The trip to the studio went surprisingly we all things considered. It had been a long time since anything reassembling a family vacation, so you expected your kids to be extra rowdy. Their surprisingly well-behaved nature was a great relief since your husband was only half mentally present during the process.
It felt wrong to be frustrated since part of the reason he'd been so busy these last few years was because of the complications from your second child's birth putting you out of work long enough to lose your job. Well officially you'd been "reassigned" to the office everyone new was a career killer during your medical leave, but it didn't make much difference.
Though was expecting him to leave his work phone at home really too much to ask?
"...and now we're excited to introduce you to our first contestant! Please come out and introduce yourself," came the voice of the Trials of Youth's host.
Being ushered onto the stage was enough to bring you back to the moment at hand. Suddenly in front of the surprisingly elaborate set for this probably sham game show, you felt nervousness replace your frustration.
"Uh...Hi I'm Danielle Richardson and I'm so excited to be here!" you say with as much forced enthusiasm as you can muster.
"That's what I like to hear," responds the host as he consults some cards in his hand, "Now let's help the audience learn a little bit about you. It looks like you are a 40 year old lawyer turn stay-at-home mother. I take it you brought your family here with you."
You've seen enough game shows to know what's expected of you now, "Oh yes. I brought my darling husband, Luke, my son, Calvin, and my daughter, Lily."
You watch as the camera pans over to the 3 of them. Luke thankfully was paying attention and waved with 8 year old Luke and 4 year old Lily.
"What a lovely family. And I'm sure they're excited to see mommy a bit closer to them in age over the course of our next few episodes."
You give a polite laugh. Yeah like that's actually going to happen. In any case he takes the opportunity to explain the "rules" of the show.
"So, it's pretty simple you are going to be given a challenge to complete based on suggestions from our audience at home. If you successfully complete the challenge, you will be offered a cash prize equal to $1,000,000 divided by your current age along with an age appropriate prize. Then you can accept or choose to continue playing. If you continue your age will be reduced by one quarter, rounded to the nearest exact year, and you'll have a day or two to prepare for your next challenge. But if you should fail, you're stuck at your current age with not even a consolation prize," the confidence in his matter-of-fact way of explaining the nonsensical premise is impressive,"And if you make it to 6 years old we'll start counting down one year at a time until you are bouncing 1 year old baby. Then you simply need to complete a final challenge to be awarded the full prize money along with the ability to pick both you and your husband's new ages."
Pulling out what looks like a normal laser pointer, he points the device at you and clicks it once, "Now you probably won't notice much difference yet, but you are now exactly 40 years old. Without further ado let's introduce you to your first challenge."