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Tuesday, January 29, 2019

The In-law Trifecta

I didn’t know what a trifecta was until I met CSB, and he took me to the harness racing at the Windsor Fair in Maine. While we enjoyed fried dough and fried ice cream and fried cotton candy, he explained about exactas and trifectas, and how we could place bets on a horse to win, place, or show. It was all entirely new and wonderful, especially as it involved broadening my vocabulary. I chose horses based on how appealing I found their names. What else could I base it upon? Given the option, I would bet on Abstract Expression instead of Foiled Again, and I would lose. Or I would wager my $2 on Slippery Toad, and he would come in last, or maybe not at all.

So naturally, I knew what CSB was referring to when he pointed out that this past weekend he had survived a trifecta of my siblings: one sister; one sister-in-law, married to #1 brother; one brother (#3) and wife, and their daughter and fiancé. Not to mention a nephew, son of only sister.
He loves them all, but you have to admit, that’s a lot.

If we add in last night, it would be a tetrafecta, a word which thus far does not exist. But it is easy on the tongue, and certainly has more cachet than bifecta, which sounds like a very unfortunate sexual event, and also does not exist.

In gratitude for CSB’s gracious in-law trifecta, I have promised that this weekend I will do something Super Bowl-ish with him. I assume it will involve fried food, and placing my bet on the Surrealists of Cincinnattus.

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