Free Prisoner of Trebekistan: A Decade in Jeopardy! by Bob Harris Page A

I’m afraid I never will.
    Jane—the latest book in my personal testament—was probably terrific and smart and funny and kind before she was even born. So maybe this time, I said to myself, carrying each heavy box and bag.
    Maybe this time. Probably, even, if I had to write down my wager with an electronic pen. Let’s just hope nothing truly horrible happens to one of us.
    But I just said too much. I keep getting ahead of the story.
     
      
     

     
      
     
    There are now three large Hefty Cinch Saks sitting empty on the floor, covered in a large pile of notebooks and small slips of paper. I am tired, my throat is dry, and my clothes are covered in dust. Still, there is no record of my first attempt at the Jeopardy! test.
    However, I have managed to locate my copy of Speed Reading Made Easy. So if I can just find a box of nails and some wood, I can make a wine rack as a present for Matt.
    I’ve also stumbled across a large undated receipt from the J. H. Gilbert Company of Willoughby, Ohio. This piece of paper is particularly puzzling. I have no idea what this receipt is for. The letterhead offers some intriguing, even lurid, hints:
     
     
     
    INDUSTRIAL GLOVES FOR EVERY NEED SAFETY EQUIPMENT, RUBBER CLOTHING, FOOTWEAR
     
     
     
     
    For some reason, my eye keeps fixing on the words “rubber clothing.” And apparently I once spent almost a hundred dollars there.
    I find myself curious.
    You’re probably scanning through the same set of delicious possibilities that I am right now. But here’s the thing: I really don’t know, and it’s me that we’re talking about. I was on the road for a long time, and it’s gently surprising that I never woke up with inexplicable tattoos promising the secrets of my identity.
    What the hell was I doing? How many people were involved? Did we scrub thoroughly afterward?
     
     
     
    In the proposal that led to the book you’re now reading—facilitated by a fellow Jeopardy! contestant named Arthur Phillips, whom you’ll soon meet in the green room as an intense young fellow able to send heat rays through his forehead—this chapter wasn’t originally about THINGS TO DO IN A CATSUIT. It was outlined as a creativity and lateral-thinking exercise, fleshing out the fun memory techniques we’ll need so I can go all Jimmy Neutron in another thirty pages or so.
    Looking at the outline, though, a whole separate chapter was supposed to delve into my own life history, so you’ll care more about what happens later. But we need a focus and examples for our memory exercise anyway, and so—if only because I’m extremely curious now about this receipt, and giggling childishly at the idea of seeing my whole life through the lens of the word rubber —let’s have a little fun here, open up a tin of madeleines, and play with everything all at once.
    This way, we’ll not only encounter exotic maladies, third-world dictatorships, and lovers who flee to South America, but with any real luck, maybe we’ll even track down some embarrassing rubber knickers with frilly bits of lace on the side and a thank-you note from the Turkish navy.
    I wonder if I’ve had a more interesting life than I realized.
     
     
     
    Close the book, get out a piece of paper, and see how many free associations you can come up with which directly involve the word rubber. To keep this brief, let’s insist that the word itself has to be in a short phrase: “rubber this” or “this-that-and-the-other rubber.”
    Don’t stop the first time you run out of ideas. Poke around. If you get stuck, change the sense you’re thinking with. If you’re thinking visually, start thinking with your nose, and then your ears. If you’re thinking with your sense of touch, start working with taste and sight.
    Take your time. I’ll make my own list while you’re gone. That will be preferable to cleaning up the mess I just made.
     
      
     

     
      
     
    Welcome back. Here’s the list I came up with.
     
     
     
Rubber