I hope you all thought of the theme song to Cheers when you read the title to this blog!

I never really got into Cheers that much, but I did like this knucklehead!

Let’s rewind to last Thursday, Nov 29, shall we? That night, my husband Mike and I visited JBs Smokehouse in Canton, MI for its debut trivia night in the My Trivia Live league. Other than a MTL sales manager recognizing us, we were pretty much…incognito. Bringing it all home was that the rookie trivia host, Gene (whose name I will remember because of Gene Simmons from Kiss…seriously that is how my brain works sometimes) – had trouble pronouncing the word “Miskatonic.”

And you know what? It was WONDERFUL! Nobody recognized us at this bar, which hasn’t been the case at all of the bars in this area. Let’s talk about that “one” barhop guy whom has recognized us at a couple of nearby trivia spots (always greeting us…”Hey, it’s the ‘Pods”). He did this about a year ago or so at the Canton Bistro – approaching us like he knew who we were and saying  “It’s the ‘Pods.” That’s all fine and good I guess (it’s not bad to be…friendly)…trouble is I’d never MET the guy before! He seemed to know who I was – but I’d never met him – or seen him before!

And we weren’t even playing there as “The ‘Pods!” My “mission” at this bar was for my friend Kim to have a MTL league number and have it be “her” team. That mission was accomplished, as since it was a short trivia season, her team was the dominant one at the end. So she was able to summon a team to play in semifinals (though they did not win a finals spot). I thought of it as my little Christmas present to her (I’m kind of a cheap bastard, LOL)!

Still, we couldn’t escape being noticed. Another team whispered about us loud enough for us to hear… “It’s the ‘Pods.” Jesus…we didn’t even use the ‘Pods name!

I don’t think it’s JUST the fact that my trivia team’s Facebook page (established in the fall of 2012) has more than 600 followers. This blog site is truckin’ along too (75 followers and 8,019 total views in 2018). I think I know exactly what put us on “the map” – and that event was winning first place in the MTL finals in July, 2017. There’s hardly a day that goes by that I don’t regret that it happened. Pictures or it didn’t happen…right?

From left to right David C., Brad N., Mike R. and…me. This was an Applebee’s in Taylor, MI.

 

I know this makes me sound like a giant, ungrateful dick. And maybe a bit whiny. Think of all of the “scrub” trivia teams out there who play every single week – and have never set foot in a bar hosting a regional tournament, let alone ever won any money at one.

If I could go back and change what happened that day…I would. In a heartbeat. Was it “winner’s guilt?” I honestly don’t know.  Looking back, I think it set in motion a series of events that would ultimately lead to a personal meltdown on my part (which happened days before the MTL finals in August, 2018) – which would take me months to come back from. I guess you could call me a “recovering triviaholic.” One day… or one GAME at a time, right?

There really is no more mellow music on the planet to listen to than Crosby, Stills and Nash! Got weed (LOL)? Woodstock is particularly sweet! Did you know it was written by Joni Mitchell? David Crosby’s battles with substance abuse are fairly well documented…

Let’s look at some other things that help put my meltdown into motion and sent me to Triviaholics Anonymous:

• Learning from a trivia host that after we stopped playing at one of the bars we’d dominated for several seasons – that some of the teams we’d “scared off” had come back…now think about that, will you – would YOU want to play trivia games in that bar again?
• Increasingly unpleasant experiences at a trivia spot we switched to after playing at the spot mentioned earlier (I would rather not get into all of the details, but we walked away from playing at a trivia spot after four games into a season).
• Three trivia tournaments in the month of August, plus qualifying for another the previous month in the Sporcle Live league. By the time MTL finals rolled around in late August, I seriously thought about finding a sub for myself! I was wondering whether it would be better to burn out…or to fade away (like that Neil Young song, My My, Hey Hey).

Out of the blue and into the black
They give you this, but you pay for that
An’ once you’re gone you can never come back
When you’re out of the blue and into the black

So what did I do about all of this? Lots of things!

• Took a season off from competitive trivial pursuits – played trivia more sporadically rather than in one regular weekly spot (though we did manage to find a spot we liked playing in mid October and wound up qualifying for a tournament by playing there, ironically enough).
• Played trivia games “off the books” in a spot we previously used to qualify for finals to allow another team to advance
• Cut certain “negative” trivia spots loose (trivia is much, much more fun if you’re not pissed off at other players/hosts in the same room (and vice versa, it’s not fun when other hosts/players don’t like YOU either…trust me on this)!
• Cut out weekend trivia games

BOTH games are “The Beautiful Game” to me!

Doing all of these things did wonders to help restore my love of “the beautiful game.” Wait…did you think soccer was “the beautiful game?” Well,  yes it is! But competitive pub trivia is quite… beautiful to me, too! As long as I keep my competitive beast in check – lest it consume me (again)! Rest assured, I’ll be paying keen attention to how my trivial pursuits (and other things) negatively impact my mental health in the days to come. I look forward to seeing some new faces, enjoying some (relative) anonymity and if all goes well – qualifying for tournaments again!

As a side note, we’re going to be using the name “Fast Times at Miskatonic High” in our MTL games this season. When I told a trivia “comrade” about it, he said, “Is that because you’re teenagers compared to most other MTL players?” LOL on his commentary about MTL players being on the older side. Ironically enough, I did it to avoid having a new host have to say “cephalopods” (lots of folks have trouble saying that word). And in a twist of irony, he wound up having trouble saying “Miskatonic!” Can’t win, right? I think using the new name is a symbolic gesture at the very least of our “fresh start” (though we’ll always be “The ‘Pods”). We played under this name at our ’80s movies theme night and it’s kind of…grown on us!

If you bothered to read this far…thank you! I plan to play at Tower Inn tonight, so I’ll have a recap to post on Wednesday.