Trivial Purpose

Monday night was another trivia night. I was late to the contest again as I had make sure my brother had supper before I left. My brother was down with the 24 hour flu. Chicken soup was his food of choice. However, while there were many varieties of soups in the house, chicken soup was the only kind missing. Who would of thought? I was able get a can of chicken soup from our neighbor across the street.

The first contest was only half over when I arrived so I able to help with questions they hadn't answered yet. It made no difference as I couldn't remember the fourth Marx Brother who never appeared in the movies. The only name I could come up with was: Beppo. The correct answer was: Gummo. Beppo wasn't a Marx Brother, Zeppo was.

I did know that Irving Berlin wrote the song, "Alexander's Ragtime Band". It didn't matter as our team finished in the middle of the pack in the first contest as we only got 13 answers correct.

After my mistake the previous week about when the Edsel was stopped being manufactured I was gun-shy this week about being right. So for the question, "Which older TV star was featured in a nude layout in a December 1983 issue of Playboy?", I didn't argue for my answer when I questioned the group's answer. The group's answer was Jackie Collins. I thought Jackie was an author. I thought the correct person could be her sister, Joan Collins. The correct answer was Joan Collins. Oh well.

For the second contest my team didn't think we did well. To our surprise we ended up in second place with 15 correct. The winning team had 16 correct. We did a bit of second guessing afterwards on why we chose the wrong answer for a few questions. One team member from previous weeks was missing tonight so after the contests were over one person called him and asked the questions we got wrong. Wouldn't have made a difference as he didn't know the correct answers.

Rod, Alan, and I joined the same team as in the past few weeks. This team's core members are a Native American couple. The woman got two "quarters" questions correct and Rod got another "quarters" question correct. The prizes this night were mystery bags. In the bags were a mixture of a small shot bottle of liquor, a padlock, anti-freeze tester (pretty handy this time of year!), super-glue, and various other small items. The final "quarters" prize - which the woman won - was a t-shirt with a saying that used "fekkin" multiple times in place of the more obvious word. No wonder that shirt was the last prize to be chosen.

The t-shirt enlisted a comment from the couple about people back in their small hometown who'd like the shirt. This lead to them reminiscing about their initial dating and drinking experiences and a drunken and embarrassing New Year's date. Older now, they seem to have grown out of that behavior. After trivia was over they pulled out a deck of cards and played pinochle. They invited me to join them but I don't know how to play pinochle.

The players taking part in trivia night were a mixture of the same people and new people. I did notice an attractive woman part of a team around a table next to our table. She had a look of being classier than the typical people who show up at this blue collar bar. But not too classy. Her look was more of a single woman dressing nice for an evening out with friends. She was showing a little cleavage with her sweater and her blue jeans were snug. She stood out among her team as the other members were so-so looking. The team member she ended up talking with after the trivia contests were over and most of her team members drifted away, was a little overweight and completely bald on top except for long black hair growing on the sides of his head.

What did she see in him? No matter as I wasn't interested. Between winter, my mom's recovery, and being away from Montana, my sex drive is zero. Ok, maybe not exactly "zero" as I did notice her, but close to zero.

As I was leaving the bar another teammate of hers asked me if we knew one another. He was a guy about my age who I didn't recognize. That doesn't mean I didn't know him as I haven't seen many people from high school, well... since high school. Even though he swears I looked familiar, no, we didn't know one another. We compared graduation dates (he is a couple years younger than I), where we lived, what we do, who we know, and we had nothing in common.

I found out he is retired at this young age. Oil is being pumped off his farm and he said he lives off the royalties. He seemed to have had a few drinks that night. He looked to be in good shape but also had a look of someone without a purpose in life. I didn't ask him what he currently does, as my thought whether he has a purpose in life came to me later as I ran home in the cold night air with high clouds moving in and starting to obscure the moon. You know, as I don't have a "real job", I wonder if people think the same of me?

Oh well.