Katie sat in the waiting room with a cat, a nurse, Spongebob, and the Kool-Aid Man. There must be an unwritten rule for old buildings that all waiting rooms have fluorescent lighting and one has to constantly flicker. Leaning back in her chair, she listened to music in her headphones and sighed. She was dressed like Max from Stranger Things, complete with Walkman ready to run up that hill. Having a focus group on Halloween was weird for sure, but not only were they being paid for their time, they were also getting paid extra if they showed up in costume. Katie thought why not, there was a party to go to later and now she wouldn’t have to rush around. They had been waiting for half an hour so far. There wasn’t any cell reception and the only reading material available were magazines about septic trucks, and what looked like business magazines in a language none of them seemed to know. After 45 minutes of waiting, Katie came to the conclusion that septic systems aren’t for her and she would remain where she can stay connected to a municipal sewer.
The door on the wall to her right opened and out stepped Carmen Sandiego.
Spongebob loudly exclaimed, “I found her!”
Carmen Sandiego laughed as though no one had said that to her yet and she did not see it coming, as did the cat person. The nurse, Kool-Aid Man, and Katie rolled their eyes and chuckled politely for Carmen’s sake. Carmen then led them down a narrow hallway with walls that had once been white but now bordered on yellow with intermittent scuff marks and checkered floors to match. It was an absurdly long hallway. Katie thought to herself that it was like something out of a low-budget music video. Carmen stopped outside one of the doors and held an arm up, inviting them all in.
Upon entering the room, Katie got an uncomfortable feeling. She got the impression she wasn’t the only one because they all stopped and looked around. The room was far too big for the furniture inside, leaving everyone surrounded by dead space. This room was set with a folding wood laminate table that could sit 8 people, but the space was long enough to fit four of those tables, and the ceiling had to be at least 12 feet high. There was a massive two-way mirror along the opposite wall of the door. At one end of the room, there was a water cooler with some of those cone cups, and on the opposite end a microwave was sitting on a cabinet. And that was it. There were no windows, no pictures of any kind, not even a plant.
“Please, everyone, have a seat,” said Carmen cheerfully.
Everyone walked to the table and sat down except for Carmen, who stayed standing with her clipboard in hand and a smile on her face.
“I want to thank you all so much for not only coming to our focus group, but taking time out of your Halloween to do so. Especially since you all dressed up, I promise you will be generously rewarded.”
“Why did we have to wait out there for so long?” asked the Kool-Aid man.
Carmen smiled and said, “We had to get the room set up.”
Everyone looked around the room, confused at what possibly could have taken 45 minutes to set up.
“Okay,” she quickly continued, “why don’t we get started? How about we go around the room, and each of us says our name and a little fact to break the ice.”
To keep from walking out, Katie reminded herself she was getting money for this, and for $200 she could get through it.
“I’ll start. Right now you see Carmen Sandiego, but really my name is Jennifer and something about me is I love seafood.” Jennifer looked at the Kool-Aid Man, smiled, smiled, and said, “Now you.”
“Uh, okay. My name is um, Todd. Um, something about me I guess is that I don’t actually like Kool-Aid.”
Jennifer’s face lit up. “That’s great Todd, good job! Let’s just keep going counterclockwise.”
The nurse, who was already sitting straight up, rolled right into it. “Hi, my name is Shelly and I’m a finance manager who DJs on weekends.”
The cat, who was next, was nodding respect to Shelly and then realized it was their turn.
“Oh, hi, my name is Sam and I’m the personal assistant to a person who is so famous everyone knows who they are. I can’t tell you who it is for their safety and mine, so don’t even ask…but she’s as amazing as you think she is…and I’ve already said too much.”
Katie braced herself for what she knew would be this next guy’s time to shine.
“Hey everybody, my name is Spongebob and I live in a pineapple down by the sea!”
Yep, Katie thought to herself, there it is. Jennifer ate it up, though.
“No, but really, my name is Jake, I’m a Leo, and I like long walks on the beach. Ha!”
Why is this happening to me? Katie thought while trying her best fake smile at Jake.
He continued, “Something about me, that’s real is I like to volunteer at soup kitchens during the week and animal shelters on the weekends.”
Jennifer put a hand over her heart. “That is so touching, Jake.”
Jake reached out his arm and put it on Jennifer’s shoulder and in a soft voice said, “I like to laugh, but I care about people.”
Katie had to bite her lip to keep from laughing. If this guy ever set foot in a soup kitchen, it was because he got lost. Katie then realized everyone was looking at her.
“Oh, uh, my name is Katie, and, um, I can say the alphabet backward without pausing.”
“Bet that’s come in handy,” smirked Jake.
“Okay, now that we’ve all introduced ourselves, let’s get started. I’m going to ask you 5 questions. After you have answered the 5 questions, a person will come to the door to take each of you one by one, to get your compensation for the day. That way we don’t overwhelm the Accounts Payable person. Simple as that,” Jennifer said like she was pepping everyone up for the big play.
The group nodded like zombies, still recovering from the anxiety-filled torture of roundtable introductions that come with the expectation of learning names through a fog of panic.
“Great! Okay, question number one. Would you rather have to fight a duck the size of a bull or 50 bulls the size of a duck?”
The entire focus group erupted with laughter.
“Are you serious?” asked Shelly.
“Tiny bulls for sure,” shouted Todd through laughter, “They would be so tiny and angry from being so ineffectual.” The group continued to laugh. Todd was almost crying from the mental picture of frustrated bulls tiring themselves out.
“We would prefer you write your answers down first before letting your opinions be known to the rest of the group. Your initial reaction is important. If, later, you feel strongly that you would like to change your answer, let me know and we can circle back and have a discussion.” Jennifer paused and looked at each person slowly. It was slightly unsettling.
