What a Difference a Few Letters Make

The Pony had a Scholar Bowl meet last evening.

I don't go to many, because they're usually at a far-away school, and because nobody really goes to them. I don't want to embarrass The Pony. He says that nobody goes. I remember from when Genius played, and Hick and I were often the only parents there at the home meets. But yesterday, I went. And Hick came when he got home from work.

There are only five on the varsity team. I think there might be a sixth, but he was sick. So it's a tight-knit group. The Pony's People. They have special names for each other. I just found that out. The Pony is Snowflake. Don't know why. Probably don't wanna.

So I guess his coach forgot The Pony's nickname. Because as they were getting ready to start, he hollered, "Hey! Silkworm!" Of course The Pony did not turn around. So he called him by his given name, which, you might be surprised to find out, is NOT The Pony. I thought that was hilarious. SILKWORM!

Anyhoo...there was the matter of the reader of the questions, who is one of my colleagues from down the hall. She is famous for her Scholar Bowl readings, way back to when Genius was in middle school, and she began a question with: "An octopus has eight testicles. How many does a squid have?" We have never let her live that down. And never will. So last night, she was telling the teams and their assembled handful of coaches and one or two parents, "These names I can read. But there are some unique names of kids coming up from the middle school competitions."

At half time, I told her: "I certainly hope none of those young kids has the name of TENTACLE, because I feel sorry for what you're going to do to it."

At half time of the next game, she came back and leaned over my table. "Look here. Remember this question just now? The one about the household chore? I almost said, 'Chousehold hore!' I stopped myself just in time."

She's gotta get a handle on her subconscious, I think.

So there were a couple of interesting questions, one answered by The Pony, that very household chore one, in fact. "This household chore involves removing wrinkles from clothing with an appliance that is heated and applied to the fabric. It is called..." Yeah. I don't know why there was such an easy question in there. But my boy buzzed right in, and answered, "An iron." Yeah. I'm not even sure we have one in our house. So in my book, this question was an example of IRONY! See what I did there?

Also in the irony vein, a question that neither team got was, "This trait is measured by the Stanford-Binet test, and measures what a person knows compared to other people of the same age and experience." Yeah. Can you believe that none of those little brains, The Pony's People, knew the answer was IQ?

It came as no surprise to any of us, though, when nobody knew that the professional basketball team from the state of Oregon was the Portland Trailblazers. Not their area of expertise.

All in all, it was a pleasant enough way to while away three hours and feel inferior when these kids whipped out an answer to complicated math questions in thirty seconds.

The Pony's team won two out of three, losing only to the team with a senior member who was just written about in the local paper for being a National Merit Finalist.

Two out of three ain't bad.