Trivia Cracked

These two girls enjoyed two days playing together – it was Abigail’s first time having a friend that’s not related spending the weekend with her.

Trivia Cracked

By Allan Olson

At first glance of this strange name for my weekly column – a space I have reserved to write about my ramblings of family life and activity those familiar with this space might wonder what this could possibly have to do with my kids – give me a minute and I will get there – but first the long weekend.

It was a long weekend – four days of no school for kids, I was smart and abandoned everyone at home Friday and went to work, whew – only the weekend to deal with them. Mom had them put to the task all day cleaning it was high time they straightened their bedrooms and other areas they trash so quickly. She was also busy tackling other areas that needed some TLC – including our guest room, mess room, office room, whatever name we choose for it when we are addressing it at the moment.

That evening, I brought a friend of Abigail’s home with me – much to her surprise, I told her friend that I wasn’t sure if she even knew she was coming over and she didn’t and she was really surprised to see her. The original plan was for one night – a trail run if you will of having a school friend over to see if everyone could tolerate each other that long. We planned a movie and popcorn and candy night for this special occasion and about 8 p.m. we all gathered downstairs to watch a movie – (at the moment – I don’t remember the name of it I was mostly bored with it but the kids enjoyed it and that’s what counts). Saturday afternoon we were discussing bringing this friend Cherylann home – even though she said she was going to move in with us, when she asked if she could stay one more night, my wife and I discussed it and we asked her mom and all was a go so she stayed another night. Abigail and I did return her home with mild protests on Sunday all went pretty well and the kids played well together – at least as well as scatter brained little kids play.

So back to the title – I’ve probably mentioned this before, I’m not a gamer, I don’t download much for games on my computer, I don’t have a shelf full of video games, my computer while capable of gaming doesn’t have any games on it –except the standard solitaire and other such stuff that comes with most computers.

The games that I have on my phone are pretty much trivia related so one might think that I’m really smart and do really well on those games since that’s what I have – well I will just admit it right know – I’m not. I do okay but not great. I never got into the “farm craze” with whatever that game was called where you plant crops and harvest people or something like that, I’m not one to get “addicted” to a game.

 Recently (a couple months ago) my niece challenged me to this game – Trivia Crack – I tried but I was annoyed that I could only play a couple games before waiting for an hour to get another life - I almost deleted it then. My wife said, give it a try – in secret I think that meant let me kick your butt a few dozen times – so I kept it.

Since then I’ve played probably hundreds of games, my winning percentage is top-secret classified information but I will brag that I was able to defeat a CL-B high school Civics teacher – once, since then I’ve lost several wacky named challenges but also since then I’ve been thoroughly trounced several times since.

My kids also have an addiction to Trivia Crack – if my wife and I are playing against each other and they know it, they will run to each person and try to help them – if nothing else they will quickly inform the other parent that it’s their turn – Marcus and Alivia are really pesky when it comes to this to the point of annoyance at times.  So how does this entire dribble about a game relate to my kids aside from the aforementioned need of telling a parent it’s their turn to play?

I mentioned already that I’m not very good – or rather okay at this game but not great. My two worst categories often change between sports and art. I’m terrible at Harry Potter questions, worse at what player scored the most whatever or who won whatever championship, I do okay at Science, decent at Geography and my best subject his history – a subject that I’ve always loved.

To get back to my kids – I believe that my kids are intelligent and Marcus and Nikolai like to prove they are – but I have to admit sometimes I really do need their help. I wouldn’t want to challenge Nikolai on Science or either of them when it comes to questions about moons or some obscure I’ve never heard of animal. Marcus has a propensity for guessing the right answer – sometimes it truly isn’t a guess but when he’s right and I don’t listen to him, I hear from him, “You see, nobody ever listens to me,” he exclaims. Nikolai doesn’t brag it up as much just shakes his head at his dad in a “disappointed you didn’t trust me kind of way.” Alivia – often doesn’t read the question, perhaps she’s just that smart and doesn’t need the question to guess the answer, although she often changes her guess multiple times in the few seconds we have to guess the answer – especially if Marcus is saying something different.

I’m going to admit – that yes, I need my kids to help me answer some of these questions. So if you’ve challenged me and lost take some assurance that I probably had some help in defeating you in the form of a kid. There are times when I call upon my intelligent and wonderful wife, to help me get a leg up on the competition.

Thanks to everyone for reading and as always, please be safe while enjoying your favorite outdoor recreational activity and on the lakes, and remember to take pictures to preserve a lifetime of memories. Remember to drive safely, and watch out for those buses carrying our children. Thanks for reading, and have a great week! For more of my columns visit: http://allan-crazykids.blogspot.com

P.S. In a recent column on this page I wrote about my geocaching adventures on Cass Lake, just to clarify it was Little Potato Island where we found a cache as Big Potato Island is privately owned. Thanks’ to a loyal reader who corrected me on this error.