What's the Worst That Could Happen?

One of my all-time favorite short stories is “Sea Oak” by George Saunders. You can find it in his collection "Pastoralia" or in "The Anchor Book of New American Short Stories." I first read it in The New Yorker some years ago and re-read it at least once a year. It’s about a guy who supports his extended family by working at a sort of male equivalent to Hooters, an aeronautical themed restaurant called Joysticks. This guy’s life is one downer after another, and the story pivots on a plot development so extraordinary and shocking that… well, you just have to read it for yourself.

I was reminded of “Sea Oak” recently by something I saw online. In “Sea Oak” there’s a TV show the hapless family watches called "What’s the Worst That Could Happen?":  

        After dinner the babies get fussy and Min puts a
        mush of ice cream and Hershey’s syrup in their
        bottles and we watch "What’s the Worst That Could
        Happen?", a half hour of computer simulations
        of tragedies that have never actually occurred but
        theoretically could. A kid gets hit by a train and
        flies into a zoo, where he’s eaten by wolves. A man
        cuts his hand off chopping wood and while wandering
        around screaming for help is picked up by a tornado
        and dropped on a preschool during recess and lands on
        a pregnant teacher.

In other words, a computer simulation like this:

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