In Character, Starring …

Left: You’re at a college reunion, vamping while you try to remember who the hell this pudgy bald guy is who’s saying he knows you gotta-gotta-gotta remember him.
Center: You’re opening the door at 1:15 A.M. for your husband, who forgot you were giving a dinner party, went to his poker game, and turned off his cell.
Right: You’re an angry first wife, hearing from a friend that your ex-husband’s 24-year-old replacement wife is cuckolding him with Yoni, the suave Israeli dog groomer.

Left: You’re a posh shopper in Harrods, fingered by security for putting jars of caviar into your clutch. “I don’t even know how those got in there!”
Center: You’re a homemaker peering out a side window, catching sight of your crew-cutted neighbor posing before a mirror in his wife’s panties.
Right: You’re the senior woman in your department, storming into your boss’s office to demand why you’re being let go and your job reassigned to a younger, cheaper, male colleague.

Left: You’re the “pilot” of a drone over Pakistan, watching on your computer screen in Nevada as a rocket you fired vaporizes an al-Qaeda safe house.
Center: You’re a woman suspected of murdering your husband, breaking down after six hours of denials and saying, “All right, I did it—and I’m glad I did it!”
Right: You’re a three-year-old drama queen, emphatically letting your mother know your feelings about Brussels sprouts.

Left: You’re a priest in a hardscrabble factory-town parish, listening to your brother’s son confess that he has killed a man.
Center: You’re a gangsta rapper being informed by a haughty bouncer that you are not on the list.
Right: You’re a six-year-old who has skinned his knee in the playground, waiting to cry until your mom gets off her cell phone.

Left: You’re a father teaching his daughter to ride a bike, watching as she takes a header on her first solo try.
Center: You’re the cat that ate the canary.
Right: You’re a man in denial, figuring that if you don’t listen to your girlfriend’s breakup speech she’ll stick with you.

Left: You’re a factory foreman with $200 riding on the game, watching your team’s placekicker muff a 23-yarder with 0:01 remaining.
Center: You’re a first-time skydiver, reacting to your instructor’s saying it’s your turn: “What? Can’t hear you! Sorry ... what?”
Right: You’re in the back row of sixth-grade health class, exulting with your pal in the fact that your female teacher just uttered the word “penis.”

Left: You’re the office toady, having a dutiful laugh over your boss’s latest racist joke—and all too aware that everyone else at work hates you.
Center: You’re a Miss Universe finalist in the nanosecond between being named fifth runner-up and remembering to flash your best I’m-so-happy smile.
Right: You’re the school doofus, blissfully unaware that your having just been named prom king is a cruel, Carrie-style stunt by your classmates.

Left: You’re the new longboarder on the secret beach with the famous break, preparing for the onslaught from the territorial locals.
Center: You’re a suburban car dealer demonstrating in your three a.m. ad slot how much your customers $$$AVE when they come to you!
Right: You’re a Romanian gymnastics coach, exasperated at the failings of your 12-year-old star pupil, screaming, “You are imbecile!”

Left: You’re Adam, a five-year-old boy sneaking your pet rat into your seven-year-old sister’s underwear drawer.
Center: You’re Lacey, the seven-year-old sister, having just opened the drawer.
Right: YYou’re Adam, hiding in Lacey’s closet as she screams, “Adaaaaaam!!!”

Left: You’re a broke, struggling screenwriter emerging from a pitch lunch at a Beverly Hills restaurant, just in time to see a landscaper's pickup back into your borrowed Lamborghini.
Center: You’re a stoned, purely mercenary substitute teacher telling your third-graders, “Anyone who makes any noise while I’m resting will be sent home to Mommy in several little boxes.”
Right: You’re a nerdy 11-year-old video gamer surrounded by BlizzCon posters and fellow nerds, and you’re taking this particular session of World of Warcraft waaay too seriously.

Left: You’re fresh out of the Yale School of Drama, desperately overselling Lady Macbeth’s “Out, damn’d spot! Out, I say!” speech at a summer-rep audition.
Center: You’re a 13-year-old girl, seething as your precocious younger brother is heaped with lavish praise at an extended-family gathering.
Right: You’re a lonely woman with a stalker’s crush on a TV star, spotting him coming out of a restaurant and certain that he is making a beeline toward you!

Left: You’re a child swallowing a spoonful of medicine that your mom promised would taste good, and now she’s telling you that if it didn’t taste awful it wouldn’t work.
Center: You’re at a social dinner with your work colleagues and their spouses, desperately trying to signal your partner to stop talking so freely about your shared sex life.
Right: You’re a bunny-level skier who has decided to try a black-diamond slope, and now, with no idea how to stop, you’re headed straight for a tree.

