Trivia night at the Saucer last night turned out to be a disaster for the Rapscallions. We didn’t win, we didn’t make the top three, and frankly, I wouldn’t be surprised if we finished in the bottom three.
One problem was that all the questions were Valentine-related, and that fell outside all of our areas of expertise. I’ll post a few sample questions below.
Another problem was that trying to agree on an answer was like herding cats. I’m reminded of a conversation I had with one of the team members back in September 2005, when the Rapscallions first started doing Tuesday night trivia:
Imran: “Paul, look at that team over there. They have SEVEN PEOPLE! How can we possibly compete with them?”
Me: “Imran, there’s no way that team is going to win.”
Ioana: “I am Ioana. I am from Romania. I will be your server this evening”
Me: “Look at them, Imran. They’re all over the place. There are at least three separate conversations going at that table. There is no way they’re going to stop what they’re doing and all focus on the question being asked. They’ll never come up with good consensus answers.”
Five months later, we have become that team. Trying to run around and get suggestions for answers from everyone meant interrupting dart games, conversations about movies, conversations about work, etc. Then I’d have to run back around a second time and say, “These are the answers everyone came up with, which do you think is best?” So when Trivia Guy came around for our response, we were unfocused and just throwing random stuff out.
And then there was the Carmel problem. Let’s post a pic of Carmel, just to make sure everyone knows who I’m talking about:
There ya go. That’s Carmel. So Carmel showed up last night, sat down at the table, and immediately looked at the male members of the team and said, “I don’t think females should have to pay for their own drinks on Valentine’s Day.”
Now, a couple of problems I have with this. First of all, I’m not fond of women playing the “you should buy me drinks” card in general. And secondly, offering Valentine’s Day, a holiday I DETEST, as a reason is not a good idea.
So I ignored her. One of the other team members said, “Oh, honey, of course I’ll buy you a drink. What do you want? Get something good – you don’t have to get the $2.50 Fire Sale (which was Honey Brown last night, one of the worst beers the Saucer has).”
So Carmel was happy. But 30 minutes later, her beer was gone. She looked at me and said, “My glass is empty. Somebody should do something about that.”
“There are people here who can do something about that,” I told her. “They’re called ‘waitresses.’ It’s easy to tell who are the waitresses here, because they wear miniskirts.”
Carmel pouted and one of the other team members bought her a beer.
About 45 minutes later, I ordered a Dogfish Head Raison d’Etre and ordered one for my friend Ish as well. He has excellent taste in beer (he drinks a lot of Duvel and Lindeman’s Framboise), and I wanted to see what he would think of Raison. Carmel looked at me expectingly like, “I’d like a beer too, please.” Again I ignored her, and this time she had to order her own beer.
But here’s what really got me. When Carmel’s check came, for the one beer no one had bought her, she took out a dollar and then had to fish out a bunch of change from her purse to cover the rest of the cost. She was so sure she could work the free-beer angle that she didn’t even bother to bring money. Which makes me all the happier I didn’t buy her anything. Watching her count up change to pay for that beer reminded me of the bums on Beale Street at $1 PBR night at the Tap Room.
Anyway, on th the questions themselves. We were at something of a disadvantage in that several of the questions deal with female behavior or female opinions on love and sex, and we only had two women on our team – Carmel and the Nuh-Uh Girl. (Although, the Nuh-Uh Girl didn’t go “Nuh UHHHH!!!!….” this week so I’m not sure that nickname is going to stick. The Nuh-Uh Girl also didn’t bring her cute blonde friend this week.)
One question was multiple-choice – what percentage of valentines (meaning, cards) are purchased by women – 45%, 65%, or 85%? We correctly guessed 85%. Husbands/boyfriends purchase all kinds of stupid crap – flowers, candy, teddy bears – to get their Valentine’s Day obligation out of the way. But we don’t buy cards. Because then, we’d have to write a personal note inside the cards, which is more work than we generally feel like doing.
Another multiple-choice question – what percentage of women say they would prefer a good night’s sleep to sex – 26%, 46%, or 66%? I tended to believe 26%, because in my experience women are some horny critters. But Carmel and the Nuh-Uh Girl both insisted it was 66%, so we went with that. We were both wrong – it was 46%.
Another question – who talks more during sex, men or women? Carmel was insistent on “women,” so we went with it and got that one right. “What do you say?” we asked her. “Something like, ‘Oh baby, you’re so hot, I want you?'” Carmel indicated that it was MUCH MUCH MUCH dirtier than that, but declined to give examples. Too bad, I might have re-thought the free-beer thing if she had.
Another question – “what are the chambers of the heart called?” When Trivia Guy came by, we told him, “auricles and ventricles,” and he looked at us funny and said, “All right, I’ll give it to you.” A minute later, while he was still making his rounds, we realized the reason for the funny look – it’s atria and ventricles. “I’ll run over and tell him,” said one of the team members. WHY???? He already gave us the points. Why change the answer, and risk changing it to something wrong? Donald Trump would fire your ass if you pulled a stunt like that on The Apprentice.
We were so bad last night that the Sissy Bitches team would’ve beaten us if they had been there. I can tell I’m going to have to turn into the Trivia Nazi next week and get things under control.
Other notes:
– After we got home last night, I promptly turned around and went back out to see my one true Valentine – my mug at the Tap Room.
– I’m taking the night off tonight, but a faction of the trivia team/Sunday drunks will be at Sleep Out Louie’s to play NTN around 7.
– I’ve been invited to a James Bond party in my building Saturday night. “Hot chicks in slinky dresses” is how it was described to me. Yessss! I’m using Zydeco Fest on Beale Street as an excuse not to get dressed up myself. Apparently the organizers of the party asked, “Paul… is that the guy who was dressed up as a Flying Saucer waitress on Halloween?” Four months later and that’s still being talked about.
All right, that’s enough for now. Off to work.