The Blood-Stained Wretches of B&C

In these doggiest of late-summer dog days, when it seems everyone but you is on vacation, you may find yourself feeling on edge—maybe even psychotic. That’s why we here at B&C decided to test our mental fitness with “Dexter’s Psycho Therapy” at www.dextertherapy.com.

Designed to measure your affinity with the serial-killer hero of Showtime’s Dexter (as well as promote the Aug. 19 Season 2 DVD release), the test rates your “killer instinct” based on responses to a series of blood-red ink blots.

And I’m happy to report that of the 14 staffers who took the test, only our unassuming art director, Forest Evashevski, scored 100%! The rest of us are harboring evil thoughts well below the 50% latency threshold.

Some of the diagnoses were uncannily on target. Reporter Alex Weprin, apparently, is “the kind of person who is calm most of the time, but if someone spills your drink you can get nasty. Very nasty.” (How true!) Contributing editor Rob Edelstein, who scored a disconcerting 0%, was deemed “completely normal. Almost too normal. What are you hiding, you psycho?” (Good question!)

More revealing were the responses to the ink blots, particularly No. 4 (see image). “A Pokemon character flattened by a steamroller,” said our fanciful D.C. bureau chief, John Eggerton. Others said “the mask of death” (beleaguered copy chief Jay Blickstein), “a teddy bear’s skull” (so Glen Dickson!) and “Owen Wilson” (that would be me).

B&C editor Ben Grossman, who scored a suspicious 34%, saw a Gremlin (“as in the movie, not the car”). “I don’t know what that means,” said Grossman, “except that I’m a tool.”

At the risk of giving you another excuse to procrastinate, we’d love it if you’d take the test and post a comment below to let us know how you rate on the psycho-meter!

By Joel Topcik