ME: (Tries to work)

MY BRAIN: You’ve joined Slytherin, I see.

ME: ?

MY BRAIN: The colors. Green polo, and stupid-looking black cargo shorts.

ME: Shut up about my cargo shorts. I only wear them around the house.

MY BRAIN: They’re ridiculous. So how did you get sorted, now that they don’t use the Hat anymore?

ME: … as much as I’m going to regret getting involved in this conversation, I’m going to point out that they did not get rid of the Sorting Hat.

MY BRAIN: Obviously you did not read book 8.

ME: Book 8.

MY BRAIN: HARRY POTTER AND THE GENTRIFIED HOGWARTS.

ME: For the love of –

MY BRAIN: Who wants to put on that nasty hat? I’m surprised one of the books wasn’t called HARRY POTTER AND THE UNSTOPPABLE LICE EPIDEMIC. Anyway, I like that you have options now. The Sorting Spat, that’s probably my favorite.

ME: And the regrets keep building…

MY BRAIN: Choose a portrait and pick a fight with it until gets so irritated it sorts you into a house just to get rid of you. If you’re more into familiars, there’s The Sorting Rat, where Scabbers’ zombified corpse runs across a wooden board with the school colors on it. Where it drops its undead rat shit, that’s your house.

ME: (Undead rat shit?)

MY BRAIN: That one’s kind of a threefer because it’s also the Sorting Scat and the Sorting Splat.

ME: You really terrify me sometimes.

MY BRAIN: Wait, you know what? I think my favorite one is The Sorting Twat. You are approached by a random presidential candidate —

ME: NOW YOU ARE JUST MAKING SHIT UP AND I DID NOT GET SORTED INTO HOGWARTS!

MY BRAIN: …

ME: (Tries to work)

MY BRAIN: Tell you what. I’ll be in Ravenclaw and you can be in Hufflepuff. Huffleclaw. Ravenpuff.

ME: That would make my colors sky blue and yellow. I’ll look like a Teletubby on acid.

MY BRAIN: Beats those cargo shorts.