The Japecake Quiz: Are You in the Top One Percent?

If you’ve been following the Occupy Wall Street protests, you’ve no doubt felt a growing unease, and not just because your unease eats Häagen-Dazs exclusively. For one troubling question surely plagues every red-blooded American: Do I make the cut for a position in the fabled “top one percent?” Are my champagne wishes mere Dr. Pepper? Are my caviar dreams just Filet-O-Fish? To find out, take the following quiz, cross your fingers, and pray to your god, the Almighty Dollar. (Agnostics and lapsed Catholics: You may pray to your Popeil Pocket Deity™.)

If a stranger handed me a hundred-dollar bill, I would use it:
a) To purchase groceries for my family
b) To pay down my credit card
c) To help my needy neighbors
d) As kindling for the piles of thousand-dollar bills which have been cluttering up my yard

A soup kitchen:
a) Is where the homeless can enjoy a rare hot meal
b) Is a worthy recipient of charitable contributions
c) Is an increasingly important community resource
d) Would be a fine addition to my collection of single-purpose kitchens devoted to meat, vegetables, and Rice Krispies squares

Belt-tightening is most effectively achieved by:
a) Strict budgeting
b) Careful record keeping
c) Eliminating all nonessential expenditures
d) Daily sessions with my personal trainer and strict instructions to my personal chef

The check is:
a) In the mail
b) On its way
c) Made out to cash
d) My dear, it’s so gauche to talk about money. Let’s talk about yachts. Yachts with helipads. Emerald-encrusted platinum helipads.

SHARK : FISH : : FOX : __________:
a) Mammal
b) Dog
c) Network
d) Hunt

Everything I need to know I learned in:
a) Kindergarten
b) Boarding school
c) Oxford
d) Gucci footwear

If a close acquaintance approached me with a plea for “help,” I would:
a) Immediately ask what I could do
b) Immediately reach out with a consoling embrace
c) Immediately write a check
d) Immediately volunteer the services of my maid on her day off

__________ is the best policy
a) Honesty
b) Integrity
c) Compassion
d) The comprehensive fine arts insurance with a special rider for the Picassos in the kennel

The first time I cried at the movies is when:
a) Old Yeller was shot in Old Yeller
b) Rocky lost the fight and embraced Adrian in the ring in Rocky
c) E.T. died in E.T.
d) Gordon Gekko got sent to prison in Wall Street

Poverty:
a) Is the greatest enemy of our inner-city children
b) Is the natural result of unfettered capitalism
c) Is sure to be the catalyst for the United States’ inevitable demise into Third-World status
d) Sucks, and I have this novelty poster in my wine cellar to prove it

Total your “d” answers and score yourself as follows:
9–10: Congratulations! You win! Select a state of your choice.
7–8: You don’t quite make the cut, but we’ll still sponsor you for the country club.
5–6: Hmm. Obviously “new” money.
3–4: Oh, I see. You’re from the Flint Havemeyers.
1–2: Wall Street? More like Walmart.
0: “One percent” sounds like your blood alcohol content. Now get away from my Aston-Martin, drunky.