Wheel of F_rt_ne

Luckily, Alan’s grant will be submitted next week, so my lonely nights should soon be ending. Or getting a little less lonely, anway. Our nights right now consist of Alan coming home at about 6:30, eating dinner, watching Jeopardy! and Wheel of Fortune, and then Alan heading back up to work. Sounds dorky and boring, I know. But these shows have become the highlight of the night and have given us many laughs over the past week or so.

First, Jeopardy! has been the celebrity version for the past week, which means: Much easier! We spit out answers left and right and feel really smart. We pretend it’s the real version.

But Wheel of Fortune is where the fun begins. A few weeks ago on Friends Week the puzzle was:
All you can eat tac_ bar

Two minds are better than one, so the friends opt to solve the puzzle…and can’t get it! It came out as “All you can eat taaaaacccc bar!” Too funny. (If you still haven’t guessed: Taco. Taco, people!)

Now, when solving Wheel of Fortune puzzles at home, it’s common to shout out guesses in the hopes of getting it right. Which is what Alan does. But on some occasions, I know that his shout-out is what he really thinks is the correct answer. The clue:
__tter_ups

In his most amazing guess ever, Alan shouts, with conviction: OTTERPUPS! Oh. Of course. Otterpups. As in offspring of otters. That’s right. Because we all know about lioncubs and humanbabies and such.

The answer is actually “buttercups.” I hardly got any glory for guessing, but that was only because I couldn’t stop crying, I was laughing so hard at OTTERPUPS!

And because you’re in a hurry to guess, you don’t always get to put a lot of thought into your guess. In this clue, Alan and I both made terrible guesses. Category: Living Thing

Fini__y
_a_s

I yell, “Finicky Lass!” while Alan shouts, “Finicky Mass!” while the guy on the show yells, “Finicky Cats!” which of course makes way more sense than our guesses. I didn’t realize that the second “s” in lass should have been up there if that was right; Alan’s scientific rationalization that “mass” could be a living blob of some sort; why it would be finicky, only Alan knows. We obviously aren’t that great at Wheel of Fortune. I guess that’s why we’re at home, not at the wheel, winning thousands of dollars.