Saturday Night, Jen, Kate, Katie, Jim, Paul, Steve, Colleen and I joined together (like Voltron) and went a’ triviaing at St. Martin Des Porres up in Hazelhood. A friend of Katie’s from high school has a couple children with genetic disorders and the proceeds from this trivia night went to help with these costs, and with a trivia challenge on the line, we were happy to help.
While the charity benefit is important and the trivia itself is key, anyone who has been to trivia with us knows that the real focus of the evening is on the food. Kate brought the incomparable You-Can’t-Eat-Just-One Spinach Balls. Katie made cookies, Jim baked brownies. Paul brought the White Cheddar Popcorn, while Steve and Colleen chipped in with a great guacamole taco dip thingy. Our pulled pork recipe that went over so well at the Botanical Gardens made another appearance, this time on dollar buns, and a veggie tray rounded out the main courses. Throw in a cooler of beer and some assorted candies and I feel pretty confident when I say that we had the best spread of any team.
Also, I think we had the best team name, “Team Ramrod”. The Super Troopers reference probably went over a lot of people’s heads, but it wasn’t nearly as classy as the team who dubbed themselves “At Ur Cervix”. Nice.
As far as the trivia was concerned, things did not go as well. Granted, we were tied for first place for a couple of the middle rounds, but in the end we finished tied for fifth. Not a bad showing, with over 40 tables, but not quite what we had hoped for. The problem, I think, was not us so much — it couldn’t possibly be our fault — but rather, the fact that the questions came from a pre-made trivia night kit. Now, I’m all for someone trying to make a quick buck, but in my humble opinion, these questions were not up to snuff. My biggest complaint were that the questions were way too general. For example, some of the categories were Sports, Movies, True / False, Music, Geography, and U.S. States. If these categories seem generic, it’s because they are. I don’t mind difficult trivia, but these questions were all over the map. Without any focus to the categories, you either knew the answer or you didn’t. In addition, there were several questions that could generously be considered “trick questions”. Also, the Geography and U.S. States questions were pretty much interchangeable. In spite of all my kvetching, we still came in fifth. Everyone was able to contribute some clutch answers, and we did have the balloons on our table for a couple rounds at least. We all had a good time and we can only hope that our contribution goes to help a family in need.