The Armchair Geographer

Guess who's out of school again on Friday! Yes. It's ME! Day 18.

Sweet Gummi Mary! It will be time to go back to school before we even get out! What about summer school? Can we count one day for all three? Let's choose August 5 as an example. Is that even a weekday? I'm too lazy to call up my BFF Google. We'll pretend it is. So we may not be out of regular school yet, and we need to squeeze in summer school, but the regular school year starts earlier and earlier each year. So can we count that day as a triple-dip, and earn funding for this year, summer school, and next year? Probably not.

I'm going to see if I can get T-Hoe out of the garage tomorrow. You know. If my clamped garage-door spring holds up. The snow is nothing to T-Hoe. He can get me to The Devil's Playground toot-sweet. That's an expression taught to me by my best old ex teaching buddy Mabel. She called me today. We had a spirited conversation that ended just in time for Jeopardy. It might as well have lasted longer, because Mrs. Hillbilly Mom was a blithering idiot today in those categories. Oh, and the Final Jeopardy category was: Countries of the World. YEAH! You just knew Mrs. Hillbilly Mom would be all over that question like Juno on a free-range chicken's egg. I said to The Pony, "Ha! How do you think I'll do? Wouldn't it be funny if the question was, 'This island country is separated from Europe by a channel of water that can be traversed by a tunnel train or boat, though some have attempted to swim it.'"

Here was the actual question: Once a poor British protectorate, in 2012, this peninsular country ranked as the world’s richest per capita.

Heh, heh. Ain't that a bite in the butt? Of course HM had an answer. It's no fun playing Jeopardy from your basement blue recliner if you don't try to answer. My answer was, "IBIZA! That's a peninsula, right? Ibiza! I don't know how I know, but that just popped into my head."

The Pony rolled his eyes. He would not even comment on the peninsula part. So I quickly switched my answer. "Saudi Arabia! That's it! I know it's a peninsula! Haven't you heard of the Arabian Peninsula?" Still, an eye roll from The Pony. Which kind of made me think I was not correct. Go figure! One so well-versed in geography such as myself.

Apparently, the contestants on hoity-toity 1980s-champion Jeopardy all had football coaches for their geography teachers, too. One said Bahrain. One said Singapore, scratched it out, and tried to write United Arab Emirates. One said Singapore. Uh huh. Since when did Singapore become a peninsula? Huh? Even Mrs. Hillbilly Mom knows Singapore is an island chain. Right? Right? And not all that rich.

Uh huh. I could be on Jeopardy if I wanted to.

Oh. The correct answer was Qatar. Who ever heard of THAT?