Left: You’re a celebrity guest at a White House state dinner, forced out of desperation to finally confront the creepy “nobody” crasher who has been trying to catch your attention all evening.
Center: You’re a Kansas homemaker on vacation in Vegas, enjoying the stage show of the hypnotist, who has successfully programmed his volunteer (your husband) to quack like a duck.
Right: You’re in the fourth row of a high-school auditorium, watching as your 15-year-old daughter begins singing Annie Oakley’s “Doin’ What Comes Natur’lly”—and freezes halfway through.

Left: You’re the head of the Naples Mob, listening to a young lieutenant announce that he’s branching off to form his own operation: “That’s O.K. by you, right, boss?”
Center: You’re a gay decorator who has just been hired to “do” one of the emir’s palaces, but first, says his deputy, the emir insists upon having you over to dinner … with your wife.
Right: You’re a 15-year-old emerging from a college party (where you’re not supposed to be), watching some frat boys abscond with your dad’s Lamborghini (which you’re not supposed to have).

Left: You’re a finalist on America’s Next Top Model who is hearing Tyra tell the other girl she’s out—and you’re prepping to give your nemesis a “sincere” hug.
Center: You’re a stand-up comic performing at a Toronto showcase packed with S.N.L. and HBO scouts—and your “lesbian chickens” bit is utterly tanking.
Right: You’re, like, 15, and he’s, like, 17, and even tho U have only ever said, like, “Hey” in the hallways, he’s just texted 2 ask U 2 B his D8 @ the prom!!! the prom!!!

Left: You’re an N.B.A. power forward who’s been lightly grazed by an opponent, flailing and wincing with Oscar-worthy panache to elicit a foul call.
Center: You’re an insufferable epicure at a revered restaurant in Lyon, having an out-of-body experience on your very first bite.
Right: You’re a high-school freshman who’s just been publicly hazed by a bullying senior, skulking away ashamedly—but getting the last word.

Left: You’re the cornerman for a winded female boxer, desperately exhorting her: “She’s run away with your boyfriend! She’s kidnapped your kid! Get out there and kill that heifer!”
Center: You’re five years into a contented but sedentary married life, protesting to your wife, “I said you’re ‘Rubenesque.’ It doesn’t mean fat. It means … Rubenesque!”
Right: You’re a 10-year-old in a high-rise apartment, playing fetch with your fox terrier and a tennis ball—which has just bounced out the window, with your dog in full pursuit.

Left: You’re the secretary of state, suspicious of your Russian counterpart’s jolly assurance that his country will gladly commit 50,000 troops to the U.S. effort in Afghanistan.
Center: You’re an Academy Award nominee, keenly aware that a camera is trained on you, at the precise moment when you hear that the Oscar has been won by someone else.
Right: You’re a Peace Corps volunteer fresh from Yale, stepping out of a Land Rover at a refugee camp and witnessing starvation and abject poverty for the first time.

Left: You’re the surly 14-year-old son of a single mother, steeling yourself as she awkwardly, haltingly begins a belated and unnecessary “birds and bees” talk.
Center: You’re at your daughter’s college graduation, and the pretty classmate of hers that you’ve been secretly ogling has just said, “Mr. Lefkowitz, you can’t be 58—you’re too cool!”
Right: You’re the valedictorian of your high-school class, having just been introduced to give the speech of your young life—and your mind has gone completely blank.

Left: You’re at your first official White House dinner, trying not to nod off while Joe Biden regales your table with tales of brokering backroom deals with Howard Baker in the 70s.
Center: You’re in a meeting with your national-security team when an aide whispers in your ear that the Reverend Jeremiah Wright has just shown up unannounced at the White House gates.
Right: A month after your inauguration, you discover that Dick Cheney’s “undisclosed location” was a pantry in the private residence—and he’s still there!

Left: You’re a rookie cop whose sergeant is telling you that the boy you just killed was holding a cell phone, not a gun.
Center: You’re a city kid using a telescope to spy on people in other buildings—and catching your math teacher in bed with your guidance counselor.
Right: You’re a presidential candidate at an epic meet-and-greet fund-raiser, holding that smile in place as you work the endless rope line.

Left: You’re a geek flirting with a cheerleader, unaware that you don’t stand a chance.
Center: You’re departing the nursing home where your wife resides; it is your first visit in which she didn’t recognize you.
Right: You’re a college basketball coach, on the cusp of an N.C.A.A. tournament berth, screaming at the referee, knowing that if you’re ejected, your boys will turn it up a notch.

