Not As Bad As We Thought We'd Be

All right. I'll give you the results of my team at Saturday's 37-team
Catholic Free-Beer Triva Night. A little bit later.

There was only one person on my team who I had played trivia
with before. How's that? TWO propositions to end a sentence!
And a questionable who/whom faux pas. I knew of all but one
team member. Which is not to say I run in their circles. We had
quite a time picking who was going to keep the official score sheet.
I did not want to, but was told to, so I filled out part of it. A Know-
It-All showed up after me, and I offered him the duty. He declined,
but I could tell he wanted to be in charge. I asked three more times,
and right before we started, he said, "Oh, okay. I'll do it." I could
tell he was itching to get his hands on it.

We were up and down throughout the night. With so many teams,
we were tied with 3 or 4 down in the middle of the pack. There
was a bonus round where we had the opportunity to earn 5 bonus
points for naming songs they had played during the break. It's not
that we were not observant, but that we did not know any of the
songs. We scored a big 0 on that bonus. Our nemesises, or our
nemesi, however you pluralize it, got ALL 5 FREAKIN' BONUS
POINTS! That put them 3 points ahead of us for a couple of
rounds. They were at the table right behind us, and kept tossing me
messages written on the green official Catholic Free-Beer Trivia
Night notepads.

I suppose they were trying to distract me. For example, one note
proclaimed that the writer had a 'friend' to keep her company on
those cold, lonely nights. She wrote, "I call him 'Big Ed'. To which
I replied that one time somebody gave me a 'Big Ed' for my
birthday, and after a year or so, I tossed him into a dumpster.
She sent a note back inquiring as to whether it was a green
dumpster, as that is where she found 'Big Ed'. I jotted down
that indeed, 'Big Ed' was laid to rest in a green dumpster, and
that I certainly hoped she had given him a bath. She ain't quite
right in the head, that gal, because she wrote back "Yes, if by
'a bath' you mean licking him clean." OK.

When our score was 59, she laughed her fool head off and called
me over to their table on a break. "I looked up and thought your
score was '69'," she hooted, as did her entire tableful of team.
So I went back to my own little table, and wrote a note saying,
"I don't understand. What does 69 mean?" And she replied on
paper, "It's what you showed me in that picture." So I had to
pen, "Oh, yes. That picture of you and Mrs. Patriotic Dobro
Player from down the hall." That kind of took them off their
game, and we closed in on their 3-point lead. Perhaps that free
Catholic beer had something to do with their relapse.

Get ready to answer without reading to the end if you want to play
along. The categories, and some questions we missed were:

Heroes & Villains:
What is the Spanish word for 'fox'?
Current Events:
What was the final score of the Super Bowl?
Christmas Trivia:
Why was 'The 12 Days of Christmas' originally written?
Logos:
Sorry, no question. We scored a perfect 10/10. Do you know
the logo for Lowry's Seasoned Salt?
Political Pets:
What pair of animals did Lewis & Clark bring President Jefferson?
TV Music:
What instrument provides the voice of Charlie Brown's teacher?
Dead or Alive:
I'll give you both that we missed, to make up for the Logos...
Robert Conrad. Anita Bryant.
Missouri State Parks:
Which park has the tallest waterfall?
Money:
What's the theme song for 'The Apprentice'?
Potpourri:
The capital of South Korea is Seoul. What does the word
'Seoul' mean in Korean?

We had predicted our score as 65, because the first round was
a bit difficult. In the end, the lowest we scored in any round was
6/10. We finished the evening with a grand total of 71 points.
Which was good enough for 6th Place! Which I think is pretty
darn good out of 37 teams, since we only got 6th in one Trivia
that only had 12 teams. We didn't win any monetary prize, but
a good time was had by all. Except maybe Mr. Know-It-All.

And now, the answers:

The Spanish word for fox is zorro. Not baca, which we said,
which appears to mean 'recovery from difficulty'.

The final score of the Super Bowl was 29-17. Not 31-17.
We really needed our young sports maven to be 21.

The 12 Days of Christmas was a catechism mnemonic for young
Catholics. Or WAS it? That's the answer they gave, but there is
some controversy over that info being an Urban Legend.

Lewis & Clark brought Jefferson two bear cubs. Mr. K-I-A
wanted that answer, but we hooted him down. "How could
they bring bear cubs back on such a long trip?" We answered
'prairie dogs'. Hey! They did send Jefferson a prairie dog!

Charlie Brown's teacher is a muted trombone. I knew that.
But I deferred to the two (not one, but two) band teachers
on our team, and went with the wrong answer of 'trumpet'.

Robert Conrad is dead, dead, dead, no more daring us to
knock that battery off his shoulder. And Anita Bryant is
still chugging that orange juice and persecuting homosexuals,
as far as I know.

Missouri's Tallest Waterfall is found in Taum Sauk State
Park, not Roaring Rivers.

The theme song for The Apprentice is 'For the Love of
Money' by the O'Jays. I watch it every week. I could sing
it for you. But I didn't know the name of it. It is not: Money
Money Money Money.

The word 'Seoul' means Capital City. Duh. I wanted to say
'Capital', but my team went with 'love'.

And there you have it. We beat our same-school opponents
by 3 points in the end.

Hee hee.