Confession #1.

I am a cheater.

No, not that kind of cheater. Get your mind out of the gutter.

CPT Dick and I play a lot of board games. One of our favorite games to play is Trivial Pursuit, as whomever wins usually spends the rest of the day lording how smart he or she is over the other one. It is verbal foreplay at its best.

Neither of us is very crazy about the later versions of the game. The questions are a bit too pop culture for our taste. But we just got the newest version as a gift and decided to give it a go.

We were neck and neck in the game. And for whatever reason, CPT Dick kept getting these serious meatball questions. For instance:

• What 1995 Alicia Silverstone movie is credited with helping popularize the phrase, "As if?"
• What "soldier's newspaper" did Ulysses Grant's troops launch in 1861, after finding the offices of the Bloomfield Herald abandoned?
• What Star Trek collective warns: "Prepare to be assimilated...resistance is futile?"
• Who made his bride jump on 10 foot crocodiles, on their 1992 honeymoon in North Queensland?

The answers, of course, are Clueless, Stars and Stripes, the Borg and Steve Irwin, respectively. And take special note of the last question because my husband answered it as "The Crocodile Hunter." And even though it was a piece of the pie, I gave it to him.

And me? I got questions like:

• What national has the highest incidence of kuru, a disease spread by eating human brains? (Papua New Guinea)
• Who moved across the bay to Oakland in 2001, to keep catching footballs? (Jerry Rice)
• What rodent flavors Phillippe Parola's award winning recipe for Ragondin Salid? (Nutria)
• What U.S. painter famously mistook Peggy Guggenheim's fireplace for a urinal during a cocktail party? (Jackson Pollack)

Flash forward a few turns and I get the following question, also for a piece of pie:

• What uniquely titled magazine did Gene Simmons unfurl in 2002?

I replied, "Tongue." But since the back of the card said, "Gene Simmons Tongue," he wouldn't give it to me. And then he went on to mock me for other questions he knew and I didn't. I started to get really annoyed.

So when he was up for his final piece of the pie, the question was "What talk show host reveals what famous folks' offspring might look like in segments called "If They Mated?"

There was no way I was giving that one to him. He loves Conan O'Brien and would have gotten it in a second. So I cheated. I read the next question down instead: "What gubernatorial candidate canvassed Florida in a trademark red Ford pickup?"

He didn't get Janet Reno. I went on to win the game.

So I confess, for the first time ever, I cheated. But it was a hollow victory and I don't imagine I'll do it again. After all, I'm sure I would have kicked his ass anyway.