“Expletive Deleted!”

“Redacted!”

“Chevy Chase! Wait! No! That was Gerry Ford”

The buzzer sounded, sighs sighed and shoulders slumped. We had lost a round of Verboten. Again.

I couldn’t say:

Tricky Dick
Watergate
I am not a crook
Impeached
President

“Sucks to be you,” Henry added to the silent denunciations my own mind was telling me.

“Sucks to be us,” I corrected.

Henry and I had been losing to his wife and sister-in-law at Verboten every other Saturday night for about 2 months now and it never got old.

You see, Henry’s lovely wife Janet had hired me to kill him and my research period was just about up.

I clapped Henry hard on the back just between the shoulder blades and went to the fridge for a beer while Henry cleared his throat and tried to act like my chop hadn’t bothered him at all. It was a put-on he failed to pull off and the two women snickered at my conquest.

I cracked a smile over the door of the fridge, offering a beer to Hank as well, which he begrudgingly yet happily accepted.