A while back I was at a friend’s house and I thought of a question that would soon become the topic of conversation for the next hour or so:

“Would you rather have 1 million dollars, or the power to make anyone shit themselves on command?”

I don’t know exactly why this popped into my mind, nevertheless, it did. My friend looked at me with the most dismissive expression and replied “This is the stupidest question I’ve ever heard”

I shall now attempt to recollect the conversation we had for the rest of the night in the form of a Socratic dialogue

Me: Wait no seriously, let’s entertain the idea for a minute. I would argue picking the poop power is the better of the two options

Friend: Really Alex? You would rather have a pointless power than a life changing amount of money?

Me: Well for starters, a million is a lot, but it’s not like “set for life, ready to retire now” amounts of money

Friend: I’m not even going to dignify that response. This has been a dumb conversation.

…

Friend: wait actually what are the logistics of the power? Like can you only force someone to shit themselves if they have a full bowel? Or can you like make them poop even if they have recently already evacuated?

Me: Let’s say you can spontaneously create poop inside a person for them to then expel out. And you get to choose what type of poop too.

Friend: ew

Me: ok but you have to admit, any power that allows you to spontaneously create matter is OP

Friend: Fine but still how is that more useful than just instantly having a million dollars no strings attached? Like how do I benefit at all?

Me: Ok first of, you’d never have to feel unsafe anymore. Like no one can threaten you anymore. If you’re in a dark alley and someone pulls a knife on you, Bam. They instantly shit themselves. You make your getaway.

Friend: Ok… but how often does that happen?

Me: Well we’re both adult men, I’m sure there are others who would appreciate having a potential life saving super power.

Friend: fine ok but why would ME want this power?

Me: You can get revenge on those who wronged you. You can be a vengeful god. Think about it. You encounter some asshole in the streets, get pulled over by a corrupt cop, see some racist biggot walking around harassing people? You dish out some justice.

Friend: Ok but is this still better than a million dollars?

Me: You can use your powers to ruin Benjamin Netanyahu’s day.

Friend: … wait hold on I might be on board with this actually.

Me: Wait yeah you can literally start making evil people shit themselves. Like I can just make Trump shit himself whenever I want. It’ll be like Death Note. But instead of killing people, it’s the Poop Note.

Friend: Well Trump already shits himself so I dunno if that would make a difference. Also I haven’t watched Death Note yet so don’t spoil anything.

Me: Do you think I can shit someone to death? Like if I just continuously make Trump shit himself he just like dies of a heart attack or something?

Friend: holy shit I think I’m actually on board. I don’t know how you have done this but I’m actually switching sides over to the poop power.

Me: Putin would never have a calm day ever again…

Friend: Wait I might have figured out how to tie this back into money. What if, like, we blackmail rich people. Like Elon Musk. For example anytime they have a public presentation or an important investor meeting. We make them shit themselves. They essentially couldn’t show up in public anymore. And we just blackmail them for money in order to not have them shit themselves. You can get so much more than just a million dollars that way.

Me: See now you’re seeing the light. But I would be worried of getting caught. Like in Death Note.

Friend: STOP SPOILING DEATH NOTE. Ok but like who cares. What are they going to do? If they send someone after me I’ll just make them shit themselves as well.

*We are both laughing uncontrollably at this point

Me: Ok. Like. What if they sent like a sniper after you. To take you out. Because you’re too powerful to be kept alive. But they keep missing and can’t take a proper shot at you. Because you’re making them shit themselves uncontrollably.

Friend: You’d be unstoppable.

Me: But I’ve also thought of less evil ways to make money. Like you can be a constipation doctor. You’d be able to cure people’s constipation like a miracle worker. You can make so much money that way.

Friend: Eh, maybe.

Me: You would also never have to worry about constipation yourself anymore. Which is nice.

Friend: I guess. But we can probably go bigger.

Me: Ooh what if we go into the fertilizer business. We can just create infinite fertilizer.

Friend: That doesn’t sound scalable. What are you going to do? Hire a bunch of people to just sit around and shit all day?

Me: I mean… you could…

Friend: I’m also 90% sure fertilizer isn’t just straight up human feces.

Me: Ok I’m sure there’s something that can be done with all that poop.

Friend: This conversation had a lot more legs than I thought it would.