Just Another Thursday

If you work for yourself, you know there's a discipline to managing your off-time. Look at what you do in the times you're not in front of clients, and that's who you really want to be. I'm in the technology industry, so a focused, forward-thinking person such as myself ideally is always learning some new technology.

Yeah, that's nice in theory. When my ass falls asleep from sitting in my chair, though, I know it's time to make sure Nomad does not become that Dull Boy.


So on this Just Another Thursday, I seek nature. Quiet, I figure. Little hike in the woods. Though I live in a metropolitan Midwest city that's high on the list of the Fattest In America, fabled state parks are just a 40-minute drive away. Elvis Costello's classic My Aim is True and Paul Simon's new Surprise CD's in tow, we're off.

Let's just say that there's nothing like the Reality of Nature to make the Idea of Nature barf. Grandiose visions of a 2-hour jaunt evaporated quickly as the hilly terrain reminded me how much I was not 22 years old anymore. I let my heart rate calm a bit, rationalized that was "good enough for the first hike of the year," and headed back toward home.

Still starry-eyed enough with the bucolic rural setting, I decided to cruise through a small town on the way back, where my downfall awaited: Bar trivia.

Maybe you're familiar with this game, if you've been in, oh I don't know, damn near any fucking bar in the country. You get this little game terminal where you put in a 6-letter screen name (Me, the drunken Irishman, usually I'm glossed as "Oyoyoy." Ask any Mick, it's a hooligan thing). Then there's a 15-question game, which usually consists of questions with 4 multiple choice answers, and as a clock ticks down your possible points for that question, choices are eliminated until it's pretty obvious what the right answer is. You can always get some points, unless you just plain don't answer (0) or you're too sloshed on Bud Light to change your answer by the time the right one comes up (-250). Keep this in mind.

So I'm in Redneckville that's just big enough to have a BW3, which I prefer in small towns because they have something on tap besides Bud and Coors ("If I can see through it, I ain't drinkin' it," like I've told countless bartenders through the years). I order up a Guinness-- in the pint glass, you moron, not that 22-ounce Pilsener travesty-- grab a game terminal, and...

...And no one else is playing. OK, to be fair it's 3:00 in the afternoon on a Thursday. Most of the people who would provide fair competition for me are probably smart enough to be holding down day jobs right now. So I hang around a while, post a decent score, and wait. About 1-1/2 Guinesses later, another game starts and "Rayv" joins the game. Through 7 questions, I am doubling his score.

Now there's not that many other people in the place. I look around during a break, and "Rayv" is a 12-year old kid with Coke-bottle glasses and a better than average bet to end up as "Most Likely to Harbor a Grudge About Getting His Ass Kicked by Knuckle-Dragging Classmates for 4 Years" once he got to high school.

Naturally my initial inclination is to turn up the heat, kick his ass, teach him that life's not soft, there's hard knocks, it's a rite of passage to beat your Dad at basketball, all that shit.

So of course that's exactly what I do. It's like Paul Newman said in Color of Money:

"That's the problem with mercy, kid. It just ain't professional."

Hey, you want to play in the Big Man's game, it's gonna take time. What would he have ever learned if I let him win? It would be like playing in Little League now, like my son did, where everyone gets a fucking trophy. Just for showing up. The kid who has superstar written all over him, who moves like an athlete (You know the kinda kid I'm talking about, if you've ever coached), he gets the same trophy little Horace with the One Good Arm who all he does in the dugout is try to keep the coaches from seeing his buddy snuck him in some nacho cheese without the nachos which he's now drinking out of a 16-ounce mug (Don't laugh, it actually happened. I made him drink all of it before he went out to left field the next half inning).
Anyway, the trophy thing is a huge load of crap and indicative of a society where we say we value diversity, but we manage to go out of our way to make everyone feel equal even when that's not true, and it rarely ever is. That's a column for another day, though.

