This is Jeopardy!

Raymond: Course I got Jeopardy! at five o'clock. I watch Jeopardy!
Charlie: Don't start with that, Ray.

It's possible that I married Raymond Babbit, Dustin Hoffman's character from Rain Man. On weekdays Matt must--MUST!--watch Jeopardy!. If he is away from the house and thinks that he forgot to record it, he'll call me and ask me to check the DVR and make sure that it's recording.

Matt's love for Jeopardy! is rooted in his love for trivia (and the superiority he feels when competing against other people in any trivia-related activity). He knows a lot of useless stuff. He even knows the answers to the ballet and opera categories. WTF?

Not surprisingly, Matt owns me in anything trivia-related. I can usually beat him if the question is about: the Olympics, the Bible, or Beverly Hills 90210. One of the greatest moments in my life was when Matt and I were playing '90s Trivial Pursuit, and I ended up getting a shitload of questions about 90210, and they were always for pie. Finally, I received my final question. It, again, was about 90210, and asked what the name of the night club behind the Peach Pit was. Matt didn't think I would know the answer, but then I shouted out "PEACH PIT AFTER DARK!" and began to celebrate. He shook his head in shame, not because he lost the game, but because he was dating someone who was so knowledgable about 90210. Since I've sucked Matt into my world of inane television drama, he now knows the answers to many of the questions I would have monopolized in the past. Like this one:


We've created little games that we play whilst watching Jeopardy!. Back in college, we would play drinking Jeopardy, which was a fun and dangerous game. Basically, each of us would choose a contestant. When our contestant got an answer wrong, we had to drink. When either of the other contestants got an answer right, we had to drink. There was also some form of wagering on Daily Doubles and Final Jeopardy, but I can't remember. Now that we're mature adults who can't get college drunk every night, we no longer play drinking Jeopardy. (But apparently we're not too mature for the Friends drinking game, which has become a staple of our Thanksgiving celebration.)

We still pick contestants, and of course we shout out the answers. One of my favorite--and obnoxious--things to do is to repeat Matt's answers and pretend like I came up with them on my own. Matt will be all, "Stonewall Jackson!" and I'll wait about a half a second and with the same enthusiasm shout, "Stonewall Jackson!" I'll also celebrate when the answer is, indeed, Stonewall Jackson.

By far, though, the best part about watching Jeopardy! is what we do with the final answer. When Alex (with whom Matt has a love/hate relationship) reveals the final category, we try to predict what the answer will be. For example: if the final category is American Authors, Matt and I will select an author. If the author we selected actually ends up being the answer (or really question), then WE WIN IN LIFE. That's right, we win IN LIFE.

It was like Christmas for Matt when we returned home from vacation--7 episodes of Jeopardy! that we could watch back to back. It even ended up being a bit of a self-esteem boost for Chloe and me because the week we were gone Jeopardy! aired Kids Week.

Last night we watched about five episodes of Jeopardy!, and I'm happy to announce that I won in life TWICE! Chloe won in life once, and Matt did not win in life. He seemed disappointed to be the only one who was not winning in life, but maybe this picture of a shirtless Alex will help to ease the pain.