Trivial Memories

Last night, I had one of those really rare moments.
A pleasant memory involving ATM.

It was one of those holidays when we were all together, that meant a game of Trivial Pursuit was the law. During the game ATM got the question,
‘who was the fourth Marx Brother?’
A few people did that staring off in to space thing then said,
‘got it’.
You know damn well they haven’t.
Then there are those who will try and act it out.
ATM started whining about it being too noisy to think and if we shut up she’d get it.

I feel it pertinent to add, ATM is very competitive and this was for a pink cheese.
Silence descended with faces being pulled and nods towards Herself.
In that mimed, ‘Ooooh, get her’, way.
Then someone thought it might be good to poke the angry, menopausal lioness.
‘Is there a time limit?’
‘Shut the fuck up! I nearly had it then! See, this is not fair, it’s badgering! You badgered it out of my mind’
My Grandfather, whom we all presumed was asleep said,
‘Is that watching people have sex in their car?’
My sister chuckled and in full Pompey mode said,
‘Weeeee! Bless ‘im! No Pampam, that’s dogging’.
‘Shut up, shut up, shut up,’ chanted ATM.
Fortunately, Cannabis Sativa had rendered me impervious to my family’s madness and I repeated the question to ATM.
We then had a good three minutes of her mouthing the question and the names of the Marx Brothers she knows to herself.
‘Where does the dog feature in all that?’ asked my Grandfather.
I was sucked in.
‘Where did you find out about dogging Pamps?’
‘Discovery Channel’.
I nodded like this was perfectly normal conversation to have with an octogenarian.
My sister told me that the Uncles had hooked him up to NTL to keep him entertained.
“’ee’s got all the fucking porn channels!” she gleefully whispered to me.
We both looked at him, our beloved pissed up Pampam, back at each other and cracked up laughing.
He just looked up, smiled at us and carried on singing to himself.
I had never loved him more.
(That was our last Christmas with him)

ATM entered the righteous, ‘are we still playing this’, phase.
We piped down and started watching her as she thought.
“I can’t think with you all staring at me! It puts me off.”
My sister, emboldened by vodka, implores,
“Mother! Come on, for fuck’s sake! It’s not that hard, think of all the words that go with Marx.”
ATM’s frown smoothed and she started to smile
“I’ve got it! I’ve got it!”
“Tell us then!” said my sister.
Totally straight faced and without a hint of humour, she triumphantly answered,
“It’s Skid!”

My sister and I cried with laughter. Made all the funnier as ATM couldn’t understand what was amusing.

Sometimes, it’s good to remind myself that there were happy times.