Once Upon A Trivia Night

My career as a trivia night attendee was cut short by the music incident.

Years ago, my buddy Randy and I went to a trivia night that was a fundraiser for a friend’s daughter’s dance studio.

At this event, the lucky table with the most points was going to take home $200.  For most of the evening, it looked like our table was going to be the lucky table.  We were consistently 2 or 3 points ahead of the table next to us.  

Our friend stopped by our table and pointed out that the owners of the dance studio were seated at the competing table.  I scrutinized the owners and their tablemates; they looked rather old.

We stayed ahead of this table until the music round.  The trivia master played the opening ten seconds of a bunch of rock songs.  At the end of the round, the scoreboard showed that the owners table had zoomed ahead of us. 

No way!  The owners just did not look like the type of people who listened to rock music, much less could identify a rock song within ten seconds.  It dawned on me: the event had been rigged so that the $200 first prize, as well as the rest of the proceeds of the evening, fell into the hands of the owners of the dance studio. 

The trivia night music incident left a bitter taste in my mouth.  It was many years before we went to another trivia night.

Then we attended a trivia night fundraiser for a high school soccer team.  It proved to be a nice event – I enjoyed eating, drinking, castigating the table for not listening to me when I knew the correct answer, and really castigating the table for listening to me when I had the wrong answer.

Next trivia night was a fundraiser for Stray Rescue.  Lots of eating, drinking, and castigating.  The last round of questions was a grab-bag; the final question was: what is the hottest pepper on the Scoville chart?  Our friends Brian and Liesa lit up – “We have a copy of the Scoville chart hanging in our kitchen.  The hottest pepper is a ghost pepper”.

We put down ghost pepper as the answer.  The trivia master said habanero was the answer.

I sprang to my feet.  How could he disagree with people who have a Scoville chart hanging in their kitchen?  I whipped out my smartphone, and headed to the front of the room to argue for the ghost pepper (also known as the bhut jolokia pepper).  The trivia master accepted ghost pepper, and added a point to our score.

Walking back to our table with a big smile on my face, I was stopped by a woman who looked me in the eye, and said to me, “I hate people like you.”

She continued: “I used to run trivia nights and people would whip out their smartphones and raise a fuss over the answers just like you did.  Trivia nights are not about correct answers; they are about having fun.”

My attitude towards trivia had offended her.  Clearly, this woman needed to be educated.  I pulled myself up to my full height and looked her in the eye.  My mind returned to my roots and summoned up my best New York accent.

I said: “Lady --- when I want fun, I go bowling.  When I want correct answers, I go to trivia nights”

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NOTE: Doug's best stories have been collected into a book: Puppy Out Of Breath.  Price = $11.  You can purchase a copy at  http://www.puppyoutofbreath.com