We have a new rule on our trivia team that we’ve had difficulty following as of late. TWICE in the past few weeks we’ve violated this rule!

Two different players on our team have been guilty of “holding out” important trivia knowledge during games!

I guess holding out during trivia games is much tamer than holding out of providing money if you’re a gangster who’s supposed to give your money to a more dominant (and violent) gangster – or a sex worker who has to fork over money to their pimp. Do we still say “pimp,” or do we have a more “woke” name for that job, too? How about “Liaison Broker?” I try to keep up with the lingo for things, but I’m just not cool enough!

We haven’t yet decided what the punishment for this should be. Angry poking with Pilot G2 pens? Public caning like they do in Singapore (do they even still do that)? Spending some time in a rack? Some kind of horrific medieval punishment involving livestock and pitch?

A couple of weeks ago, I was the one guilty of being the trivia holdout when I didn’t mention Russell Wilson’s name during a quarterbacks visual round. I mean…I totally spotted the Seahawks team colors, I knew that he was a Seahawk – yet I said nothing.

Of COURSE Russell Wilson ended up being a correct answer! Which is especially frustrating because on a good day, I can maybe name like five quarterbacks tops.

Rewind to Thursday night, my husband was the holdout! During a final question answer no less!

I really didn’t give him a hard time about this (honest)! He was much, much harder on himself for not remembering the name of the company that bought that other company that makes those cards (more details if you read on). I knew the name of the company that launched the game, he happened to know the company that bought the other company and didn’t say anything about that during our brainstorming.

“We have to lay all of our cards on the table,” I said to him after the game.

Such a facepalm thing, really! How long have we been playing this silly game? 🤔 😂

To be fair, we were the only team who came even remotely close to the correct guess on the final question, but we were too dumb to wager correctly, so…no prizes for us.

We had heard (and witnessed) that Thursday trivia nights at McShane’s were something to call ahead and reserve a table for, but of course, as it turned out, we would have been fine with just showing up. Goes to show you never can tell (sounds better coming out of Chuck Berry).

Here were our very abbreviated game questions:

Round One

Idioms – What is one doing if they are whetting their whistle?

Animals – What type of animal is Punxsutawney Phil?

Phobias – What is one afraid of if they are hydrophobic?

Round Two

Vegetables – What is the primary vegetable found in cole slaw?

Cars – What car body style has a rear door that opens upward?

Animals What ambassador animal of China had its conservation status recently changed from endangered to vulnerable?

Round Three

Organizations – What organization did Juliette Gordon Low found in 1912?

Books – First published in 1977, the Silmarillion is a companion book for previously published books by what author?

Anatomy – What is the term for the midline groove in the upper lip that runs from the top of the upper lip to the nose? Miss. Damn, I know we’ve had this question before and we missed it that time too! 

Halftime

Category – Food Production

Name four of the six countries that produce the most corn in the world as of 2025. Some organization was cited here, but I didn’t write it all down.

We picked three correct countries.

Halftime scores:

Grey Goose 7, 27, King Cobra/Do You Have Prince Andrew in the Can (Us), and Keeping up with the Joneses, 32; Black Russian, 33 and Spacecats, 36.

Round Four

Baseball – What pitcher known for his curveball is the only Dutch born MLB player ever inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame, doing so in 2011? Miss, we guessed Verlander, even though we knew it wasn’t correct.

Same Name – What 1940 Ernest Hemingway novel shares its name with a 1984 Metallica song?

My husband asked if the host Stacy could please play this song at some point during the game, which she did 🎶 🎸  Great song! We liked it before it became associated with “Stranger Things!”

Politicians – What physician  was a Green Party candidate in 2012, 2016 and 2024? There is holding out of information on trivia nights, and then there is the polar opposite which is…d’oh! Mike really tried to remember this name, but  nope!

Weather Words – What Arabic derived word meaning “wind” and “blow”  describes violent dust storms and down drafts from thunderstorms?

Libraries – Which president was the first to establish a presidential library on a college campus, doing so in 1971? Miss.

Documentaries – What NBA player co-directed the short documentary called “The Baddest Speechwriter of All?” There were more qualifiers than I bothered to write down.

Round Six

Investments – What social media founder’s original tweet was purchased by crypto entrepreneur Sina Estavi in 2021 as a nonfungible token (NFT) for $2.9 million at a 2021 auction? Miss. Neither of us follows this kind of news. 

Books – What TV personality and reality TV star released a coffee table book in 2015 called “Selfish?” I pulled the correct guess out of my body part that this woman seems especially proud to show off! 

Capitals – Austin is the capital of which U.S. state? Contrary to rumor, it is NOT named for Steve Austin! 

Scores heading into the final: 

Grey Goose, 49; Keeping up with the Joneses, 50; Spacecats/Do You Have Prince Andrew in the Can (us), 58; Black Russian, 59; King Cobra, 64. 

In January, 2026, shareholders in what company initiated a lawsuit about the overproduction of cards in its most lucrative product line, alleging mismanagement? 

We knew what company this was, we just didn’t put down the most recent name it has used. Balls! 

No teams got this correct.

Top 3: Grey Goose, Spacecats, Black Russian.

This may or may not be our last trivia outing of the week. We don’t know what else we might be up to this weekend. As always, Go Pods, and stay classy, Lyndon Johnson. Hee hee, I said “Johnson!” 

answers: 

r1 drinking, groundhog, water

r2 cabbage, hatchback, panda

r3 girl scouts, tolkien, filtrum

halftime US, Mexico, China, Brazil, Argentina, India

r4 blyleven, for whom the bell tolls, jill stein

r5 haboub, lyndon johnson, steph curry

r6 jack dorsey, kim kardashian, texas

f hasbro