Editor's note: War Stories is a semi-regular feature in which Art Shulman, president of Shulman Research, Van Nuys, Calif., presents humorous stories of life in the research trenches. Send your own tales of research-related wackiness to him at artshulman@aol.com.

Ron Sellers of Ellison Research supplies some information to illustrate how hectic market research can sometimes be. One of his moderating colleagues (who'll remain nameless for obvious reasons) once scheduled groups for a Tuesday in Chicago and a Thursday in New York. The fellow showed up at the facility right on time that Tuesday evening...in New York. He had gotten his wires crossed and reversed the entire trip, but hadn't figured it out until the facility wanted to know why he was two days early.

Sellers also tells about one of his clients who decided to discontinue using a moderator after the client received a fully itemized travel bill that included limousine, body massage, and full spa treatment.

That's outrageous, right? What!? We don't deserve that? Sure we do! We market researchers live hard lives and deserve cushy treatment to keep our brains alert!

In moderating a set of creative groups in Phoenix for a branding agency, Sellers encountered the ultimate paranoid respondent. The groups were getting pretty rowdy as Sellers was going through various creative exercises. One guy became increasingly uncomfortable with the noise level and the frenetic pace, complaining a couple of times and generally making the rest of the group really uneasy.

Finally, he lost his patience and accused Sellers of not conducting marketing research at all. Rather, he claimed that the "focus group" was actually a bizarre psychological experiment in which people watched from the back room to see how he would react to stress.

"I want to leave," the man said. Sellers tried to calm him down by assuring him he really was doing marketing research, but he also told the guy he was free to leave if he wanted. The man rocked back and forth in his chair a few times with his arms folded and a scowl on his face. He finally revealed where his heart was really at when he asked, "Do I still get my 60 bucks?"

David Howell of The Howell Research Group was conducting a focus group among bus riders group for the Regional Transportation District, Denver Metro's public transportation agency. As the participants, recruited a couple of weeks earlier, entered the focus group room, he noticed a man in an upper-body cast with one broken arm in a rigid brace that extended out from his body cast, and scrapes and bruises on his face.

As Howell went around and did the intros, he asked the man how he had become injured. The man indicated that a couple of days before the focus group, he had fallen off a bus while attempting to board it - at 1:00 a.m. while traveling from Shotgun Willies (one of Denver's infamous strip bars) to a local bar near his home.

The client was happy to hear that public transit was serving a public safety purpose by keeping this guy out of his car. However, this did not lead to the Regional Transportation District using the respondent as a spokesman in its advertising.

Robert B. Fox of Genactis tells about a focus group respondent he once encountered. "Marty" was in his upper 70s and had an old-world Eastern European accent. With a few minutes to go in the group, he asked, "Are we almost done? I gotta make a sissy." (For those who need a translation, Marty meant he needed to urinate.) He was told the group was about to end, and when it did end a few minutes later, Marty searched behind him for his cane, but he didn't see it. The female moderator asked, "Marty, can I help you?"

Still thinking of his earlier comment, Marty replied, "Nah. I can find my own zipper."

In spite of having to go to the bathroom, Marty took a moment to tell Fox a dirty joke as he was getting ready to leave. But Fox didn't see fit to report the joke to this columnist. Ah well, the editor would probably have deleted it anyway. (True, but I'd still like to hear the joke! - Ed.)

In future issues, we'll report on more quirky, loopy, and strange happenings in the world of market research. If you'd like your story to be told - anything related to research is usable, from spilling soup on your client's new suit to cute answers respondents provide on questionnaires - please e-mail me at artshulman@aol.com.