Thursday, November 26, 2020

Flabbergasted

It happened again tonight and I was, as usual, that word up there in the title of this post.

But what made it even more unusual than it usually is was that it happened not once, not twice, but three times within 30 minutes.

I don't know what you may be thinking, but I'm talking about those heretofore rare occasions when I know an answer on Jeopardy! but no contestant does.

The answers I knew tonight, which are phrased in the form of a question as the program's rules require, were:

What is Kennebunkport?
What is a fetlock? and
What is Dog, The Bounty Hunter?

My mother, a very wise woman, had a saying for occasions such as this one.

Here it is:

Don't break your arm patting yourself on the back.

I wonder why I am flabbergasted when I know something someone else doesn't, but I am not flabbergasted when I don't know something someone else does.

In closing, and it may help shed some light on why I am the way I am, here's a question my father liked to ask: What can go up the chimney down but can't go down the chimney up?

12 comments:

  1. The answer to your father's question? An umbrella.
    I spend a lot of my life flabberghasted. Also gobsmacked.

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    1. Sue, I knew the answer to the riddle, having heard it since childhood. I just wanted to find out which of my readers knew it too. And if they didn’t know the answer, I would have been — what else? — flabbergasted,

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  2. Very good on your Jeopardy answers! Your a smart guy. I know the first and third questions but I had to look up fetlock. I like your Father's question.

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    1. Bonnie, for Kennebunkport, the category was Maine and the clue mentioned the George H.W. Bush family’s summer home. Fetlock was a visual clue, a painting of a horse’s hoof and lower leg. The clue for Dog, The Bounty Hunter included his name, Dwayne Chapman. I thought the answers were obvious. Well, maybe not fetlock.

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  3. I like that expression - noted and awaiting an appropriate occasion in this household.

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  4. Drat! Elephant's Child got there before me! The answer is indeed an umbrella. As for your mother's saying, "Don't break your arm patting yourself on the back" - it made me chuckle and I will remember that one - even though I have course have never suffered a broken arm!

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    1. Neil, I think I broke my right forearm (whether ulna or radius or both, I can’t remember) when I was in the fourth grade. It wasn’t from patting myself on the back, though. I say “I think” because I can’t remember whether the doctor put on a cast or a sling. I know I missed playing in Mrs. Alyne Eagan’s annual student piano recital that year. My mind seems to come and go. I am, naturally, flabbergasted.

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  5. Good for you! You should be on Jeopardy!
    I'm going to miss Alex Trebeck.
    I have heard of Kennebunkport and Dog the Bounty hunter, but I only knew that fetlock was part of a horse. I wasn't sure which part. So thanks for expanding my knowledge today.
    I like your Dad's riddle too.

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  6. Kathy, I almost was on Jeopardy! back around 2004-2005. I passed their auditions here in Atlanta but never got called up to go out to California.



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  7. Once at my parents' house I guessed the final answer (whatever it's called) on Wheel Of Fortune before any letters were shown. The correct answer was Lucille Ball. And I have witnesses.

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  8. Emma, I looked it up just now. The final answer on Wheel Of Fortune is called the Bonus Round. I wonder whether Lucille Ball was under the category of Person or Event.

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<b>Always true to you, darlin’, in my fashion</b>

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