Poll Results Are In -- Hobo Beats Badger!

I must admit, I was very surprised--pleasantly--by these results.

First off, let's display the poll and subsequent results. The poll this time around was:

Who would win a fight between a hobo, a large bobcat, a small bear, an angry python and a protective mama badger?

45% said Hobo
36% said Protective Mama Badger
9% said Small Bear
9% said Large Bobcat
0% said Angry Python

Let me first admit that I initially had voted Large Bobcat, thinking that the combination of being large, having claws, having teeth, and being mean as hell would be a combination worth reckoning with.

But then I began thinking about the hobo--backed up against his boxcar wall, protecting his bindle and extra shoe, while a large bobcat stared him down. For not the first time, I put myself in the hobo's shoes at this moment. There is no way I'm going to lose a fight to a cat of any kind--other than a mountain lion, tiger, lion, liger, tigon, jaguar, leopard, black panther, white panther, pink panther, or hefty ocelot. Other than that, no chance. That bobcat would be going down! So I changed my vote to hobo.

That was my thought process, but I don't know what anybody else's was. Perhaps the most amazing thing was that I didn't have to give a qualifier to the hobo, like "Starving Hobo" or "Tuberculosis Hobo" or "Furious Hobo", and he still garnered the most votes. I guess what the poll says is that in a fight, people expect the hobo to come out on top, regardless of the competitor.

Could there have been better competitors in this poll? Perhaps, but I only went with animals that a hobo is likely to come into contact with, hence no Bitter King Cobras (the snake) or Rabid Kangaroos.

I think the poll also showed a great deal of respect for the mother badger. Everybody knows that badgers are mean sons'a'guns, so I wasn't too surprised to see 36% of America think an angry mama badger could take a hobo down. However, what I think most of those who voted for the badger forget about is that a mama badger's main concern is to her kids, so she's not gonna be in a sustained fight with a hobo, and once the hobo backed off a bit, she would leave to tend to her kids. Which, in turn, would force a count-out and the hobo would win.

America was equally unimpressed by Small Bear and Large Bobcat. I've always been of the opinion that I can take a small bear or a black bear, and I don't even have an extra shoe to protect, so there was no way I wasn't taking a hobo in that fight.

I've already given you my thoughts on the large bobcat, so I'll not go into that again.

Surprisingly, America has no fighting respect for the Angry Python. But against a hobo, I can't blame them. Knife versus nonpoisonous snake isn't exactly a battle reserved for pay-per-view.

So those are the results from this poll. Please feel free to comment on why you voted how you did, so that my research won't be so incomplete.

Thanks to the 100% of you who voted!

(That's a little bit of polling humor.)

Poll Results Reveal Stabbing Okay To A Point

The poll results this past week were shocking to me. The question to America was: If a hobo stabbed you for your socks, what would you lament the most?

The breakdown went like this:

9% of America said they would lament "Being stabbed for my socks."

27% of America said they would lament "My suddenly cold feet and my loss of stomach blood."

27% of America also said they would lament the fact that "That's eight dollars that I'll never get back."

36% of America lamented that "If I die, I won't have a cool story to tell."

I must say, this breakdown is chilling to me. I will admit that I was one of the 9% of Americans that felt the worst part about being stabbed for my socks, would be the fact that I just got stabbed for my socks. Of all the things to be stabbed for, you chose to stab me for my socks? That, to me, is much worse than not having a story to tell.

I also thought that more people would be upset about their loss of stomach blood. You do know that you need stomach blood to live, right? Of course, that may be partially my fault, because I could change the poll to allow multiple selections, but I think that makes a poll lazy, and I don't want a lazy poll.

The two most disturbing findings of my science were the fact that 27% of America would lament losing the eight dollars that they paid for their socks. Are you crazy? Being stabbed for your socks is much worse than losing the money you paid for them. Wouldn't you give somebody eight dollars to not stab you? If the choice is being stabbed, or handing over eight bucks to avoid a stabbing, I'm giving them a ten and asking for change! You people value money more than life! I am sad for you.

And then there is the 36% of Americans who would lament not having a story to tell if they die. Are you kidding me? Is this how far we've come as a society that you wouldn't mind being stabbed, as long as you lived to tell the story? Are you going to talk to schools about being stabbed by a hobo for your socks, because your buddies aren't going to want to hear it more than twice. And it's not like it's an unusual story. Research shows that 13% of Americans have been stabbed by hobos. I think maybe those 36% of Americans are desperate for attention and their own stories just aren't interesting enough. Nobody wants to hear about the time you had a flat tire and you called AAA and they fixed it and then you went home.

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this poll. I'll have another up and running soon.

Poll Results Are In And Analyzed For Your Protection

Last week, I posed the following question to America: Would you watch a cooking show starring a hobo? And amazingly, 93% of you said you would!

The breakdown is truly fascinating. Here are the results:

52% of America said "Yes, as long as the stabbing is kept to a minimum."

41% of America said "Yes, regardless of stab numbers."

A little over 5% of America said, "Probably not as I'm a hobo myself and my tv watching is sporadic at best."

0% of America said, "No, I prefer shows about boats and cats."

So what does it mean? Thankfully, it means that there is such a thing as too much stabbing on tv. For a while, the stabbers were winning out on this poll, but fortunately, the people with ethics came through.

Now I'm not saying America is wanting a stab-free cooking show. Nobody wants that. But it can't just all be about the stabbing. It is, after all, a cooking show, not a stabbing show.

Another interesting find was that America hates shows about boats and cats. Apparently we have forgotten about a little thing called The Love Boat? Although, to generalize and say America "hates" boats and cats would not be correct. They simply favor cooking shows featuring hobos and stabbing over shows featuring boats and cats.

The most amazing discovery brought about by this poll is that over 5% of Americans are hobos! I would have never imagined such a large percentage. I wonder how much longer Social Studies classes will continue to ignore the Hobo-American.