Another Tuesday night, another round of bar trivia. Our team captain is my friend Tony, who I have known for decades. He's thecouson of a high school classmate and he was the landlord of the Beach House Without an Ocean that a bunch of us lived in for a few years when we all moved out of our parents' homes. He's an electrician, but he's worked Asa network guy for a major financial institution for the past ten years. I always joke about how he paid his dues for years working in I heated construction sites and, on one brutal occasion, a sewage treatment plant.
A couple of weeks ago, he mentioned Tuesday Night Trivia to a woman who works in his place of employment. She and her friends weren't enchanted with the bar in which they played trivia, so she told Tony that she and her friends would come gunning for us. We had a seven week undefeated streak- when we were dethroned (I was in Brooklyn that week), the entire place went quiet, and my teammates went around congratulating everyone for a hard-fought effort. Gotta be a good sport. Last week, our newfound rivals showed up, but we regained first place. This week, they came with more players. It's interesting to have a rivalry, even if it's unsought.
UPDATE: Alright, here's where it gets weird... at the beginning of the match, the MC/quizmaster told us that there was a second team which had heard about us and wanted to take us down a peg. We beat them by one question for a first place finish. After the game, he introduced us to them, then said that they take trivia seriously. I replied, "We don't take it seriously, we're just a bunch of beer-guzzling nerds with complementary areas of expertise.
Driftglass and I LOVE trivia. It's our date night when there are special ones -- we don't belong to a weekly team, but our church team is exactly like yours -- DG and I can do political history and literature, but not sports. We've got a serious sports geek though so we're good. The one thing we cram for is OTD "On this Day" because those come up often. Looking up what happened on the day in history can give you an edge. Thanks for posting this and all your past kindness too.
ReplyDeleteWe have a sports guy, and our captain had to memorize all of the presidents while he was in school. I had to memorize the countries and capitals of South America and Africa while in the 7th grade. Every so often, the MC repeats a question- one favorite 'trick' question of his is 'what African country is Freetown the capital of?'- a lot of people guess 'Liberia', but the capital of Liberia is Monrovia.
ReplyDeleteThanks for posting this and all your past kindness too.
Right back at ya, you guys, along with Tengrain and rest of the C&L crew, are the patron saints of small bloggers. I do owe you two internet kitties, by the way.