Pandemic life – and life in general – is all about “Plan B.” When your Plan A fails, the more quickly you can come up with a Plan B, the better!

Case in point, consider a family spread out over three different vehicles last weekend, whom had all met up for a weekend to-do called a “cross country meet.” We had a Plan A to have lunch in a certain touristy Bavarian-themed restaurant where the wait staff wear lederhosen and dirndls and serve buttered noodles (among other goodies, including fried chicken). So the first car in our group arrived and called the second group which was not far behind to say there was no parking. So – while using my dad’s integrated hands-free phone in his car’s command center, we talked about possible Plan B places.

“How about (that place in Birch Run that serves obscene amounts of food)?”

“No, that place will probably be packed too.”

I suggested a Mexican joint in a small town a few miles south of the town lovingly referred to as “Little Barbaria” (JK, it’s actually “Little Bavaria”). I’d only seen that place recently while heading back from a trip “Up North.” So we all agreed we’d try out this place, which used to be a family-owned pizza/Italian restaurant in the long, long ago (OK, maybe not THAT long ago, about 10 years ago or so). Thankfully, the food turned out to be delicious – and the restaurant was uncrowded. A bonus during plague-ridden times!

Fast forward to a couple of days later, and my husband and I had a Plan A to have a nightcap at a favorite local watering hole. We arrived only to be greeted by a staff member in the parking lot telling us it was closed due to a lack of power. We couldn’t think of any other bars we wanted to go to, so we stopped at a party store and picked up a couple of four packs (pint cans) of some beer and headed home – where we signed up for a virtual trivia game that would start within the hour. Did I just reveal myself to be from Michigan by using the words “party store?” Or did you already figure out I was referring to Frankenmuth a bit earlier? And didn’t I mention Birch Run by name? Uhh….

As for the virtual Stump! trivia game, we wound up being in first going into the final, but our Plan A to win the game was stymied by a tough final question about (ugh) Grammy Awards. So we wound up finishing in second instead. No big disappointment, the beer we’d never tried before turned out to be yummy, and we had a good time in our basement rumpus room!

Here were our questions:

Round One

1) Brands – What brand of paper products is a trademark of Kimberly-Clark, although its name is commonly used as a generic trademark in reference to facial tissue?

2) MLB Records – Who holds the record for most games played in an MLB career with 3,562 games?

3) Europe – What is the only European country that borders both France and Slovenia?

4) Social Media – What does #tbt (hashtag T-B-T) stand for when posting an old photo on social media toward the end of the week?

We missed the sportsball one (shakes fist)!

Mystery One – Money

Identify the paper currency based upon a description of some of the items depicted on the rear side.

M1. Quill pen, inkwell, a clock showing the time as 10:30, and a building completed in 1753

M2. The Great Seal of the United States, 20 stars, and the names of 26 U.S. states

M3. The year 1776 in Roman numerals, an eyeball, and phrases in Latin meaning “He favors our undertaking” and “New Order of the Ages”

M4. A man born in 1822, a stylized U.S. flag, and a building that is 289 feet tall

We missed #2.

Round Two

1) Future Films – Scheduled to be released in June 2022, Rise of the Beasts is the subtitle of a film in what franchise?

2) 1980s TV – Among actress Diahann Carroll’s many TV roles was as a singer and businesswoman named Dominique Deveraux on what series that debuted in 1981? My triviagasm moment, I was like “Ooh, ooh I know this! I used to watch this series!”

3) Presidents – Name one of the two 19th-century U.S. presidents who were in office for less than a year.

NERD POINT: Name both. Got this for the points and bonus.

4) Prisons – What maximum-security prison was officially known as Ossining Correctional Facility from 1970-1985? Don’t you just love it when questions are about what you want them to be about? When they read off the categories before the game, I said “I hope the answer is (what would be the correct answer to this one).”

We were in first with 50 points going into the final, and wagered eight (our nearest opponent was eight points behind us).

Mystery Two – Visual

Back in the really long, long ago when the Sporcle trivia company started doing picture rounds on paper, we had that last animal as one of the animals we had to ID. Since this animal looks virtually identical to a larger similar animal and there was nothing showing a size reference, we kind of called shenanigans about that when we got it wrong. Also, paper printers are always the weakest links! Sure, it’s trivia water under the bridge, but we’ll never forget it!

Final Category – ’90s Music

At the Grammy Awards in February 1996, Hootie & the Blowfish won Best New Artist, defeating four solo women who also earned nominations.

Name two of those four women, two of whom were born outside of the United States.

We came up with one correct woman – we talked ourselves out of a second one who would have been correct. Worse things have happened in trivia games! As always, Go Pods, and stay classy, Alexis Colby!