So Glad You Asked

Can I post about World Trivia Night tonight, Finola asks? Why yes, Finola, yes I can. Do you mind if I smother you in kisses for the suggestion? No? Just a firm handshake then? Sorry - I moved furniture in Eve's room all afternoon and then had to ingest a hefty dose of robaxa-something-or-other containing codeine.

Lynn, aka Turtlehead, posted something on her blog two years ago almost to the day, something about buying Pringles for trivia night and did anyone want to join her? I commented on her blog that I would be right over, thinking that she meant trivia night at her house or a local bar and also thinking I was just being silly commenting on a blog post, not actually inviting myself to her trivia night. As it turned out, she was talking about World Trivia Night, which takes place in the Aberdeen Pavilion at Lansdowne Park every year, and her team had a vacancy. Since I was experiencing a fortuitous convergence of two fairly rare circumstances, i.e. my husband was in the country and I was actually not feeling too ugly/socially backward/hermitish to venture out of the house to join people I had never met before, I swallowed hard and said yes, thank you very much, see you tomorrow night.

My husband, who is usually all for me being less weird and hermitish, took a fair bit of convincing that I was not going to be found dead in an alley, which if you've ever met Lynn is quite amusing (although she can be deadly serious about her trivia). I also met Julie that night, which did great things for both my ability to divest myself of various Spiderman accessories, my love of dancing to eighties music and my ever-lessening fear of Montreal. Plus she can really rock a version of Voulez-vous consisting entirely of the words Voulez-vous and some incredible hip action.

It's a crazy scene inside the pavilion. There are more than 170 teams of 10, set up in rows of tables. Some of the teams keep their tables depressingly bare except for paper and pencils. Our team does trivia as trivia is meant to be done - under layers and layers of salt, sugar, saturated fat and cocoa butter, unbesmirched by anything that smacks of vegetableness. Peter, Lynn's friend who really anchors the team, runs on a steady fuel of chocolate Cheerios and always bemoans the fact that he's not bulimic at least once during the night. In the car name category, we were totally stumped on a Pontiac model that was also the name of Utah salt flats and a Speedway; we were about to submit Sunfire even though we knew it was wrong, and he coughed up Bonneville with milliseconds to spare.

I never cover myself with glory, although I do consume empty calories very efficiently. If there's a book question no one else knows I might come in useful, but other than that.... it's weird, too, because it's not like my head is crammed with IMPORTANT stuff. You'd think I'd be a veritable compendium of Persian diamond names, French military victories, Latin flower nomenclature and Bristol Palin's baby's name (okay, that one I actually did know, but we second-guessed ourselves and got it wrong). But I'm not. I'm the worst at sports. And geography. Guess what? There was a SPORTS GEOGRAPHY category. Awesome - could I get a liver and dijon mustard milkshake with that? (Liver and dijon mustard both make me gag, if that wasn't clear).

Two years ago we got 85 out of 100 (the questions come in 10 groups of 10). Last year we got 87. This year we got 84 - Lynn was not pleased. She threatened to start bringing healthy snacks unless we all promise to shape up. This from the woman who COULD have brought us up to 85 if she hadn't been too TIRED to watch Captain America the night before, thus learning which fictional element comprises his shield (Vibranium - isn't that a stupid fictional element name? I think it's stupid). That's okay - I'm in it for the pop rocks high and the pleasure of hearing Stuntman Stu cheerfully mispronounce a good forty percent of the answers.

Previous WTN posts here and here.

Comments

Finola said…
Aw, you can smother me with kisses any time. I'll bring the Pringles.

And how did you whip off that post so fast? I only commented a short while ago. No wonder you are rocking this Nano thingy.
Lynn said…
I'm so disappointed with myself for the Captain America fiasco. I feel I can never actually watch the movie now for fear of horror flashbacks and the like. It'll be blacklisted forever!

You ROCKED the book category. You are our secret library-style weapon. You are a literary NINJA.

(Oooooh, that calls for a t-shirt.)

As for Sports Geography...next year we will use that time to hit the bar :).
Pam said…
Literary Ninja! Perfect nick namefor you.
Empty calories and a pavillion full of useless knowledge sounds like a recipe for awesome.
Give Owen a coiple of years and he would blast the Sports Geography questions into smitherines.
Mary Lynn said…
Awesome, awesome overview of World Trivia Night. Makes me feel like I was there again. I think that it's theonly place where I would ever even consider eating Chocolate Cheerios.
Julie said…
what kind of questions came up in sports geography??

hopefully i can come back next year.

i love that you still link to my blog even though it's under dust covers.
Amy said…
We missed WTN this year, for the first time in four or five years. That's what happens when two of the couples in the team have babies and another one is planning a wedding I guess.
We would have killed in sports geography too.
This sounds awesome. I'm fairly certain that entire room contains kindred spirits. I should fly in next year.
StephLove said…
Sounds like fun. If there was an herb latin nomenclature category I'd be golden, as I have been writing about a series of herbs for work.

Popular posts from this blog

Clothes Make the Blog Post

Books Read in 2021: Four-Star YA Horror

Mean Spirits