Wednesday trivia night was held at the bowling alley bar here on north hill in Minot. Darrel planned to attend so I decided to go.I found Darrel, Jeff and Donna when I arrived. Mona had to work. Before the contest started Darrel 'jumped ship' and sat with Curt, Matt, and another of their friends. They had played trivia Tuesday night at another bar in town and won. Curt and Matt are excellent trivia players. Darrel also started working out this week with Curt and Matt and that is another reason for their bond.
Jeff and Donna knew another couple sitting at another table and we combined teams. Then Ed showed up and joined our team.
While I recognized other people from the Monday night trivia contests our main competition was Curt, Matt and Darrel.
This trivia contest is run differently than the Monday night contests. Here there are only 20 questions total and these twenty questions are broken up into three periods. The winner of the first and second periods each win a free pitcher of beer. It was with great satisfaction when our team won both the first and second periods and beat Curt, Matt and Darrel. A few of our team members sent a little good natured ribbing their way.
After the third period there is a final bonus question. The top three teams at the end win prize money. The trivia host named the eight teams playing and their scores which ranged from 83 to 20 out of 100 points.
At the end of the third period we were in second place with 72 points. Curt, Matt and Darrel were in first place with 83 points. They had a great third round and got most questions correct while we only got half of them right. What really hurt us was the 10 point question we got wrong:
"What is the name of He-man's alter-ego?"Curt, Matt and Darrel knew it was Prince Adam.
We were 11 points behind the first place team and 16 points ahead of the third place team. For the final question the teams can wager up to 20 points that their answer is correct. Get the question wrong and you lose the points you wagered.
Knowing Curt and Matt, Ed was certain they would get the final question correct and we wouldn't catch them so he didn't want to wager any points and chance falling out of the top three if we got the question wrong. However I felt we should take a little risk. If the third and forth place teams got the answer correct and wagered 20 points they would pass us. If they wagered nothing and we got the answer wrong we needed to wager less than 16 points while we needed 11 points to pass the first place team if they wagered nothing. In the rush we ended up wagering 14 points as I was certain we had the correct answer.
The question: Name four of the six largest cities in the 27 member European Union. Hint: they all are capital cities of their respective countries.
We answered: London, Paris, Rome, and Berlin. Correct. The other two cities are: Madrid, Spain and Bucharest, Romania.
Unfortunately Curt, Matt and Darrel also got the answer correct. They took first place with 103 out of 120 points while we took second with 86 points. The third place team had 45 points.
For our second place finish we got a gift certificate of $15 towards drinks. I don't drink beer so winning the pitchers earlier didn't mean any more to me than the satisfaction of winning. And I am returning to Montana tomorrow so I won't be here next Wednesday to help use the $15 towards a drink I would like. Oh well.
As usual I walked to the bar. While most people have cleared the snow from their sidewalks almost everyone did not go through the snowbanks on the side of the streets created when the snowplow cleared the snow. So I had to climb (yes, those snowbanks are that high) up and over those banks when crossing the streets.
The bowling alley was filled with bowlers when I arrived. The bar was not as busy but that changed once the bowling league finished and after our trivia contest was over. After trivia was over the bar ran a bingo game. Jeff and Donna played bingo while Ed, Darrel, Curt, Matt and I talked at our table and compared which questions each of our teams got wrong. Donna was one number away from getting a blackout bingo but after a few numbers were called lost. The winner won on a special ball and ended up winning $625.
The bar had free popcorn and I pigged out on it during the trivia contest. I love popcorn.
At the end of the evening Ed offered to give me a ride home. This is the first I had ridden in Ed's car and it is a 'classic'. First, let me describe what coat Ed was wearing. It is a long hair fur looking blond and white colored coat. He looks like a mountain man trapper wearing that coat. Ed says it is a very warm coat.
Now, Ed's car is right out of a movie where the car is a small, old, loud, rattletrap type of car. His car is a bright red hatchback. In the dark, and covered in a load of snow, I didn't learn what brand of car it was but it seemed to be from the 1980s.
My door wouldn't open and I waited for Ed to unlock it. I couldn't hear Ed over the roar of his car when he was telling me the door was already unlocked. Eventually he had to push the door as I pulled on the door before it broke open. The door had been frozen shut with ice.
I got in and sank down and back into the bucket seat. The seat had the feeling of not being attached to the floor, though it was.
The windows already were frosted over on the inside and Ed used an ice scraper to somewhat clear the frost off the windshield enough that he could see to drive. I cracked open my door's window and exhaled out the window. It was cold enough (below zero F) that my breath quickly slipped up and out the window into the night.
I didn't see a shift lever but each time Ed started out from a stop the engine would roar and pop. Ed said he had just changed the spark plugs. As we drove on a side street Ed pointed out a house where a friend of his lived. Between the dark and frost it took some effort to find.
After dropping me off Ed roared off in a cloud of exhaust driving under a street light and into the night on a snow covered road.
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