Zip-a-dee-doo-dah

We spent Sunday afternoon at my parents' house. Auntie Josie took Rachel to the park, we had a yummy dinner, and, unfortunately, we had just started playing games when it was time to go to Emily's seminary graduation.

The game of choice was Malarky, and we had time to play one round before we had to go. Andrew had never played the game before so we explained the rules to him rather quickly and, for the sake of time, rather poorly at that.

Basically what we said was that the game is kind of like Balderdash, which we knew he could play because we played that on our second date in high school, but you have to think up an answer instead of a definition. One person has the real answer and everyone else just has something silly written on their card. You will know if you have the real answer or not.

Patrick read the question, which was something along the lines of, "How did the zipper get its name?" and then we passed around the cards, read them, and thought up our answers quickly.

I, thank goodness, was first in line and was able to give my brilliant answer that the word zipper is onomatopoeic. Zzzzzipper! Apparently I wasn't the only one who thought that was the answer because a serious of groans sounded around our circle.

"What if she said my answer?" Asked Garion.

"You have to make up something new to say," we answered.

"And what if my answer was the right one?"

"You have to make up something new to say anyway and then when we vote, you'll still put the black piece in your hand, but will also vote for the person who gave the right answer."

Andrew was next.

"Zippers make a zipping sound when they go up and down," he said.

"That's what I said," I said.

"You said 'Onomatopoeic,'" said Patrick.

"Onomatopoeic means that the word sounds like the noise it makes," I said.

"I know," said Andrew, "But you took my answer."

"Then think something else up," I said. He looked really nervous so I whispered a lie to him, "It's the initials of the inventor. Z.I.P."

"It's the, uh, initials of the inventor. Z.I.P. Zachary Ichabod Peterson."

We continued around the circle with everyone giving their made-up answers. When it came time to vote we reminded everyone how to do it. You vote for the person who you think gave the right answer, unless you had the right answer. Then you vote for yourself. If someone gave the right answer before you could you vote for yourself and that person.

On the count of three we all showed who we had voted for. Almost everyone voted for me. But no one had the right answer, apparently.

"Who had the right answer?" we asked.

Since everyone knew how to play the game except Andrew, we all turned on him. I grabbed his card. He had the right answer.

"Why didn't you vote for yourself?" we asked.

"I didn't know I had the right answer," he said.

"But your card had the answer on it," we said.

"But so did everyone else's," he defended himself.

I showed him my card that read, "Bluff your way out of this one."

"Oh," he said quietly.

He had voted for David who gave some elaborate schpeal about the zipper being a German word. He threw in a whole bunch of dates and things like that to sound official. Everyone else knew it was bogus. Except for Andrew.

He had the right answer and knew I gave the right answer and didn't vote for me, when almost everyone did.

We had a good laugh over that. Andrew was more than happy to excuse himself after that round.

He did redeem himself in my eyes, though, by fixing the bathroom sink with a Zip-it. Our sink has been irreparably clogged for quite some time. We had recently used up the last of our Liquid Plummer or Drain-o or whatever it is that we use and it did no good whatsoever. So we were complaining about it when we went to dinner at Andrew's parents' house sometime a few weeks ago.

Aunt Nicki was there and said that she had found these things in Target that you just shove down the drain and pull it up and all the icky gunk comes with it.

So on Tuesday Andrew asked us to stop by Target on our way home from the library to see if we could find one.

I walked straight to the bathroom/laundry/cleaners aisle and looked up and down every shelf. I couldn't find anything like it. I didn't want to ask a sales clerk because I didn't really know what I was looking for myself. Instead I thought back to that conversation.

"I found it in the back of the store by the..." I can hear Aunt Nicki saying and then everything goes black.

"In the back of the store by the... That's not a very helpful memory," I told myself replaying the memory over and over again, trying to dig deeper for more information. It didn't work.

Eventually we just gave up and went home.

Later, in desperation, we took a trip to Wal-Mart and walked up and down the aisles there. We found nothing.

"Where did Aunt Nicki say it was?" Andrew asked me.

"In the back of the store by the..." I said.

"The what?" he asked.

"That's all I've got."

"Maybe plumming?" he suggested, "That's at the back of the store."

So we walked back to the home improvement section, looking up and down each aisle. And there it was, in the back of the store by the plumming stuff.

Come to think of it, I think that's what Aunt Nicki had said in the first place.

We bought one and Andrew volunteered to do it. You know how guys are when they get those manly urges and they just have to kill something...fix things...cook outdoors...

Let me tell you, these Zip-it! things work. And I'm so glad Andrew was the one to use it and not me because we found something similar to what the lady found in this video in our sink.

So now our sink is draining nicely. Zip-a-dee-doo-dah!