Last week my girlfriend and I had our friends over, and we played this new game “What Would You Do If A Bee Stung You?” You connect a talking plastic beehive up to your TV and it supposedly simulates how you act when you get stung by a bee. I say “supposedly” because I don’t think mine was accurate at all. Here is what happened:
ME
Who’s up first?
MY GF
You go.
ME
(gamely)
If I must.
I stand in front of the beehive. A ray of green light shoots
out and scans me.
HIVE
Calculating…
We all act jokily impressed. On the TV, a CG avatar of me
appears and starts walking across a lawn.
ME
Pretty accurate so far.
A tiny buzzing sound.
MY AVATAR (ON TV)
UhhgAHH! AHH!
My avatar begins to run and scream while batting at his head.
The game’s camera zooms in as my avatar hyperventilates and
grasps his arm, looking at it in terror.
MY GF
(laughing)
Must have been a bad one, huh?
ME
Yeah…I’ll give it another shot.
HIVE
I am loaded with hundreds of
hundreds of different scenarios,
each as accurate as the last.
I scroll through a menu with images of different scenarios:
Mowing Lawn, Climbing Tree, Bee Stuck in Car, and At the
Lake, which I select. On the TV, my avatar appears in a
canoe, paddling across a pretty lake. Tiny buzzing sound.
MY AVATAR (ON TV)
Mother SHIT!
He smashes his hand against his neck, losing an oar. He whips
around to grab it, but leans too far and overturns the canoe.
MY AVATAR (ON TV) (CONT’D)
(sputtering and gasping)
God fuck-ass damnit!
He throws arms across the bottom of the canoe and begins to
pull himself up. When he reaches the middle, he screams.
MY AVATAR (ON TV) (CONT’D)
It’s still fucking here!
He dives over the other side of canoe and begins swimming
away in a panic.
FRED
(smirking)
Good call, man. Definitely had to
ditch that canoe.
ME
So, this thing just comes up with
the craziest reaction possible, or
what?
HIVE
Why don’t you let someone else try?
MY GF
I’ll do it.
My girlfriend stands up and is scanned. On the TV, her avatar sits at
a picnic bench, eating a sandwich. Tiny buzzing sound. She
takes her sandal off and looks at the bottom of her foot.
MY GF’S AVATAR (ON TV)
Ooh. Darn.
She goes back to eating.
ME
(standing up)
Well, it’s a good game, but now
it’s done.
HIVE
No, it isn’t. You haven’t tried
multiplayer yet.
On the TV, Emma’s avatar sits inside a house. A door bursts
open and my avatar rushes in.
MY AVATAR (ON TV)
ARGH!
MY GF’S AVATAR (ON TV)
What? What happened?
MY AVATAR (ON TV)
The fuck does it look like! I got
stung by a big ass BEE. Fucking
SWORD for a stinger!
MY GF’S AVATAR (ON TV)
Don’t take it out on me!
MY AVATAR (ON TV)
Ah, fuck off! Ohhhh.
My avatar sits down with his head between his legs and begins
to rock back and forth, moaning. In real life we’re all
silent – it’s not fun anymore.
ME
(uncertainly)
Obviously, this isn’t actually what
I’d do.
HIVE
That’s false. I was built on rock
solid code, which was developed at
a cost of billions by order of a
Senate subcommittee. As you might
imagine, those Senators were
impeached when the public found out
what they had approved. But that
doesn’t make my technology any less
accurate.
I roll my eyes, about to protest.
HIVE (CONT’D)
In case you don’t believe me,
copies of the code are included
with every game. You might not
understand it, but I bet one of
your friends does.
Fred looks up from a stack of papers.
FRED
(nodding earnestly)
This is stunning.
On the TV screen, Fred’s avatar is talking with Alexa’s
avatar.
FRED’S AVATAR
I’m glad I got stung by that bee.
Now we know where the bees are, and
we can get all that delicious
honey.
ALEXA’S AVATAR
And the new hives you built are
helping the global bee population
bounce back.
FRED’S AVATAR
Hey, that guy’s trying to poison
our hives!
Cut to stand of beehives, where my avatar is holding a spray
can of poison.
MY AVATAR
Die, stupid bees.