I accompanied my sister and her three children to Springfield yesterday for a swim meet and some last-weekend-before-Christmas shopping. As usual we tested the patience of her children as our mother tested ours, and when we were finally ready to hit the road home it was late. Big surprise. I tried to distract the tired and cranky youngin's with a lame travel game...you know the sort: I'm going to Christmas dinner and I'm bringing...an apple pie. Complete with the normal interruptions and the pace of playing with younger ones, this took a while. We were nearing the end of the old alphabet, had actually passed the xylophone lovely we insert because we never remember to look up more interesting alternatives when the six year old loudly announces: "This game sucks!". While Veronica was maturely instructing him to choose a nicer phrase in the future I was spewing my peppermint mocha all over myself. Why yes, Harrison, this game indeed sucks. And it took you the whole stinkin' alphabet to say so.