You push the button.

Ding.

It has made a ding.

Fascinating.

Also, there is now a bucket in the room.

It’s one of those plastic, bright-orange things that can be found on any construction site within fifty miles of a Home Depot.

I realize that unless you live within fifty miles of a Home Depot, you might not know what I’m talking about.

Here, have a picture.

This thing. Big, plastic, lots of uses.

You don’t, by any chance, want to know what’s in the bucket, do you?

Oh, you do?

Oh, you want me to stop stalling and tell you what’s in the damn bucket already?

Ok, fine, sheesh.

You look into the bucket.

There’s a clear liquid in the bucket.

That isn’t as helpful as you might think. There are plenty of clear liquids in the world. Water is one of them. Vodka is another. Clear glue technically counts. The tears of your enemy might be slightly cloudy, but they’d still be a clear liquid. Pure alcohol is clear. Surprisingly, synthetic jet fuel is clear.

How will you test it?

You decide to kick it.

Gently.

It sloshes around very liquid-y like. So, it isn’t glue.

What next?

Setting it on fire would narrow it down, but there’s nothing to set it on fire with.

Sorry, dude.

(And yes, I use “dude” as a gender neutral pronoun.)

Ah, smelling it, yes, that would work.

It doesn’t have much of a smell. In fact, it doesn’t have any smell at all.

This would usually narrow it down, but how do you know you haven’t suddenly lost your sense of smell?

Y’no, in the minute and a half that’ve passed since I said you could tell that the room smells like “Hawaiian Breeze”.

It’s possible.

You stick your finger in it.

It’s cold. And, shockingly, wet. You probably never would have guessed that it’d be wet, would you?

But, your finger isn’t dissolving or anything, so that’s good.

You taste it.

It… It’s water.

Yeah.

You probably guessed that it’d be water. And it was. Clever you.

Good job.

Wellp, you’re sitting in a room with a button and a bucket full of water.

Wooooo, the excitement never ends here...

WILL YOU PRESS THE BUTTON? Yes No