A friend invited me to play on her softball team. I played catcher and only missed the ball 50% of the time. I even got a hit, which sounds great until you learn I struck out twice. Despite my Mr. Magoo-like performance we actually came back from an 8-1 deficit to take the game 10-8. After our impressive rally, we decided to take our winning selves to trivia. Our egos were quickly deflated after the first round of general knowledge. Apparently, we know nothing about the Vietnam War. Or renewable energy. Or the Beatles' final album. Oops.
Round 2 was in honor of one of the guest emcees, who is from Ireland (accent and all). I learned two things from this round:
1. I know nothing about Ireland.
2. I don't want to know anything about Ireland.
Round 3 was devoted to science fiction. I know Ray Bradbury was a total icon to his fans, but could he have maybe waited until Friday to pass away so we could have had a different category? Things weren't looking so good. Then things got worse in Round 4 when we were required to look at a list of, shall we say, grown-up beverages and identify which ones were made in Ireland. At this point we were circling the drain. The only reason we weren't dead last was that two teams actually left. Cue the Debbie Downer music now.
Round 5, however, offered a small beacon of light -- identify pictures of supermodels and their countries of origin. Finally! My obsession with USWeekly and People paid off. We made a solid move in this round and brought ourselves up from the bottom of the pack, but we still had a ways to go.
Round 6 turned out to be the gamechanger. The surprise twist. The door to Narnia. The Holy Grail. Our Irish emcee happens to work for Jameson (if you don't know what that is, Google it. This is a family blog). So, someone had the genius idea to do a blind tasting of a certain adult beverage that is rather popular in Ireland. Given the difficulty of this challenge, each correct answer would be worth 40 points. We were given four drinks to try and a list of six brands to choose from. I was elected to be the taster, and despite my considerable skills in many areas I realized that my knowledge about 80s music and knitting was not going to help us here. My friend and I quickly hatched a plan: I would still do the tasting for show. However, we simply took the list and worked from the bottom up and used the last four brands as our answers. Imagine our shock when the emcee announced he wanted to buy our table a round for getting a perfect score. Thanks to our little ruse and the 160 points that came with it we catapulted to the top of the leaderboard. When I went up to thank the emcee I admitted that we had totally guessed and had no clue what we were doing. He told me that he has a sommelier degree, and for someone like me who doesn't have one getting the blind tasting correct (using tasting skills, not Jedi mind tricks) was statstically next to impossible. Now, I've done some pretty impressive things in my life -- Master's degree, good career, financial independence. I gotta say, though, I don't think I've ever been as proud as I was after Round 6. Boo-yah.
Round 7 was Irish drinking songs, and if I wasn't so warm and happy from the previous round we probably would have done better. However, we managed to hang on for a third place finish on the night. Cue "We Are The Champions" now.
Round 2 was in honor of one of the guest emcees, who is from Ireland (accent and all). I learned two things from this round:
1. I know nothing about Ireland.
2. I don't want to know anything about Ireland.
Round 3 was devoted to science fiction. I know Ray Bradbury was a total icon to his fans, but could he have maybe waited until Friday to pass away so we could have had a different category? Things weren't looking so good. Then things got worse in Round 4 when we were required to look at a list of, shall we say, grown-up beverages and identify which ones were made in Ireland. At this point we were circling the drain. The only reason we weren't dead last was that two teams actually left. Cue the Debbie Downer music now.
Round 5, however, offered a small beacon of light -- identify pictures of supermodels and their countries of origin. Finally! My obsession with USWeekly and People paid off. We made a solid move in this round and brought ourselves up from the bottom of the pack, but we still had a ways to go.
Round 6 turned out to be the gamechanger. The surprise twist. The door to Narnia. The Holy Grail. Our Irish emcee happens to work for Jameson (if you don't know what that is, Google it. This is a family blog). So, someone had the genius idea to do a blind tasting of a certain adult beverage that is rather popular in Ireland. Given the difficulty of this challenge, each correct answer would be worth 40 points. We were given four drinks to try and a list of six brands to choose from. I was elected to be the taster, and despite my considerable skills in many areas I realized that my knowledge about 80s music and knitting was not going to help us here. My friend and I quickly hatched a plan: I would still do the tasting for show. However, we simply took the list and worked from the bottom up and used the last four brands as our answers. Imagine our shock when the emcee announced he wanted to buy our table a round for getting a perfect score. Thanks to our little ruse and the 160 points that came with it we catapulted to the top of the leaderboard. When I went up to thank the emcee I admitted that we had totally guessed and had no clue what we were doing. He told me that he has a sommelier degree, and for someone like me who doesn't have one getting the blind tasting correct (using tasting skills, not Jedi mind tricks) was statstically next to impossible. Now, I've done some pretty impressive things in my life -- Master's degree, good career, financial independence. I gotta say, though, I don't think I've ever been as proud as I was after Round 6. Boo-yah.
Round 7 was Irish drinking songs, and if I wasn't so warm and happy from the previous round we probably would have done better. However, we managed to hang on for a third place finish on the night. Cue "We Are The Champions" now.
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