Thinking of a friend who got a kick out of this story, I have decided to add it to the blog.
Have I mentioned big-screen bar trivia a time or two already? Pretty sure I have!
To remind you, several friends and I regularly play NTN Buzztime trivia and have been addicted to the games for – oh – twenty years or so. We started when I coached high school speech and the head speech coach, who also coached Academic Challenge, would take that team to the local pub (actually a Damon’s at the time) to practice their general knowledge trivia and their speed punching in an answer. When Damon’s closed, we had to seek alternate locations to play, and that could be quite a challenge.
For awhile the closest venue was a hole-in-the-wall neighborhood bar about ten miles away. The then-owner and full-time cook was a trivia afficionado (played under the screen name Zoom) and hosted the game at his establishment due to that love.
The games feature national contests and track high scores, so they are highly competitive. One pleasant Tuesday evening my friends and I were enjoying a night of trivia. Many of the bar’s patrons were out on the patio, but several folks sat at the indoor bar, and there was a table of ladies having a get-together near our trivia group. All of a sudden, the waitress came running into the bar proper yelling “Paul!” at the top of her lungs. The owner rushed out, and she directed him to the patio where there seemed to be some kind of bruhaha. Soon several patrons entered, escorting a tall young man who was bleeding rather profusely from the face and took him to the restroom to clean up. We looked out the front window and found other patrons detaining a short, stocky, red-faced, rather angry man outside. Paul and the waitress handled the situation; the police came and removed the offender from the premises; we played trivia.
After the melee had died down, the owner approached us with a quizzical look on his face. “I’m surprised to see you still here playing trivia,” he said. “The ladies at the other table cleared out as soon as it started.” I looked at him wide-eyed and replied, “We’re social workers. Was there a problem?” He shook his head and walked away.
Trivia is not a sport for the weak at heart!