Robert Langdon VS. Thomas Webster

Oh, Indiana Jones.  I mean, Robert Langdon.  Sorry.  You’re a Harvard professor, master code-cracker, and the man who announced to the world that Jesus got hitched and had a baby just like the rest of us poor schleps.  Calm down.  I don’t want your autograph.  Especially if you plan to scrawl it in hieroglyphics all over a copy of The Da Vinci Code .  I was just making sure I wasn’t talking to Tom Hanks. 

Robert Langdon, meet Thomas Webster, Scrabble Champion of North America, and triple PHD.  Thomas wants to see if you’d like to solve a mystery with him.  Here it is:  if the two of you were locked in a bank vault with only a watermelon and a roll of duct tape, which of you would be the one to make it out alive?  Game on.

Round One:  Robert Langdon, after the door to the vault closed, you recovered pretty well from that bout of hyperventilation.   We know.  You’re claustrophobic.  Did I mention there’s a finite amount of oxygen in that vault?  But now you’re wasting time blathering on about the symbolism of watermelons as depicted in Mexican art.  Blah, blah, Day of the Dead, blah.  Thomas Webster is vertically challenged.  Okay, he’s a little person.  A dwarf.  Whatever.  He immediately cracks the watermelon open and gives you half of it, knowing out of the two of you, he’ll be the one to survive the longest on an equal parts melon diet, because you’re all tall and buff and stuff.

Round Two:  Robert Langdon, it’s been twenty hours and all you’re doing is staring at the big hand on that Mickey Mouse watch your parents gave you, waiting for some hot chick to come rescue you.  Thomas Webster’s sneaking up behind you with the tape in his hand.  He ties you up with it and eats the rest of your watermelon.

Round Three:  Robert Langdon, it turns out the shadowy, secretive Order of the Girl Scouts are the evil doers who locked you in the vault.  While you’re busy trying to piece it all together, connect the dots between the Girl Scouts, Mount Rushmore, and the exchange rate with China, Thomas Webster’s been mouth breathing and doing jumping jacks.  Because, he has an oxygen tank hidden in his hollowed-out unabridged dictionary.  You pass out and subsequently die from a lack of air moments before a couple of rogue Brownies take pity on you and Thomas and open the door.  Sorry about that.  Thomas wins.

Game Over