The Game

     "Any thoughts about the Great Horned Owl?"

    It was one of those questions, his daily effort . . . or impulse . . . to get a rise out of her, to start the day off with curiosity for the natural world he claimed, but she knew, from long experience, the goal was to emphasize her ignorance, or, perhaps, her inability to care all that much.

    "No," she said this time, and repeated what she always said when he asked her thoughts on the so- called natural world. "We live in a condo."

    "But where is the condo?"

    "In Minneapolis, the city of Minneapolis."

    "And where is Minneapolis?"

    At first she was sucked in to answering the endless and, now predictable, stream of questions that sounded mildly challenging at first blush, then expanded from the challenging to the impossible and, finally, to the ridiculous.

    But she was done with playing the game, his game. Finished.  She had ignored him for three days, but once he was in the grip of his endless persistence, he broke her resolve every time.

    "So, where is Minneapolis, if not in the natural world?"

    "It's a city! Steel and brick buildings,  paved streets."

    "Which aren't natural?"

    "They're manufactured, constructed. Trees are natural! Grass is natural!"

    "Oh, so no trees in Minneapolis?"

    Bait and switch, reverse in midstream, his dependable tactic in the daily game . . . she assumed it was a game . . . they'd been playing too long to stop now

    So there was no way to stop it unless . . . unless she asked the next question, anticipated the barrage of objections that would follow her half-hearted attempt to out-play him with her wit, with her quick repartee, to throw out something more ridiculous, with less connection or relevance to the harmless statement that set the whole thing in motion.

    "Any thoughts about the Great Horned Owl," he said, again, as she knew he would.

    "Yes, of course I do," she said. "They taste best over ice cream, one scoop of vanilla, or chocolate if you have it. One scoop only with finely chopped Owl," she said slowly to  emphasize the validity of her response, and to appreciate his sudden silence, his slow response which gave her time to bag up the compost, drop it in the compost bin, step around him, and drive off into the sunset, a winner at last.