Trivial Pursuits

I live in a house with two sports-obsessed males. I’ve seen my husband throw his hat at the TV when Tiger failed to make a putt he needed to help my husband win his fantasy golf (yup, it’s for real) tournament. I’ve played golf with my husband people who are inclined to break clubs, curse like, well, um, golfers and make mournful entreaties to the Golf Gods who are so clearly picking on them. I understand competitive. But nothing prepared me for the experience of Team Trivia this past Friday.

I was on a team of eight people, cleverly named “8 for the Road.” These were all people that I knew and liked. Try to imagine eight, slightly inebriated, highly competitive people trying to agree on one answer AND agree on how many points to bet. The affable coach of the swim team, who has inspired kids to swimming feats they didn’t know they were capable of with his positive attitude and words of encouragement, handed out pieces of paper, warning, “Don’t say anything. People at the other tables will hear and take our answers. Write down all of your answers instead of saying them.”

The 10-handicap golfer who can smile after her ball has gone out of bounds and will tell you that being in a sand trap and showering yourself with sand is a good exfoliant, went into a different level of consciousness while trying to count the number of bunkers on our golf course. Yes, THAT was a trivia question.

And me? Would I be writing this if I was the model of Team Trivia etiquette? Probably not. I found myself ENRAGED when someone at our table QUESTIONED me when I asserted that University of Miami was a private university. It is, by the way. They never won an NCAA Men’s Basketball Championship, so the point turned out to be moot. But I was still ENRAGED.

The Crown & Coke-soaked MC for the night kept hinting that the Michael Jackson music that was playing before the game and in between rounds would end up being significant. So our team spent an inordinate amount of brain power trying to come up with the names of the Jackson Five. Michael. Jermaine. Tito. Marlon. That’s as far as we got. I tried to suggest Wayne, but then realized that was the Osmonds!

I don’t know if it was funnier playing in Team Trivia or recreating the questions later that evening for my friends who had not played. The “number of bunkers on the course” question spawned heated debate. “Are there two bunkers behind 16 or is that one big bunker?” The fact that our Head Golf Professional got that question WRONG just added to the discussion. As I posed questions, I realized the person we needed on our team was sitting in our friends’ garage less than a half-mile away.

We’ll get ‘em next time!!!

Di

p.s. Who is that fifth Jackson?

Comments

[Karen]

Jackie