Which lap is yours? A quiz built with pre-internet technology.

One of the newer innovations on social media has become the "Which [Insert Popular Media Set of Characters Here] person are you?" quiz. You answer a bunch of indirect multiple choice questions and the web page's mechanism seemingly computes which character is the most like you based on your answers. We don't know how those quizzes work behind the scenes, whether they are well-built or fraud, but we delight in finding ourselves identified as some favorite character.

Being a decidedly low-tech blogger, this morning, I have created a quiz of my own, where you can see which character from the original Sherlock Holmes stories is closest to you, just by identifying what is most likely in your lap. It's pretty straightforward, and has just one question. That question, of course, is:


"What is most likely to be in your lap?" (Like I said, straightforward.)

Pick one . . .

1. Handcuffed hands.

2. Needlework.

3. A dog whip.

4. Just your hands.

5. A worked antimacassar.

6. A horse's reins.

7. The metaphoric fruit of a solution.


Decided on what would most likely be in your lap?

I wandered into this thought because I had a cat on my lap this morning and was thinking about Martha from "His Last Bow." But Martha's big black cat, it turns out, was on the stool beside her and not in her lap, so she didn't make the quiz. (Which is really too bad, because I wanted to pick her.) The answers that did make the quiz are below, and instead of letting a web page cipher it out for you, you can just scan the list for what character your answer above ties you to. (Like I said, low-tech.)


Jonathan Small, with his handcuffed hands on his lap,  in the The Sign of the Four.

Mrs. Watson, with her needlework on her lap, in "The Man with the Twisted Lip."

Dead Grimesby Roylott, with a dog whip on his lap, in "The Speckled Band."

Mrs. Rucastle, with just her hands in her lap, in "The Copper Beeches."

Mrs. Susan Cushing, with a worked antimacassar in her lap, in "The Cardboard Box."

Dr. Watson, with a horse's reins in his lap, in "The Solitary Cyclist."

Sherlock Holmes, with the metaphoric fruit of a solution falling into his lap, in "The Veiled Lodger."


Surprised at your result? Proud to be akin to the Canonical character whose lap contained the thing most likely to be in yours? Go ahead and post it on your favorite social media, but you'll have to do it the old-fashioned way, as there are no buttons here for that either.

Just words, which in there way are perhaps our oldest technology.