Oh, uh, no. This was all volunteer. One of the guys there was a firefighter, and another one worked in an ice cream parlor— we were supposed to get paid at the end? I guess we were basically the mice in the Mars experiment.

[Not that that's necessarily a bad thing; yes, it turned out bad, there's that "supposed to" again, but a bunch of volunteers for an experiment is just how these things work.]

There were some volunteer studies in college, too, where they just wanted you to take a survey or whatever for a paper they were writing. So like that, but big and official.

[He did a lot of those for the complementary snacks offered, maybe, yeah. He hums and slouches down a bit, to enjoy his beer as he becomes progressively more boneless.]

Do you have a pen and paper somewhere in your mystery pockets? [carrying around a bottle opener has stuck with him, sooooo...]