Nobel Prize Claim Form

1. I deserve a Nobel Prize in: Lit___ Math___ Physics___ Medicine___ Peace___ Other___

2. BASIS OF MY CLAIM
Before you begin: Applicants must be smart enough to know that writing in Swedish and/or familiarity with the history of dynamite will not necessarily increase their chances for a favorable ruling. Put a check next to the claim basis that most closely resembles yours.

A. Deserving winner, but anti-me fix was in.
B. Temp secretary sent nomination form to Pulitzer Committee.
C. Forgot to include return postage on nomination form.
D. Not told 12-midnight nomination deadline was Swedish Standard Time.
E. Other.*

* "Other" may not include: King of Sweden holds grudge against me/Tux rental store out of my size/Won prize but left it in taxi outside Club Ecstasy afterward, and driver took off after waiting 8 hours.

3. MY MERIT VERIFICATION
The following statement as to why you deserve your Nobel Prize must be written by someone other than yourself who is not your pastor/high school principal/parent/parole officer/warden.

He/She deserves his/her Nobel because:______________________________.

Reminder: "He/She even knows who the Democratic vice-presidential candidate was in 1952" is not sufficient grounds for being awarded a Nobel Prize.

4. BRAIN TWISTERS Nobel Aptitude Requirements: To eliminate impostors, you must answer at least 1 of these 3 questions:

A. Without using pencil and paper, calculate the circumference of Kirstie Alley.
B. The desert island that a rabbi, a Scotsman, and a nymphomaniac are stranded on lies ___ leagues (rounded to the nearest team) from the Galápagos Islands.
C. In what novel besides The Mill on the Floss does the phrase "Call me Ishmael" not appear?

Answers: A. Wrong B. Wrong C. Wrong. A legitimate Nobel Prize candidate would have recognized these as trick questions and countered with 3 authentic Brain Twisters. New Rule: Imposters must return this claim form, torn in half, with a check or money order in the amount of $1.

5. DO I THINK LIKE A NOBEL LAUREATE?
Imagine yourself in the following situations and describe what you would do if:

A. The Queen of Sweden "came on" to me as I sat waiting to make my acceptance speech.
B. Greenpeace picketed the awards ceremony, condemning me as a guppy-murderer.
C. Visa declined my card when I tried buying the Awards Committee a round of drinks.

This has been a test of your sangfroid. These situations and the proper responses are listed in "So You've Won a Nobel," the pamphlet included with the welcoming fruit basket in your Stockholm hotel room. (Do NOT accept pamphlets tendered by masked gypsies riding in the same hotel elevator.)

6. WELL, DO I GET MY NOBEL PRIZE?
Be advised that of the 432 applications accepted from the more than one million claimants just like you who applied for a Nobel Prize in 2003, 4 were approved:

Recipient	Claim
Name Withheld, Ottawa, Canada	Ex-spouse melted down my original Nobel Prize.
"Madame X," Paris, France	Was promised Nobel Prize by a relative of a Scandinavian crowned head.
H. K., Toms River, NJ, U.S.A.	Proud grandparent of high school honor student.
King Fleagle, Los Angeles, CA, U.S.A.	Had perfect poker hand.*

* Nobel Prize later withdrawn on finding that there is no Nobel Prize for poker.

Delivery of your Nobel Prize, if awarded, will be 6-8 weeks after the decision. Shipping charges of $50 U.S. will be deducted from your award check. Sorry, no returns.

More comfortable online than out partying, post-Millennials are safer, physically, than adolescents have ever been. But they’re on the brink of a mental-health crisis.

One day last summer, around noon, I called Athena, a 13-year-old who lives in Houston, Texas. She answered her phone—she’s had an iPhone since she was 11—sounding as if she’d just woken up. We chatted about her favorite songs and TV shows, and I asked her what she likes to do with her friends. “We go to the mall,” she said. “Do your parents drop you off?,” I asked, recalling my own middle-school days, in the 1980s, when I’d enjoy a few parent-free hours shopping with my friends. “No—I go with my family,” she replied. “We’ll go with my mom and brothers and walk a little behind them. I just have to tell my mom where we’re going. I have to check in every hour or every 30 minutes.”

Those mall trips are infrequent—about once a month. More often, Athena and her friends spend time together on their phones, unchaperoned. Unlike the teens of my generation, who might have spent an evening tying up the family landline with gossip, they talk on Snapchat, the smartphone app that allows users to send pictures and videos that quickly disappear. They make sure to keep up their Snapstreaks, which show how many days in a row they have Snapchatted with each other. Sometimes they save screenshots of particularly ridiculous pictures of friends. “It’s good blackmail,” Athena said. (Because she’s a minor, I’m not using her real name.) She told me she’d spent most of the summer hanging out alone in her room with her phone. That’s just the way her generation is, she said. “We didn’t have a choice to know any life without iPads or iPhones. I think we like our phones more than we like actual people.”