Playing by the Rules

by Beth

So before I tell you this story, I have to give you some background information.

1. Yesterday we began another round of nomination viewing.
2. There are only four of us in the tournament, because Gene is in France and Sally is doing homework.
3. John -- no surprise here -- messed up yet again in the nomination process, so that we all know which movie choice was his. (And because we each know our own choices, and we know each other so well, and there are only four of us playing, we have therefore easily deduced everyone's movie choice. Nice going, Daddy.)

Anyway, this morning Boggy told me that he actually liked John's movie choice, Absurdistan, which Poppy handed to John on a silver platter, no research required, in front of us all at Sunday Dinner, but never mind that. The fact that Boggy liked John's choice wasn't as surprising a revelation as it sounds, because you'll recall that Boggy is one of three open-minded players in the tournament. No, what surprised me was what he said in the next breath: "Now I don't know which movie to vote for."

Keep in mind #1 from above: we've only seen one movie in this round of nominations -- the aforementioned Absurdistan -- and there are two others that Boggs could vote for (mine and Lydia's). So I said, "You haven't seen the other movies yet!" And he said, "I can always tell ahead of time what movie I'm going to vote for." And I said, "That's not fair! I keep an open mind until we've seen them all, and I consider them together in my mind on the day of voting."

Whereupon I realized that there are no rules about how to formulate your opinion in this game, so he is technically playing by the rules. Whereupon I realized, with jokers like this, what an uphill battle nominating a winner actually is.