Val's Trivial Pursuits

Hick and Val went out on the town Friday night. Please let the record show that the town we're talking about is Backroads. It's not like there's a Studio 54, or an off-off-off-off Broadway play to attend. No, Hick and Val went to the upstairs floor of a 1908 building that was constructed by the lead-mining company that enabled local towns to flourish during the 1920s. Nothing lead-ish was going on Friday night, though. Hick and Val were playing Trivia on a team of ten.

Hick was the one who got the Trivia ball rolling. Heh, heh! Hick on a Trivia team? That's like Val tutoring people in world geography! It was quite serendipitous how the team came together. Every Friday after his shot (no, not for rabies), Hick hangs out with some cronies to shoot the bull. One of them is a former teacher who Hick has been friends with since before he met Val. His wife is also formerly taught Hick. I don't hold her responsible!

Anyhoo...Former Teacher's Wife had been lamenting that her Trivia team is always the biggest loser. At the bottom of the points list. She was hoping for some new players to elevate her team's performance. As she told it, they usually just have four people on the team, which can have 8-10 players. It's all for a fundraiser anyway, $10 per person to play. Former Teacher mentioned to Hick how they were playing on Friday night, and said they needed more people. Would he play? So Hick accepted.

When Hick told me about his plans, I said, "Huh. I like to play Trivia. I used to do it all the time." So Hick said they still needed more, and he would tell FTW (Former Teacher's Wife, not what you're thinking it stands for!) so she could add me to her team. As far as Hick knew, that gave us 6 players. My sister the ex-mayor's wife, and the ex-mayor himself, had spoken about playing Trivia on our last casino outing. So I suggested them to round out the team. They were approved by FTW, so we all packed up some snacks and headed for the second floor of the old lead mines building on Friday night. Of course I took Chex Mix.

Sis brought these snacks. Shown here, posed on a paper plate, are some that she packed up in a red Solo cup for me to bring home. At the top are grapes dipped in white chocolate, plain and with nuts. They are best served nearly-frozen. The others are Bugles dipped in white or chocolate chocolate. The pink one has no special flavor from the white kind, just added food coloring to make it pretty.

Our team ended up having 10 players, crammed around a round table, trying to reach assorted cheese and cracker and smoked sausage trays. That's pretty much all I remember! We did okay, and in the 9th round of the 10-round competition, we pulled out of dead last, and finished not only second-to-last, but a mere ONE POINT from being next-to next-to last!

On a side note, I might or might not have mentioned here (it was probably in a letter to Genius and The Pony) that the Ex-Mayor once had a run-in with FTW! Sis was reluctant to play at first. "Well, you know he wrote a scathing letter to her when he was the mayor, and she worked for the newspaper. What if she remembers?" I told her I doubted that would be on FTW's radar. Sis said, "Well, unless he puts a copy of the letter in a clear sleeve and wears it around his neck!" Anyhoo... Ex-Mayor himself had no qualms about playing, it was Sis who was worried about their former connection.

Everything was going fine as we got things arranged on our table and elected Sis the official answer-writer. Then we had to introduce ourselves. I didn't see any recognition cross FTW's face at the mention of Ex-Mayor's name. I think she just associated him as being the husband of my sister. THEN, right before the first round started, FTW started a story that began with "Back when I was editor of the paper..."

Sis slammed her knee into mine so hard that I almost tipped into Hick, which could have set off a tumble of players around our table like a grand stunt with dominos! "WHAT?"

"Shh...she's talking about when she used to work at the paper! Do you think she'll notice?"

I looked at Ex-Mayor, who was trying to write something with the bright yellow mechanical pencil he had chosen from the red, green, blue, and yellow that I'd brought along. I have a pack of 100. As I told The Pony, "That's more mechanical pencils than I can use for the rest of my life." Thing was, the end had fallen off Ex-Mayor's pencil. That little black pointy part that he hadn't advanced any lead into yet. Sis and I watched, mesmerized, as he tried to make it work.

"No. I don't think you have to worry about her associating him with a city mayor."