The Twenty Questions Stumper

I loved the game Twenty Questions from when I was a child.  I played it up through college even when we were on long car rides.  It's the typical, "I'll think of something and you have twenty yes/no questions you can ask me to try and determine what I'm thinking of."

For our rules, the thing you selected must be either a Person, a Place or a Thing.  Over the years I got very good at narrowing things down quickly.  Two of my personal favorite questions are: "is it bigger than a breadbox?" and "can you buy it at Wal*Mart?"

In general, we never counted questions.  You were in it until you figured out the item or gave up.  I thought of the game Twenty Questions today for a very specific reason: a smell.  If you've ever played the game, you're sure to remember that one thing that was so clever you couldn't figure it out.  You were probably assured you knew exactly what this thing was, but you didn't believe them.  I have several things that happened to me like that, but I remember this one in particular.

I had narrowed it down to a flower.  It was a flower that had small flowers and it was a flower I definitely knew the name of.  What color were the flowers?  They were yellow.  And they were also white.  No, it wasn't a bulb.  It was a bush.  I was lost.  I had no idea of any bush that had both yellow and white small flowers at the same time that also had a smell.

The answer (for those that don't know what it could be) was honeysuckle.  When I heard the answer I did the proverbial head slap.  I love the smell and spent lots of time eating that one tiny drop of dew from each flower as a child.  So to this day when I smell the delightful smell of spring honeysuckle, it makes me want to play twenty questions again.

The Big Boy Update:  12346679.   That's the numbers up to ten I found out today.  He was very clear on there being two sixes in a row. 

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  "Ba ba ba ba ba ba ba."  Imagine that to the tune of Twinkle Twinkle Little Star and then repeat forty-odd times.  Now you have an idea of what I heard on the way to school as my daughter rode on the back of my bicycle in her child seat for the six miles to school.  From time to time I would sing the words with her and it turns out she knows many of them and will sing along with you.  But left to her solo singing, she always reverted back to the ba ba's.

Fitness Update:  Today turned into an unexpectedly long workout day.  First, I ran with my neighbor.  We haven't run in several weeks as I've been concerned about shin splints.  Good news on that front is there is zero pain and I think I'm back and ready to run.   After breakfast daddy and I biked the children to school.  It's a little less than six miles there and it was a fun time.  It was less fun when I blew my tire more than a mile before I got home.  Then, this afternoon Uncle Jonathan wanted to try out the new fitness room at our clubhouse.  Before we knew it we'd been trying out machines and over an hour had gone by.  I'm tired.  So is daddy.  He biked a total of seventeen miles today and went to the gym. 

Someone Once Said:  If you grab a bull by the horns, you at least confuse him.