I’ve been trying to go this whole week without playing any trivia games, since it is a “bye week” in both of the trivia leagues in which I play. But Thursday…there were some close calls!

Maybe I should give David Crosby a call when I’m feeling the itch to go out for a trivia game (LOL)! Here, a “Simpsons” scene depicts a conversation between Crosby and Barney.

One, my brother is in town. He’s visiting with his wife and daughter from the U.P., and he messaged me Thursday afternoon asking, “What are you guys doing tonight?”

Well, I HAD originally planned to go the “cruise night” in Ypsilanti if my dad were going and bringing his 1991 Corvette. But when I talked to him earlier, he said he might sit it out because of a rainy forecast, which I told my brother.

This is not a picture of his actual car, which is a 1991 Corvette ZR-1. I unsuccessfully attempted to find a picture of his car on my hard drive, but this is similar! The Mercury Marine company made the engines for this model. Maintenance costs are incredible! Just replacing a SINGLE tire costs about $800!

Then I suggested an “alternate” activity.

“We could do a 7:30 trivia game in Milan.” He has attended trivia games with me on previous visits, so this wasn’t an unusual suggestion. I figured it would be more fun than just sitting in my folks’ living room, oohing and ah-ing over the cats and making small talk.

After a couple of other exchanges, we realized dad changed his mind about coming to the cruise. So I said I would come down to the cruise and meet everyone. I added, “I’m really trying to take a break from trivia this week, so I would rather go to the cruise anyway.”

It was a fun time! We all got some kind of ice cream concoction from a joint called “Cream and Crumb” – I got a Boston Cooler, my brother got a chocolate malt, and everyone else got cones. “Cream and Crumb” is one half of a joint business where on one side, they sell ice cream, ice cream drinks, and pastries. Business is usually gangbusters there on the cruise nights. The other half is called “Ollie,” and is a full-service restaurant/bar. It’s a bit pricey, and seems to cater to hipsters (IMHO). Here’s a description of the “mini meatloaf” sandwiches: “four little scratch-made meatloaf sandwiches on Zingerman’s brioche with garden herb aioli and pickled red onion.” Yup – only $13 for what are essentially just… fancy sliders! Hell, just adding the words  “brioche” and “aioli” to any menu item is enough to warrant adding at least $4 to the price! Aioli is a fancy word for mayonnaise with other things added to it, such as garlic, herbs. I’ll bet “aioli” is something I can make at home, in fact…but wait – I forgot about the word “Zingermans!” Yup…including their name in the menu item will also jack up the price! If you’re not a local, Zingerman’s name is attached to a deli, bakehouse and restaurant in Ann Arbor, and they also have an online business. Go to Zingerman’s deli and you can get a corned beef sandwich for $19.50! Smart thinking, Ollie – do a Zingerman’s tie-in to make some more money!

Cream and Crumb and Ollie

In trivia related news, my husband told me that while he was sitting in a camp chair near my dad’s ‘Vette, he had a couple of people he’d never met before greet him.

“You’re the Pods, aren’t you?”

I was not present for this exchange, but he said they were a couple whom had recently started playing trivia games, and had somehow bumped into my trivia team’s page on Facebook . This is not the first time we’ve randomly run into people in this fashion! Last fall, someone said “Go Pods” to us while we were visiting Greenfield Village. Same thing with my friend Brad, who used to work at U of M hospital. He would frequently have people say “Go Pods” to him in the corridors. I guess this means we’re “Internet celebrities now!” Go figure…social media is quite the beast!

Another “close call” with trivia came after the cruise. My husband and I wandered into Sticks, which was in the middle of serving up a trivia game. We hung out for the final question in game one, and all of the rest of the game, too. We tried to “help” a team sitting at the bar, but they didn’t listen to our correct answer on one of the questions, and wagered 9 points on the wrong one they wrote down. Here’s the question, paraphrased:

“What is the word, derived from Greek, describing the set of structural rules governing the composition of clauses, phrases, and words in any given natural language?”

Our answer suggestion was correct, they went with a different answer. At that point, we knew we were dealing with trivia amateurs, but just rolled with it.

It was still fun to be playing…but not really! I didn’t write down any questions, and we didn’t sign up to play. The team sitting next to us treated me like a superhero for knowing the answer to this ’80s music question:

“What singer had hits in the 1980s with songs including Smooth Operator and The Sweetest Taboo?”

Millennials! It’s great feeling like the smartest person in the world just for knowing about things that happened before they were born!