Left: You’re a hyperkinetic eight-year-old drama queen at her birthday party, hearing that the clown has just arrived.
Center: You’re a mom at your seven-year-old daughter’s ballet recital, watching her execute an adorably imperfect pirouette and an almost flawless curtsy.
Right: You’re a high-school senior whose parents are at work, just about to have sex with your boyfriend for the first time, when your kid sister bursts into the room.

Left: You’re the ever obeisant wife of a charismatic televangelist, and you’ve just learned that a male prostitute is about to go public with his story of a years-long affair with your husband.
Center: You’re a fabulously wealthy Fifth Avenue matron, greeting your building’s doormen—whom you never tip—with a cheery “Merry Christmas!”
Right: You’re Barbara Walters, interviewing a recently divorced actress about her latest movie, suddenly going for the jugular with the question “Did it hurt more that he left you for a younger woman?”

Left: You’re a middle-aged woman at your mother’s hospital bedside as she hovers near death, remembering the quarrel you had with her when you were last together.
Center: You’re a perky gal in your 20s whose boyfriend of two years has asked you to close your eyes because he has a very special surprise for you!
Right: You’re a six-year-old at the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus for the first time, startled by a bang from a huge cannon and the sight of a sleek, silver-clad woman flying high above the crowd in an arc.

Left: You’re a politically ambitious prosecutor trying a sensational murder case, and you’ve just realized that the defense’s key witness has given you a huge opening to prove that he’s lying.
Center: You’re an ex-Marine, on the way home from a workout at the gym, suddenly confronted by a knife-wielding mugger. And you’re thinking, “This dude has picked the wrong fookin’ guy to take on.”
Right: You’re watching your son on television in his first Formula One race, moments after his car has hit a wall. Track workers have lifted him out of the tangled wreck as the announcer says, “He doesn’t appear to be moving … “

Left: You’re a 9-year-old boy hearing about the details of sex for the first time from your 16-year-old brother.
Center: You’re an evangelical preacher, screaming to your flock, “Thank you, Jesus. Thank you, JESUS!”
Right: You’re an ex-jock dad, apoplectic over the penalty the soccer ref has called against your seven-year-old son for a tackling foul.

Left: You’re a man whose daughter has been missing for two months. You’ve been called in by the police to identify the body of a young murder victim. The sheet is pulled back … and the victim isn’t your daughter.
Center: You’re a boy at a freakish carnival, watching a pierced performer munch live cockroaches.
Right: You’re a 14-year-old girl who’s just opened her 18-year-old sister’s bedroom door to find her having sex with her boyfriend.

Left: You are a hostage in a desert prison camp, overhearing your buddy being tortured in the adjacent room, knowing you’re next.
Center: You are a four-year-old boy at a new, “realistic” dinosaur theme park, getting a lick on the head from a 50-foot-long mechanical brontosaurus.
Right: You are a heroin addict begging your dealer to give you a fix, promising you’ll pay him later, really.

Left: You’re an eight-year-old boy whose friend convinced you to shoplift the latest Grand Theft Auto. Now you’re sitting in the security office at the mall, waiting for your father to arrive.
Center: You’ve just excused yourself from the table at a dinner party where you’ve been placed between the two most boring people on the planet, and you’re in the bathroom, wondering how you’ll survive two more hours.
Right: You’re the idealistic young teacher of an out-of-control fourth-grade class, exploding after 20 minutes of complete chaos.

Left: You’re an ingénue actress, new to Hollywood. Your agent has just called to say you’ve been chosen for a role in a big movie … as George Clooney’s love interest.
Center: You’re a construction worker having lunch with your buddies on the street in front of the job, calling out to a sexy woman passing by, “Hey, hon, wanna see what’s in my lunchbox?”
Right: You’re a mid-level drug dealer with a big payment due to a Mob boss, getting the news from one of your street runners that he lost the big coke stash in, “like, a weird gust of wind.”

Left: You are sneaking a peek, in the middle of the night, at your sweet new boyfriend’s computer … and discovering e-mails to and from his three current “other” girlfriends.
Center: You are a Park Avenue matron, paying your husband a surprise visit at his office and discovering him on the couch in flagrante delicto with his secretary.
Right: You are a disoriented homeless woman being arrested for loitering.

Left: You are a dedicated father who, with your wife, has just sat down to dinner with your 15-year-old daughter, who is defiantly announcing that she’s pregnant.
Center: You are a fashion designer on the morning of your big runway show, realizing that nothing in the collection is ready or fabulous.
Right: You are a blustering, pompous member of the British Parliament, giving a speech that is being broadcast on the BBC, and you’re thrilled at the sound of your own voice.

Thanks to Ohm-Nom-Nom