Alternate Universe

We're been watching Jeopardy faithfully the last few weeks, fearing to miss KenJen's last night. There's been some whining from the larger of the small-fry, but I pointed out that since grown-ups bought the TV, pay for the cable, and own the house in which we watch it, expecting to control the remote for half an hour every night is hardly Dickensian behaviour.

It seems to be catching on: last night at dinner, we played Jeopardy, with the kids taking turns being Alex (or The Conductor, as MonkeyBoy calls him), and Himself and I being KenJen. We were presented with categories like Food, Drinks, and Animals, and awarded random points and/or dollars, depending on who was in charge, ranging from 3 to humillions for correct answers.

So this evening, in the car, MonkeyBoy asked if I wanted to play again. I agreed, and thus entered the Evil Alex Universe. My categories were Pet Animals, Bird Animals, Wild Animals or Trucks. So I asked for Pet Animals for one hundred. Evil Alex announced, in impressive tones, "Yes, we've got that one. EEEHHHN! You're WRONG! Try again." So I tried Pet Animals for 200, then Trucks for 6 and a half, Birds for 12 million, Pets again for 83 ... and got the same response every time. Apparently Evil Alex was reading my mind and knew I was going to get the question wrong before he even asked it. The buzzer got louder every time, too.

I think I finished the round at -42 billion, without ever hearing a single question. Of course, by the end I couldn't hear much of anything, thanks to some incredibly vigourous buzzering from the back seat.

Kids are strange.