Anne and Tom are not welcome here

I have been awarded the Monkey Totem, a small idol carved from the husk of a coconut. It sits near me wearing a black pair of wire-rimmed glasses, hands clasped to its ears in homage to Edvard Munch's most famous painting. It mocks my failure.

I lost at Book Lover's Trivial Pursuit.

Our Memorial Day celebration was extended to our small but faithful circle of friends: Shank & the Collatress, Eeyore & Willa and their brood, and MamaJ. Due to circumstances beyond their control, only Shank was able to make it. We plied him with steaks, chicken, an assortment of salads, drinks, and a key lime dessert concoction. Then, sated, he issued the challenge.

"How 'bout we play a board game?"

SO groaned and gracefully declined. That left two highly competitive uber-librarians to pit their knowledge, skill and recall in a fight to the death.

I started strong, quickly grabbing three pieces of the pie. I was throwing out random literary nuggets from the likes of Dickens, Melville, and Poe. After having lost the last 3 Scrabble games to Shank and his lovely wife, it was rewarding to see the sweat break out upon his noble brow. Sport hovered nearby, offering to roll the dice. "I'm lucky," he declared, slamming the dice onto the board and halfway across the room.

Then, the kiss of death. I got too cocky. Perhaps I was distracted by the soccer game SO was watching and the lean, muscular thighs of the Westbrom goalie, but when asked to name the author of the popular novels featuring a Southern vampire, I completely blanked out.

"Anne somebody. Tom Cruise was in the movie. Vampire Lestat..." I stuttered. I knew it wasn't Ann Rule, but I couldn't see through the mist in my mind. What was her last name?

Time passed. More pieces of the pie were won until we were both neck and neck. Back in the center of the hub, he hit me with non-fiction questions while I parried with kid lit. Then, the nail in the coffin:

"What popular fiction writer wrote a non-fiction book about a submarine?"

"Aaah, Harrison Ford was in that movie. Patriot Games. He wears sunglasses..." Again, I choked. What was my problem? Am I such a literary snob I erase these popular authors from my very subconscious?

Shank won by recalling the title of my favorite Jon Scieszcka children's story, The Stinky Cheese Man.

The Monkey Totem sits here, and I swear his eyes are sad rather than malevolent. He knows it's only a matter of time before I'm checking into the Alzheimer's Longterm Patient Care Center down the street. And he's coming with me -- so I can use him to bludgeon the next person who asks me to play another boardgame.