Ringwraiths ride in black. Ride on!

“No.”

And this kid rolls his eyes because DUH and he says “Why not?” all cranky-styles, so I said

“Because you don’t need to go to the bathroom, you’re bored and you need to move. If you need to move, tell me and I’ll let you know if we’re at a part of the test where we can pause. Like, for example, we can pause right now if you wanna race me around the building.”

The beauty of it is that you could place that exact same dialogue into any time and place in human history and it would make just as much sense, you could have it as a conversation between sailors in a 1600s ship, a group of bronze-age warriors cleaning their weapons, stone age hunters walking home from a hunt, or a bunch of 21st century redditors on the internet, and it would hit just as splendidly.

There was this conversation about if you could have sex with any specific person from any time through human history, which one would you choose? Famous legendary lovers were brought up, queens, emperors and such were popular, might as well fuck Rasputin just to see what the hype was all about, the kind of answers one would expect.

Then some guy said he would choose his own late wife. He went on to talk about how brutal it is, that you might find the love of your life, but there's no promise that this life couldn't be suddenly cut short. That his body aches for hers and how there isn't much he wouldn't do for one more opportunity to make love to her one last time.

Now, I'd like you to imagine a pause in the conversation. A solemn, contemplative moment of silence, with several of the people present nodding in agreement that this is indeed the finest answer - it wasn't a competition, but there's no doing better than that.

And then someone breaks this solemn silence and says:

@thatlittleegyptologist

When Helen was of age to be married, all the Lords of Greece came to seek her hand. This was an issue for her stepfather the King of Sparta who could only pick one husband and then would have to deal with the far greater number of angry rejected suitors.

One suitor was Odysseus, then a younger man. He quickly ascertained that he had no chance of marrying Helen. Ithaca was too poor for him to even bring any proper gifts, let alone a dowry. But he did catch the eye of the King's niece, one Penelope.

Now Penelope was still a bit out of Odysseus' league, but not so much as Helen was. So he makes a deal with the King of Sparta. Support my bid to marry Penelope, and I'll give you a solution to this suitors problem. The King agrees, so Odysseus suggests all the suitors swear an oath to defend Helen's marriage from anyone who might strike against it. They all, including Odysseus, so swear, and Helen is married to Menelaus. The King proves as good as his word, and Penelope is wed to Odysseus.

Of course this means that Odysseus has now bound himself to fight for Helen and Menelaus. After an attempt to feign madness he is forced to fulfill his duty.