Prep yo'self fo' you... feel unprepared.

I interview people now. It's the bloggy thing to do. I even have this tape recorder left over from all these conversations I had with eighth-graders. We talked about Thurgood Marshall. I am supposed to be using those recordings as data for a 15-page essay I need to be writing, but exposing the fascinating (and often disturbing) deets about my friends' lives will probably win me a Pulitzer Prize, and that essay will not.

I don't know what society would do without me.

Anyway, here's interview #1. I don't use real names in my interviews, so I'll just call my subject "Nic-Nic-Nicaroo Kristine Raden." The interview takes place on speaker phone. My words are in italics.

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Nic! Nic, I'm recording you now!

You... no!

Yes!

Or... you could SEND me an interview.

No! No, then you'd have your answers planned.

No, I can't answer now. I'm at the mall and people will hear me, and then they'll put it on their own blog.

This won't be personal. I won't ask... I won't ask about your first kiss with FirstKiss*. HAHAHAHA!

(angrily) All right, allllll right....

HAHAHAHA!

I'm telling on you. I'm telling BombGal*.

Are you ready for the first interview question?

I can't hear you anymore.

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Then she hangs up. After 10 years of friendship.


*Pseudonym