In a way, I guess I brought it on myself. Every year, my husband and his co-workers fill out their NCAA Tournament brackets with a lunch and bragging rights on the line for the person who manages to get closest to picking the winner. And every year, I scoff at this, because my husband doesn't watch any basketball that I've ever seen, and I find it a bit ridiculous to all of a sudden profess interest in the outcome of a bunch of games played by teams he doesn't follow or support.

Remember, I'm the one who goes - oh great, the Super Bowl is on! Let's make dip! Who's playing this year? I never claim to give a hoot who the winner is. Who dat? Indeed.

So anyway, part of my March Madness scoffing includes taunting that my kids could make better picks than he does, as he is typically knocked out very early and ends up buying people lunch. So this year, he brings how printouts of the brackets, and said it was time to prove it, or shut up about it. (No, he wasn't that rude.)

Of course, he waited until after a particularly late dinner, and I was just about to shepherd the kids off to bed. He slapped down these big ole sheets of paper in front of all of us at the table, and told us to start picking. He had taken the extra step of writing down the mascot for each team, and explained what we all had to do.

As I predicted the kids made their picks based on the funniest mascot, if they like the sound of the school's name or not, and possibly sheer whimsy. (Me too.) The seven-year-old used her fat pencil to write down only three picks, spelled hilariously and in giant letters. (All three were winners.)

Now, I know there is probably a science to all this, and I'm sure none of us will have picked the winner except by sheer dumb luck, but so far? The kids have called a few upsets and overall, we're doing a bit better than my husband.

Remains to be seen how all this plays out, but so far, it has been a riot. Go whoever!