Trivia

There is a bar about three blocks from my apartment building. For the purposes of this blog post, I’ll call it…. Johnny Blue’s. It’s a sports bar, and therefore not really my scene. Yet when I walk in on a Wednesday night, the hostess looks at me, flicks her head toward the back, and says, “They’re back there.” Yes, I have become a regular at a sports bar. However, it’s not because I have any interest whatsoever in sports. It’s because Wednesday night is trivia night at Johnny Blue’s.

A number of things might suggest that I am good at winning trivia contests. I’ve always been an academic achiever, and at the risk of sounding conceited, I’ll say that the term “smart” has oft been applied to me over the course of my life. My team and I have been going to trivia night almost every week for about a year, which may also suggest that we have some level of success to bring us back.

But the truth is, we seldom win. I, personally, am definitely not a big asset. I know nothing about sports and only a tiny sliver of stuff about popular music. World history? Geography? Anything beyond basic science? Forget it! (I can throw down in categories about musicals, Harry Potter, and math, but wouldn’t you know it? Those categories don’t come up very often.) It doesn’t help that we’re not a particularly well-rounded team, either. Mostly, we have the same interests and strengths. We also have a really bad habit of building up a decent score and then blowing everything on the final question. We did win last week, but that was only because no one got the final question right and we bet the fewest points. Success through failure, as it were.

So, it’s not the winnings that keep us coming back. So what does? It isn’t really about the trivia, folks – at least not for me. I keep coming back because it’s so. Freaking. Funny. I don’t think there’s anything that makes me laugh more than a trivia night with my team.

To give you a sense of what trivia night is like with my friends, I present to you the following eight scenes from our table at Johnny Blue’s. To protect the innocent, I will not attribute any utterances to specific team members except when I occasionally admit I was the one saying stupid things. The others know who they are.

Scene 1:

We have just been asked, “Three movies on which Robin Williams is credited have earned more than $200 million at the domestic box office alone. Name two of them.”

“Aladdin. Definitely. But what else?”

“Good Will Hunting?”

“No, that’s too obscene. It’s probably stuff that’s more family friendly. That way anyone goes to see it and it earns more.”

“That makes sense. What about Night at the Museum?”

Me: “No, that’s can’t be it.”

Them: “Why?”

Me: “That is a stupid movie. It can’t be that popular.”

Them: “I really think it is.”

(I concede and turn in Aladdin and Night at the Museum. They turn out to be correct answers, along with Mrs. Doubtfire.)

Them: “See?”

Me: “Yeah, yeah. I forgot that America is stupid.”

Scene 2:

We have just been asked, “In what east coast city was Bell Telephone Company founded?”

“I have no idea. What are some east coast cities? Boston?”

“Yeah. What else? Philadelphia?”

“I don’t really think of that as an east coast city.”

“Didn’t it become Bell Atlantic? What about Atlantic City?”

“Or Atlanta?”

“Again, not really an east coast city.”

“Right. OK, but I still think Philadelphia.”

“I’m just not convinced that’s east coast. Jersey’s in the way, right?”

“Oh! Jersey! Is it Jersey?”

“Ok, Jersey is not even a city. I guess I’ll settle for answering Philadelphia.”

(The correct answer is Boston. First instincts: never trusted, almost always right.)

Scene 3:

We have just been asked, “What artist sang Mambo #5?”

We knew the answer to this one was Lou Bega, so we used the deliberation time to draw all the women named in the song on our answer sheet in hopes of getting a bonus point. Not only did we get one, but we were featured on the host’s facebook page as the drawing of the week! Holla!

Scene 4:

We have just been asked to look at a series of photos and tell whether each of the men pictured had ever been the President of the United States.

“These are all old white men. Who can tell the difference? Sure, I guess this one is President Oatmeal.”

Scene 5:

(This one did not take place at Johnny Blue’s – it was too long ago – but it did include some of my current team members and it’s too funny to leave out.) We have just been asked, “What is the common street name of the drug psilocybin?”

“Um, I have no idea. Which one is smack?”

“I thought that was cocaine. Wait, are crack and smack the same?”

“What about X? Isn’t there an X?”

“Yeah, but there’s also like C and D, right?”

“Oh, yeah. I think they sing about those in RENT. Let’s think about RENT lyrics.”

(The correct answer, by the way, is mushrooms. And no, we did not get that right.)

Scene 6:

We have just been asked, “Damascus is the capital of what Middle Eastern country?”

“Jordan. I think it’s Jordan.”

“Yeah, me too. That’s what I was thinking.”

“Wait, what if it’s Syria? Could it be Syria?”

“Nah, if it were in Syria we would be hearing about it on the news and know for sure.”

“Yeah, that’s true. Ok, let’s go with Jordan.”

Host: “Damascus is the capital of Syria.”

Us: “Oh. Maybe we should start watching the news.”

Scene 7:

We have just been asked to guess the names of bands based on rebuses. One of the rebuses shows hands counting 1, 2, 3, 4 and a set of black birds.

“NUMBER BIRDS!”

(short silence)

“Um, I think it’s Counting Crows. Is Number Birds a band?”

“No. No. Sorry, I just got excited.”

Scene 8:

We have just been asked, “What author published The Cuckoo’s Calling under the pen name Robert Galbraith?”

(We have no idea and so start thinking about what we could submit as a funny incorrect answer that might get us a bonus point.)

“How about Shakespeare?”

“Or Justin Bieber. Justin Bieber is always funny.”

“Agatha Christie.”

“How about J.K. Rowling?”

“Ha! Yes! J.K. Rowling! Harry Potter is the answer to everything!”

(We turn in J.K. Rowling.)

Host: “The correct answer is J.K. Rowling.”

Us: “Ha ha. Nice try.”

Host: “Really.”

Us: “Oh.” (pause) “Best backfired attempt to be funny EVER!”

I know these scenes are not nearly as funny to everyone else (except maybe my teammates) as they are to me. Writing them down does not do them justice, even for me. But still, I’m glad I took the time to write some of them down, because they are absolutely, without a doubt, some of my favorite memories.

When I first moved to Chicago, I came kind of kicking and screaming. The idea of living in a big city, not knowing anyone, scared me. However, once I settled in to life here, I started to have some hopes for my future that living in the city made possible. In particular, I hoped one day I’d have a group of friends that I would meet for mimosa brunches and fancy drinks at bars, a la Sex and the City. I understand now that I’ll probably never have the means to be quite so fancy as Carrie and the gang, but every time the Johnny Blue’s hostess cocks her head and says, “They’re back there,” I know I’ve gotten the most important parts of what I was really searching for. I have friends that meet me out once a week to laugh, commiserate, and just generally enjoy each other’s company.

As I said in my last post, I’m not so thrilled to still be stuck in this place in my life. I want to move forward, or at least feel like it’s possible to move forward some day. But however long this part of my life lasts, and I’ll always remember trivia nights as the diamonds in one of my roughest patches. I’ll always be grateful to my teammates, who are the Samantha, Charlotte, and Miranda to my Carrie and have made one of my silly 22-year-old dreams a reality.

Thanks, girls. See you Wednesday.