A Trivial Pursuit, But a Fun One

Yesterday a team of us from Chicagonista

participated in a trivia bowl sponsored by the Asian American Journalists Association. We were competing against teams consisting of actual journalists from actual journalistic outfits like the Chicago Tribune and Fox News Chicago. And it was at the famous Chicago institution, Harry Caray's restaurant, which is always a fun place.

Since it was Sunday, the train schedule was very limited. I had to get on a train at noon, even though the event didn't start until 2:00. That left me with an hour to kill downtown, which is an awesome thing when you don't have a two-year-old with you. Mostly I just spent my hour eating a lunch I had packed myself (go, go Weight Watchers ... and note that I completely blew it later) and then walking in search of a CVS or Walgreen's to buy gum and cold medicine.

Side note, germs are so scary now. Normally I wouldn't think twice about going about my daily life while having a cold, but now I was all paranoid about being around other people with my germs. But the team was counting on me so that they would have enough people to compete, so I showed up anyway.

So, I found a CVS and pulled the stupid card off their shelf that indicated that I wanted to purchase cold medicine. As I'm sure you know, you can't just up and get your own OTC cold medicine off the shelf now, because you could be stockpiling Sudafed for use in your meth lab. Anyway, so I brought my card up to the register, and the cashier said that nobody had access to the cold medicine on the weekends because it was locked behind the pharmacy, which was closed. So I bought my gum and left the store in a huff.

But onto the trivia event! The food was awesome, and I ate too much of it. At least I didn't have any calories in the form of alcoholic beverages, because the cold was making me not want to drink. Anyway, so team Chicagonista wasn't a super competitor, but we had fun. There were 5 categories: Chicago/Illinois, Sports, In the News, Pop Culture, and the Picture Round. Since I didn't grow up in Chicago, I was no help in the Chicago/Illinois category. Surprisingly, I was able to answer two questions in Sports because they were about Harry Caray himself, whose Wikipedia page I had studied in anticipation of the event. In the News was just a total disaster, because they asked questions like, "Name the 7 Republicans running for Illinois Governor." Right. I did awesome in Pop Culture (embarrassingly). And then that picture category was just torture. You were supposed to look at a picture of a famous person and identify him/her. It was hard.

So, the Chicagonistas came in 4th to last, out of approximately 20 teams. The winner was the team from the Tribune, who unseated 3-time champions The Chicago Sun-Times. The thing that kind of sucked was, the prize for the last-place team was a case of Top Ramen ("to remind you to better use your noodles next year"), which would have at least been something. And it was actually better than the prize for the winners, which was just a little plaque with a silver fortune cookie (spray painted) glued to it.

But I love trivia. Trivial Pursuit is my favorite board game. I also like Jeopardy (fun fact: I tried out for the teen tournament when I was a teenager), but it comes on at 3:30 here, so I never watch it. (I have tried recording it, but it's just one of those shows where the episodes get all backed up.) I wish there was a trivia league near my house. Most of the trivia contests take place in bars, which I don't get to all that often anymore. So if anybody wants to start the South Suburban Chicago Trivia League with me, let me know.

I had to take the super slow Sunday train home from trivia. At one point the conductor announced, "We're just going to make all the flag stops so that people don't have to bother requesting them." But, time alone on a train is pretty awesome when you don't have a kid with you. I was able to finish up Jennifer Weiner's Best Friends Forever, which I would rate with an astounding "Meh." Good enough to finish, and reading it was an enjoyable experience, but the story was kind of dumb. I think it would have been better if I read it over the summer, because it was one of those totally light beach reads.

The boys picked me up at 5:30 from the train. Dinner was all ready in the Crock Pot, because I'm a Happy Homemaker like that. Dinner was all wrapped up and the boy was in bed at 7:30. Another successful day.