The Christmas holidays are finally coming to a halt around here. Everyone is back in town and heading back to school and/or work. Glad to see my friends again.
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One of my childhood memories is of my parents playing Trivial Pursuit; sometimes with friends, other times by themselves. I imagine it in my mind to be the Original Edition — it was in a dark blue-green box and the board was quite elegant in it’s simplicity. Before I understood the game, I was always fascinated with the playing pieces and the pies that you got. It was very colorful, and I am usually attracted to colorful stuff. You know what they say about simple minds.
Later on, I got the gist of the game and enjoyed playing it myself. Steven and I got our own edition, the Millennium edition, a while back when I was still in college. It is an updated version with a shinier box and the board has pictures on it, but it’s the same game, more or less. It has been well-used.
Recently I spied the 90s Edition of Trivial Pursuit in the stores. I knew I would be superb at it. After all, that is my decade, the ten years I spent my teenage times and was becoming truly acquainted with the world. The news became fascinating — starting with the Gulf War — and my eyes drank it up off CNN’s channel. Movies became more than cartoons though I still could find time to read the comics. My reading material began to change from Beverly Cleary novels to bigger tomes. Fashion started to become important to my schoolmates, much to my horror. I know the 90s. It would be no sweat.
We got the opportunity to play the 90s edition game a few nights ago; Lisa got it for Christmas, lucky butt. My one gripe about the design were the player pieces — no longer simple pies but humongous plastic sculptures, each representing a bit of the decade. Ahh, but that is a trivial matter, really. I’m a purist when it comes to nostalgia. (The new My Little Ponies look like equine Barbie dolls, but that’s another story). Back to the game. All of us players had been teenagers in the 90s; I was ready for winning streaks of 14 right answers before something could trip any of us up. We were gonna rock, plastic pieces or no.
Apparently, I was asleep through the 90s and my mind tricked me into thinking I was actually paying attention. I could only answer the most basic of questions. I now realize I have no grasp of what was going on that decade and I wonder how I could have wasted ten years worrying about those silly things I know I fretted over.
When I was younger, I always wished I could hurry and grow up so I could see what was coming next, always waiting to see the bit of new that was approaching. Now I wish I could just go back in time a bit to catch up on my newspaper reading to see what I missed.