“Okay, question number two. Would you rather be forced to dance every time you heard music or be forced to sing along to any song you heard?”
Everyone smiled and wrote their answers down. Seeing that everyone was finished, Jennifer gave them permission to share.
“Definitely sing!” proclaimed Jake.
“Same. I love to sing,” echoed Sam and Todd.
“No way,” Katie said. “Not every song is a good song to be sung by, like, all people.”
“Ohhh dang, yeah. Yep, I would like to change my answer,” Todd said after consideration.
Jennifer gave a reassuring smile, “Of course, go right ahead. Good observation, Katie.
“Great, let’s continue on with question number three. Would you rather not be able to see any colors or have mild but constant tinnitus?” Jennifer watched everyone write. “Done?”
Almost in unison, everyone said, “Tinnitus.”
“Have any of you had tinnitus,” Jennifer asked.
“Sure,” responded Shelly, “As a DJ, I used to not wear ear plugs and I would leave with my ears ringing, but it wasn’t that bad.”
“You wear earplugs now?” Jennifer asked.
“Yeah, I don’t wanna go deaf,” Shelly replied.
“I hear that,” quipped Jennifer. Half the people didn’t get it and the ones that did just smiled and shook their heads at her pun.
“Alright, almost there with question number four. Would you rather be locked in a room that is constantly dark for a week or a room that is constantly bright for a week?”
The group pondered this one for a bit and dutifully wrote their answers down. It was split among the group with decisions revolving around sleep, trauma, and hubris.
“Last question and we’re done! After this, you’ll wait here until someone comes in and calls your name. Alright, question five. Would you rather have a successful audio podcast or a successful YouTube or TikTok channel?”
Katie could not fathom what data could be gathered from these questions. This entire experience made no sense. It would be a great story to tell at the party later, though, and she was ready to get her money and meet up with her friends.
“What if you already have a successful YouTube channel?” asked Sam.
“Doesn’t matter. Just write which one you’d rather have. If you already have one and that’s what you want, go ahead and write that.” Jennifer gave an even bigger smile. Katie didn’t think it seemed possible, but there it was. She was probably just as ready for this to be done.
“I want to thank you all for taking this journey with me. I know that this doesn’t make any sense to you and you probably can’t imagine what we could possibly use this data for, but trust me, you’re making a bigger impact than you realize.”
Almost as if on cue, the door opened and a person dressed in a gray suit called for Jake. After that, about every couple minutes or so, someone would call another person out and another until Katie was the only one left.
Jennifer walked over to the door, looked Katie, and said, “Shall we?”
“Oh. Yeah, sure,” Katie said as she stood up.
“I’m going to walk you down myself on my way to my next appointment.”
“You have another group after this? I figured you would be done for the day,” Katie said as she looked at her watch.
“Oh, you know what they say. No rest for the wicked,” Jennifer chuckled.
“Yeah, I guess. Hopefully, you won’t have to work too late with it being Halloween and all.”
Upon approaching a door along the hallway Jennifer said, “Ah, here we are.”
They stopped at a gray metal door that looked like all the other doors. Affixed to this door, however, was a brown plaque with white letters that read, “Recompense.”
“Just through there and you’ll be taken care of. It was a pleasure to meet you, Katie.”
Katie opened the door and walked into a large, empty room. Katie turned to Jennifer, who was now standing in the doorway, and said, “There isn’t anyone in here. Do I just wait for someone to bring my money?”
Jennifer started to laugh, but differently than before. This was genuinely funny to her.
“Katie, you could wait in that room for eternity and no one is going to bring any money to you.”
Suddenly feeling very alone and afraid, Katie felt like all of the air had been sucked out of the room.
“I…I don’t understand,” Katie stammered.
“I’m sure you don’t. Do you remember how you got here today? You don’t, do you? That’s because you died and are now in hell. WELCOME!”
“I what?! …There has to be a mistake,” Katie pleaded.
“Everyone says that. I did, too. You have…well, forever to think about everything you’ve done in your life to land you here. However, first, like any bad organization, you have to get through ‘hell week.’ Obviously, we need a better name for it, but you get the idea.”
“But why have us do a focus group?”
“We needed to shake things up. Everyone expects fire and Dante’s blah-de-blah. So someone suggested that people pick their own torture. Sure, everyone makes their own hell in their mind, but what if their answers to nonsensical questions came into play? It has been a total game changer.”
“I so…” Before Katie could finish, she heard a kind of static noise in the room and then a high-pitched ringing.
“I’ve given you more information than most people ever get. It’ll be fun to hear it how it all plays out,” Jennifer said with some excitement in her voice.
“Hear?”
“Well yes, you chose podcast. Not going to lie, always a disappointment when we can’t watch what people are going through, but we do adhere to the choices that are made. Goodbye, Katie. I’m sure we’ll run into each other again. Who knows, maybe one day you’ll have a focus group of your own.” Then, Jennifer closed the door.
Katie was now alone in a large open room with a concrete floor and tile walls. The moment she looked up at the ceiling, the room started to get brighter. Katie panicked and tried to remember the questions. There were only five, what did she write? She didn’t know to take it seriously. Music started playing and without hesitation or control, Katie’s body started to dance. She tried to stop her movements, but she couldn’t. Katie thought back to the question. When any music played, she would be forced to dance. Maybe singing was the better choice? She then thought about Todd, now in a room with 50 tiny bulls who are seeing a giant red Kool-Aid man dancing around non-stop. Katie started to smile, but a garage door opened and out walked a giant, angry duck.