Trivia night at St. Joe's

My mom's family should have a reality show. I was hanging out with them last night at St. Joe's for a trivia night that included a near riot when there was a wrong answer and several beers consumed at our table.

Just the drive up was exciting on East Washington Street as five police cars apparently went into a house with guns drawn to pull out a perp. We just missed it by a few minutes judging from the scene.

We were only two beers into the night and had not even started the contest when my aunt started talking about a dolly which led into a discussion about blow up dolls somehow. I think if people met my family, they would see how a lot of my stories lead into other stories. Everyone in the family might have A.D.D. when it comes to story telling.

It led to a misunderstanding of someone thinking the church had a blow up doll over in the other corner.

"Why would they have a blow up doll at a Catholic church?" my Aunt Fifi asked.

"I don't know," answered Jeanne, "unless they like to dress her up as an altar boy."

***

The first riot of the night almost broke out in the third round because one of the questions had a wrong answer. The question was "What is the Eastern most Great Lakes State?" They said it was Ohio, but apparently Buffalo and their 500 inches of lake effect snow are not on a lake.

Oops. :)

***

"What is the lowest place in the Western Hemisphere?"

My aunt yelled out the name of the liquor store here in town owned by another aunt and uncle and that became a running joke the rest of the night.

***

"What is the tallest mammal in the world?"

"Not the Hanka's," yelled out Jeanne, referring to her husband's family.

"Where does Casey get his height?" I asked. My younger cousin Casey is about six foot two inches tall.

"From his real dad," she shot back without hesitation, cracking everyone up.

***

The second riot of the night occurred when the question asked "Who server two terms as both vice-president and then president from the Republican party?" The answer given was Richard Nixon, but the researcher apparently forgot about Watergate ending his second term as president short.

***

The big contest of the night though was which table in our family would win. We crushed the other table 62-42 out of 100 questions total in 10 categories.

Must be Tuesday

One of the things I disliked most about grad school was that participation was mandatory in class discussions. I'm a huge introvert to begin with and I can become flustered quite easily and it can be difficult to recover from.

In one of my early classes, participation was 10% of my grade. When the professor asked us who did their project a certain way, I did not actually expect her to ask me to come up and present to everyone in the class. I froze and went blank. I even displayed the wrong part of our project to begin with when I was up there and became quite flustered.

I mean, geez, I only raised my hand because I thought it was a poll. :/

Later in class she asked who did another aspect of their project in a certain way, I raised my hand not expecting the next question to be "Why?" Again, I was sitting there like a deer in headlights.

If not for that participation grade, I would have looked like much less of an idiot.

Later that night, I came home and removed my sweatshirt. To my surprise, my fly was down and I could only wonder if the rest of class noticed when I was in front of them or if my sweatshirt effectively covered it up.

I know ... TMI.

Some people would label this as their most embarrassing day ever.

I called it Tuesday.