, _he wants it back, even if I don’t know the reason why; he tasked her with recovering it, that’s all I know, it’s all I need to know._ But since the guy has no problem with it being destroyed – and will, in fact, pay through the nose for that privilege – then why the heck is it still in one piece when the movie starts? It makes the whole plot go – and all we know is, the guy who could’ve destroyed it that morning (or last month, or back in the '90s) doesn’t actually want it back, to the point of _“doesn’t want it to exist any more, thanks very much, and here’s a great deal of money if you’ll get rid of it.”_ ---
**Author:** ![Odesio](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/odesio/32/20003_2.png) [@Odesio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Odesio)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2012, 9:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/omg-that-was-so-contrived-open-spoilers/611485/40 "2012-02-02T21:48:24Z")
> [@Superdude](#): > > I used to deliver pizzas, and NEVER had a hot chick answer the door in a nightie, invite me in, and engage in carnal relations with me. Clearly you never had one order the sausage lovers. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/omg-that-was-so-contrived-open-spoilers/611485.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/omg-that-was-so-contrived-open-spoilers/611485.md?page=3)