TRIVIAL PURSUIT

"Hey, Eric, look what I got a garage sale today." Tami's sister Shelley raised the Trivial Pursuit box above her head as if it were some kind of golden chalice. "Ta-da!" Eric was in his recliner, rewinding game film to rewatch a section, pencil behind his ear. Tami and Gracie were napping, or rather waking from their nap. Rustling and small cries could be heard in the bedroom. Julie was curled on the end of the couch studying.

Eric glanced in Shelley's direction, sort of, because he didn't really take his eyes off the TV. "A box? How much did you spend on that?"

Shelley lowered the box and set it on the coffee table. "It's not just any box, Eric. It's Trivial Pursuit. And it's not just any Trivial Pursuit. It's the Genus edition. The classic one. The one we had when we were kids. Before they dumbed it down."

By now Tami was coming out of the back bedroom, Gracie in her arms, yawning. She handed Eric his daughter and sat down on the couch opposite Julie. She ran a hand through her tangled hair and grunted. "Go back to sleep," Eric said. He raised Gracie Belle above his head. Lowered her. Kissed her tummy. Settled her in the crook of his left arm and took up the remote with his right hand. "No reason for you to be up."

"No," Tami said. "I know I'm not going to be able to go back to sleep. I'll just sit here and stare for awhile." Tami sat with her head leaned on her hand vacantly staring at the game film going backward.

Eric pressed stop and then play. "You see that?" he asked his infant daughter. "You see that my pretty girl? You see how they run those counters? Your daddy knows just what to do about that." Gracie cooed and then squealed. "She knows," Eric said. "She knows."

Tami's eyelids fell and opened and fell and opened. She blinked. Suddenly she sat straight up. "Is that the classic Trivial Pursuit?" she asked. "The real one? The one we had as kids?"

Shelley nodded eagerly, smile growing, and squeezed down on the couch between Tami and Julie.

"Not the dumbed down Genus II?" Tami asked. "Not the Baby Boomer edition? Not the Young Player's Edition? Not the Disney edition? Not the 1980's edition?"

"Oh, God that was the worst," Shelley said. "The 1980's edition. I had no idea what was going on in the 1980's. I was way too busy chasing boys."

"When you were six?" Eric asked.

"By the end of the 80's I was a teenager, Eric."

Julie was watching this exchange with an amused smile, occasionally writing a math problem on her notebook paper.

"Let's play," Tami said. "C'mon y'all, let's play!"

Julie raised her eyebrows while Eric turned to his wife and said, "You just woke up, Tami."

"I don't care. I haven't seen this edition in over twenty years. I want to play!"

"You ladies have fun." Eric bent down and made a face at Gracie. He kissed her little forehead. "Crazy girls," he told her. "Crazy crazy girls."

"Uh-uh," Tami said. "You're playing too."

"I got game film to watch."

"Well you can watch it while we play, Eric," Shelley said. Eric hated the way Shelley said his name. Air-ic. With that lilt. With that tone. Air-ic. That tone that said, "You're such an old fuddy duddy, Air-ic, you're such a party killer, Air-ic, you're such a square, Air-ic, but I'm oh so tolerant of you anyway because for some stupid reason my sister is in love with you and has decided to pop out your babies."

Eric sighed. "A'ight. Julie can roll for me. And move my piece for me."

"And answer the questions for you, too, Dad?"

"Hey, I'm holdin' Gracie and the remote. I only got two hands. I'm not your mother. I can't do fifteen things at once while still looking as good as I did when I was twenty." He winked and smiled at his wife. She chuckled and shook her head like she wasn't secretly very pleased, like he hadn't just scored a bunch of points with her, which, really, he had.

Julie stood and closed her math book. "Well I'm not playing. I played that version with Lois's family once. The questions are so incredibly outdated. Especially the entertainment ones. It's almost all the 50's and 60's. And the history is totally narrow too. And the Geography is just wrong. It just isn't true anymore."

"Sit down," Eric commanded. "Sit down and make your mother and aunt happy and play the game."

Julie lowered her shirt, which had ridden up in the back, over her jeans. "No way," she said and began walking back to her bedroom.

As she passed her father's recliner, he turned and ordered again, "Sit down." Julie stopped next to him and rolled her eyes. "Don't you roll your eyes at me. You're part of this family, Julie. And we're having family game night."

"It's 3 PM," Julie intoned, voice bored.

Eric gritted his teeth. "Family game afternoon then. Sit down. If I'm playing even when I've got very important game tape to watch, then you can play too, Julie. You can take a few minutes out of your precious time to spend with your family and make your mother happy."

"Eric - "

He ignored Tami. "Sit down, Julie."

Julie sighed, rolled her eyes again, and walked back to the couch. She put her textbook on the coffee table and flopped down onto the couch. "You're not even rolling and moving your own piece," she complained.

Shelley was unpacking the box and sliding one card question box to Tami. She took the other one herself. She picked the pink circle. Tami plucked up the yellow. "I'll take orange," Julie muttered, making it clear from her tone that she was very, very put-upon.

"What color do you want, Eric?" Shelley asked.

"Julie and I are going to play together on a team," he said.

"Oh great!" Julie said. "So you're not playing."

"No," he insisted. "We're playing on a team. A team is a unit, Julie. A team works together. A team needs all its members to achieve victory."

"But you're on the bench."

"Yeah, but I'm the second string. I'm here if I'm needed."

