The following is a transcript of an email exchange I had a few years ago with Savannah, an Orlando radio personality. I wasn't sure what her response would be, and was pleasantly surprised when she took it and ran with it.

Just to make it perfectly clear: The first email, the one that describes the development of the Furby, is a work of fiction. Savannah's reactions to it, however, are real.

(Audio segments are in mp3 format.)

Sent: Thursday, December 03, 1998 4:10 AM
To: Savannah@WTKS.com
Subject: The Furby Project

Dear Savannah,

I am writing to you because on Wednesday's "Monsters of the Midday" show you immediately recognized the evil inherent in this year's most-wanted Christmas toy. You are right to be concerned. The following is a short history of the development of this technology.

Eight years ago, an educational psychology major at UCLA conducted a study to provide data for her master's thesis. The study consisted of a battery of multiple-choice tests that contained questions worded in a way that led the test-takers toward one specific answer. Sometimes this was the correct answer, other times, it wasn't. The study found that students taking these tests nearly always chose the answer to which the question led them, whether it was right or wrong. Afterwards, they often went on believing wrong answers even if they had known the correct answers before taking the test.