The informant enjoys playing a question game he calls “The Five Question Game.” Two people play: One, who knows how the game works, asks the questions. The other, who has never played before, answers.

A wager is made at the outset to determine what the two participants are playing for.

The person answering has to get all five questions wrong in order to win. After he explained these parameters, he and I wagered one dollar and set to playing:

Informant: What’s your name?

Me: Jeffrey.

Informant: (pointing to someone else in the room) All right. Who’s he?

Me: Arturo. (it was not Arturo)

Informant: (pointing to a longboard) OK. What’s that thing?

Me: The moon.

Informant: Okay. Wait, what question are we on?

Me: …Seven. Probably seven.

Informant: Okay, so basically yeah, that’s the game?

Me: Is that the end of the game?

Informant: Yeah, well basically. You just ask a couple questions and then you like, throw a curve ball, and then like you ask them, like, how many questions is it at, and most of them are eager to like, get back to the game and win their money and then that’s how you get ’em. I mean it only works once, because if you’ve played before you see it coming. You haven’t played before, right?

Me: Oh no, I’ve played a million times.

Informant: Fuck you. So yeah, that’s the fifth question.

Me: Okay.

*conversation continues for about a minute*

Informant: So what was that for again?

Me: Oh, it’s uh, it’s for the, the CIA. I work for them now? Yeah.

Informant: DAMN IT.

This was a pretty fun one. Informant says he heard it as a thing you do to hit on women, i.e. at a bar you bet a woman a drink that she can’t win the game, then whether or not she loses you could still offer to buy her the drink. I’d say there are worse ways to break the ice. Makes sense that it would proliferate as a it makes the person performing it look clever.