Julie's irises were only half visible now. She covered he eyes with her hands as though rolling them hurt. "No," she said. "No, Dad. If you're making me play, then you're playing by yourself. You're playing your own piece. I'll roll for you. I'll move for you. But I will not play for you."

"Julie's absolutely right, hon," Tami insisted. "You need to play your own piece. Now what color do you want to be?"

"Black," he answered.

All three girls, simultaneously, cried, "There is no black!" Gracie topped off the chorus with a squeal.

/-*-/

"Why don't they have any football questions?" Eric complained. "What's with all the baseball questions?" He'd gone straight for the orange triangle, and this was his fourth failed attempt at securing it.

"There were only two baseball questions," Shelley said.

"But no football questions!" Eric looked down at Gracie, who was moving her little arms in small strokes. "None. That's ridiculous! You agree, don't you, little angel?" He nodded. "She agrees. And what was that question about cards? Cards is not a sport!"

"The category is sports and leisure, Dad. Not football."

"Well I'm going for history next time."

Shelley rolled, landed on a roll again, and then landed on history. "I managed to get an orange."

"Darts. You answered a question about darts," Eric grumbled. "I guess that's the kind of knowledge you get from hanging out in bars trying to pick up men all the time."

"I also have a pink and a brown," she pointed out. "And you have…" Shelley leaned over the board and looked at the pieces. Tami had two triangles, Julie had two triangles, Shelley had three triangles. Eric's pie was empty. "What do you have, Air-ic?" she asked. "How many triangles are in your little pie, Air-ic? Could you count those for me, Air-ic, sweetie, because I can't count all those pieces. There's just so many!"

Eric switched arms, putting the remote in his left and Gracie in the crook of his right arm. He looked down at her. "I got unfair questions. You know I got unfair questions and you're Aunt Shelley got easy questions." He lowered his head and rubbed Gracie's nose with his own. "Easy peasy," he said. "Easy peasy." Gracie gurgled, grabbed his ear, and pulled. Eric worked himself loose from her grip. "She agrees." He paused the game film and looked at Shelley. "Your Arts and Literature question was about children's literature. And you're a preschool teacher. That's not fair. And your entertainment question was Elvis Presley. Everyone knows that."

"Even you, Air-ic?" Shelley asked.

"Even me," he said, mouth tight, lips hardly moving, eyes dark.

Julie read her aunt the history question. Shelley answered it right, pumped her arm in the air, and slid in her pie piece.

"What the…?" Eric asked Gracie. Then he crinkled his nose. He stood and extended Gracie to Shelley. "Gracie has an issue," he said.

Shelley did not take the baby.

"Gracie needs you to change her diaper," he explained.

"You've got her, Eric." Shelley said. "She's in your arms. Go change her yourself."

"I thought that's what you were here for," he said. "I thought that's why you were eating out food and monopolizing our TV. So you could help."

"Yeah! During the weekday! When you're at work!"

"Change her yourself, Eric!" Tami insisted.

"A'ight," he said, heading down the hallway. "A'ight, a'ight, a'ight…" His a'ights faded.

Tami went next, landed on a brown, and busted. Julie rolled, landed on a blue, answered it correctly, but said, "See. That's what I mean. Wrong wrong wrong. This geography is so outdated. It isn't true anymore." She landed on an orange triangle next.

From the bedroom came a startled cry and then Eric's voice rising, "Oh my God! I thought only boys could do that. AAAAAAG!" He came back out of the room, handed the freshly diapered baby to his wife, and said, "I have to wash up."

"What did she do?" Tami asked as he walked towards the back bedroom and the master bathroom.

"She projectile peed on me. I swear."

When he got back ten minutes later, hair wet from the shower, they were waiting for him to take his turn. Julie had rolled and moved him to a brown triangle square. He glanced at the pie pieces. "You got an orange?" he asked his eldest daughter.

"Yep," she said. "On a football question."

"That's my girl. Don't know why I can't get football questions though. Why did you put me on brown? That's my worst category. Arts and literature."

Julie read him the question.

"Hey," he said, his eyes brightening. "Moby Dick!" He rubbed his hands together. "Heh heh heh heh heh," he said, and insisted on sliding in his brown pie piece himself.

"How did you know that, Eric?" Shelley asked.

"Because I'm captain Ahab," he said, "and State is the white whale. Or something like that. I forget Julie's analogy."

Twenty minutes later, Shelley was in the center circle of the board, and Julie, Tami, and Eric were debating what category to choose for the winning question.

"Not arts and literature," Julie insisted. "Too many children's literature questions."

"Not sports and leisure," Eric said. "Too many pub sports questions."

"Not entertainment," Tami said. "She watches too many movies. Even the old ones."

"Science and nature," Eric suggested.

Tami shook her head. "No, history."

"I'm thinking geography," Julie said.

In the end they decided on geography. Julie read the question. "I have no idea," Shelley said. "No idea. The U.S.S.R."

"No," Eric said. "The U.S.S.R. doesn't even exist anymore."

"It's the U.S.S.R.," Julie said, waving the card. "That's right. That's the answer. I told you! Geography! Wrong!"

Shelley stood up and did a victory dance. She danced the few steps to Eric's recliner. "You got two pie pieces," she told him. "Neither one is orange." She formed an L on her forehead. "Loooooooser!"

/ AND THAT THERE'S THE END /