This Way

Saturday night, at the behest of DJ and Captain Don we attended a trivia night. Trivia night is usually a large group event and this was the largest that I have ever attended, with about 50 tables, and is usually staged to benefit a charitable cause. This one was staged to raise money to pay the medical bills, of a 15 year-old boy who has leukemia. During this trivia night, there were ten rounds of ten questions each. The questions are answered by the different tables; a team typically consisted of eight people who have paid an admission fee to participate ($25 per head). I figure that they must have grossed $10,000 on admissions alone and probably double that what with all of the extras ($10 for Mulligans, which were priceless, $2 for heads and tails, which we both lost quickly in and $20 for the raffle baskets, more on the raffles later). At the end of each round, the teams turn in their answers and judges then calculate the scores. The teams compete against one another with the top teams receiving prizes. Trivia nights are held throughout the United States, but are particularly popular in the Saint Louis, where dozens of different trivia nights occur on any given weekend.

A good night was had by all. Free beer and wine probably helped with that. It probably also helped to loosen our wallets, which was its prime objective anyway. Anne and I have only done a handful of these trivia nights, but we usually do pretty well, generally finishing in the top 25%. This night was a little different. After a slow start, by halftime, we found ourselves in the lead. We spent the remainder of the contest beating back that pesky table #49 and eventually won it all. Anne was a major contributor to this victory, naturally, but DJ’s daughter, Angela, her husband Louis and their friends Eric and Mary were also major contributors too. I did a little bit more good than damage and not the other way around as is usual, but I couldn’t even define the acronym RADAR. In spite of me and not because of me, table #4 really was the home of the alpha geeks! We all received little medals, some gift certificates and were refunded our admission fees. Anne and I donated ours back again to the cause, because by then we were both feeling a bit chagrined. We had by then won five of the raffled gift baskets, not bad for $20. We re-gifted the spa themed basket to Angela, because she had done so much, what with setting up the table’s team and writing down all our correct answers. We kept the juicer and the movie, foodie, coffee and snack themed baskets and headed for home with all our loot.