I hang around, two more people jump in the game, and just to make it interesting I decide I'm just going to go with my first answer, so I'll either get 1000 points for getting it right before any time ticks off, or I'll get -250 for being wrong. Three questions later, after correctly knowing what singer sang the song the Stones took their name from (Muddy Waters), who fought at the Battle of the Nile in 1798 (Lord Nelson), and which Blake Edwards movie didn't feature his wife Julie Andrews (Mickey & Maude), I was home free, rednecks splayed out behind, gasping for air.

At this point, I am satisfied with my conquest but not drunk enough yet to get up on the table and proclaim "I kicked all your sorry FUCKING asses!" (Which I did do at a different BW3 in Pittsburgh in 2004, and I had been drinking for approximately 6 hours without eating and my Browns had just lost to the Steelers, and yes, I was asked to leave). I figured, pack it in, head home.

Then, as I'm getting up from the barstool, I see 3 more people join the game. It's like the gauntlet's been thrown. Now I'm wishing Sidekick were here, because if things get out of hand, it's not like either one of us would probably be able to drive, but he's a thick dude and does actual physical work and can back down most people just by his appearance. I told Sidekick once he physically resembled Cleveland Indians' slugger Travis Hafner, which I thought was a compliment but he didn't seem to think so. To placate him, I revealed to him that I'm often compared to the Breakfast Club-era Judd Nelson, not only physically but because I am a smart ass, and for all my brave talk, ultimately quite the pussy about fighting. (Which makes my table-top outburst from Pittsburgh all the more amazing to me as I look back on it)

OK, I've done this before. I can stay in control, just slow down on the GPH rate (Guinness Per Hour) and be f-o-c-u-s-e-d. No problem.

This one turns into a real tussle, though. Midway through, I'm down about 1500 points. Finally I figure out that a bald dude with a broken arm at the other end of the bar is the one who's winning. I hate him already.

Fate intervenes, though. His wife and kid come to retrieve him. Cute daughter, about 8, plops down on the barstool next to him, I picture her saying "Mommy says you're going to come home this time, Daddy. Please let it be true." Without really hearing what's being said, though, I see the conversation get more animated. She's really trying to make him go home!

Finally he gets so wired, he just plain doesn't answer 2 questions in a row. I catch up. There's a break in the game, he seemingly recovers. Broken Arm Guy's wife gets a soda and flounces down disgustedly in the stool next to him, stroking the daughter's hair to pacify her. I can imagine this scene has been played out two or three hundred times before.

After that, he's so rattled I jump ahead and stay there, and win. He almost throws the game terminal back to the bartender but remembers just in time he doesn't want to get thrown out and stalks out. I swear his wife was trying to stifle a smile. I figure I should get going before there's a tabletop incident, so I take off.


This would just be a normal story of my Obsessive Compulsive Disorder surrounding Bar Trivia and a tragic tale of my lack of self-esteem tied up in said OCD, except for one thing. On the way home, I stop for gas, and I see a gun store across the street. Usually my reaction to this event would be "There's a gun store, I am going the other way."

Today though for some reason I decide I should own a gun. Home defense? Clint Eastwood movie playing as I fell asleep last night? I don't know. So I finish gassing up, go park next to a low-rider Caddy with two bruthas in the back waiting for one of their peeps to score a firearm inside. Emboldened by liquor, I go in.

And immediately realize I am way out of my league. Shotguns with telescopic sights and probably GPS units for $1300. Glocks for $800. When I'm drunk, I'll safely spend up to about $200 that I don't have. Not $800 though. I'm trying to make sure I hit the Exit door before a salesperson either asks if he can help me or takes a potshot at me (Maybe they do that in gun stores, just to see who's awake, I don't know). And who do I see coming in as I'm leaving...?

Broken Arm guy from the bar.

Don't ever let anyone tell you that you can't go the wrong way down a one-way street to get to the highway and get away with it. It can be done when you're motivated.