Hillbilly Mom's Booty

Aaarrrrrrrgghh! Not THAT kind of booty, ye scurvy misfits! The
treasure kind of booty. The spoils. The something-for-nothing swag
that I won playing Trivia last night.

First of all, don't go thinkin' we won. Let's get that out of the way
right now. We placed 6th. Out of 10 teams. That makes us 5th losers,
methinks, what with the 10th, 9th, 8th, and 7th place finishers being
worse than us. Oh, well. We didn't have our regular team.

I didn't actually win something for nothing, because I had to pay the
$10 entry fee. But I had to pay that anyway. The charity was for
dental hygienist screenings for public school children or some such
thing. We expected the door prizes to be stuff like toothbrushes or
floss. Hey! We are teachers. We are memorizers, not noted for our
imagination skills. The booty I won: a Dairy Queen ice cream cake, a
Commerce Bank cooler cup (green), some golf tees, and a large can
of mushroom pieces and stems. Hoo boy! I'm a winner!!!! My Hillbilly
Mama also won a door prize. Hers included: a can of hair spray, a
Little Caesars sand bucket (with shovel) that contained a stuffed Little
Caesar, 4 bags of Little Caesar cookies, two mini dry-erase marker
boards, and a bunch of Little Caesar coupons. Oh, and we both got
some coupons for FREE Sonic Route 44 drinks.

This event was held upstairs in an old historic building. Heh. Like
there is such a thing as a new historic building! It would have been
very creepy in there alone, with no lights. Instead of the Domino's
Pizza that we have delivered at our Trivia events, this one had a pot
of chili, a selection of chips, cheese, crackers, homemade cookies,
popcorn, fun-size candy bars, and soda. Our teame ended up with
four teachers, two mamas, two husbands, and an 8-year-old. OK,
I will claim the young 'un. I didn't pay for him, so he didn't play,
except for his GameBoy. Maybe we should have let him play. He's
in 3rd grade, and I found out at parent conferences Friday that he is
reading at the level of 9th grade, 5th month. You ROCK, Nintendo!
You have taught that boy to read. He used to get frustrated asking
people what the words on the games meant, so he picked up reading
rather quickly.

Our scores for the 10 categories were:
5 Slogans
5 History
8 Movies
10 TV Theme Songs
4 Famous Faces
8 Music
8 Dead or Alive
5 1990s
4 Sports
7 Animals

Let me brag a bit about our perfect category. We are a team of
couch potatoes, it seems. Here were the theme songs they played
for us to guess the TV show. They only played about the first 10
seconds of them. See how many of them you can hum to yourself.
The Wonder Years, The A-Team, Get Smart, The Rifleman, Taxi,
The Jeffersons, The Bob Newhart Show, The Courtship of Eddie's
Father, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, That Girl. I am quite proud
to say that I am responsible for That Girl. The others wanted to
guess The Flying Nun. But I was certain. I knows me some Marlo
Thomas.

I'll also pat myself on the back for one in the music category. Who
wrote Harper Valley PTA? Oh, sure, you want to say Jeannie C.
Riley just like my team, don't you? But NOOOO! She only sang
it. She was a secretary, and Tom T. Hall came in with the song,
and they needed someone to cut a demo. One of the people in
power said, "How about that secretary? She sings pretty good."
And that is how Jeannie C. Riley made her one and only hit.
I was ABSOLUTELY CERTAIN of this answer, you see,
because on Thursday afternoon's parent conference day, time
stood still. Nobody came. We were all trapped in one room,
and dusted off the Trivia book. That was one of the questions.

I also knew one of the 1990s questions. I stood up to my team,
who wanted to overrule me on the fact that Nicole Brown Simpson
was slain by somebody who may or may not have been her ex-
husband, O.J. Simpson, during the summer of 1994. They said
it should have been 1998. Oh, no, my friends. Do not argue with
a pregnant woman. Pregnant back in the summer of 1994 with my
#1 son, driving back from getting a chocolate waffle cone at a
local custard shop. Pregnant women do not forget. Nor do the
birthing women, as one of my teammates knew that the Oklahoma
City bombing was in April 1995. She watched it on the hospital
TV while birthing her baby boy.

I must also take issue with my team for doubting me on a history
question. Usually it is a safe bet to overrule Hillbilly Mom on history.
It is her achilles heel. But when the question involves 7th/8th grade
history books, do not underestimate the power of Hillbilly Mom.
The question was: Who was the leader of the Nez Perce Indians
in the 1800s? My team argued over Sitting Bull and Geronimo. I
knew they were not Nez Perce. I held up my answer. They laughed
at me. Oh, it was not a polite smirk and a little snicker, a chuckle,
a giggle, a snort. No. It was a collective GUFFAW at my expense.
They chose Geronimo. Ahh...the sweet revenge when the correct
answer was revealed to be mine: Chief Joseph.

And another thing...they also doubted me on a sports question.
Usually, I know nothing of sports, but this time, I knew that Rich
Brooks was the first coach of the St. Louis Rams. They accepted
it. I suppose they didn't think I had another one in me. What number
car does Dale Earnhardt Jr. drive? I knew it. Does my HH not have
an entire bathroom devoted to NASCAR? Do I not gaze at Dale
Jr. memorabilia each time I sit on the toilet? Perhaps that is too much
information. But I KNEW it was number 8. I look at the #8 clock
on the wall, at the custom-made countertop with a #8 car, at a thick
book sitting on that countertop, at collector cars hanging on the walls.
Maybe I should have described my view from the toilet. Perhaps
then, they would not have written down #57 as the answer.

Anyhoo...we all had a good time. My young 'un was so good we
didn't even know he was there. My Hillbilly Mama wouldn't speak
during the competition, but said she enjoyed herself.

And Hillbilly Mom brought her great booty home to the Mansion.