I was on a bad-ass trivia team in high school.
Trivia is fucking awesome. It's competitive, it's rewarding, it gives you the opportunity to think you are better than other people based on broad impractical knowledge that is made entirely obsolete with the use of google.
Anywho, it was a trivia game called "Reach for the Top" and there were a bunch of other high school teams across Canada that did the same thing. Four players on each team with one buzzer for each player. The teams sit across from one another looking at each other to build some tension. A designated third-party reader reads form a pack of questions and you buzz in whenever you think you know the answer.
My school had a deep trivia culture... so we were pretty good. Looking back on it there was a lot of interesting things surrounding the trivia. The dynamic was fairly similar to a sports team only it was a a trivia team with a bunch of nerds... I always thought this would make a hilarious movie (Starring Will Ferrell as the good guy and Ben Stiller as the bad-guy). Instead of showing off by flexing muscles and screaming we would show off by answering trivia questions and then insulting the fuck out of everyone. Lot of obsessive behaviour, lot of strange personalities... I really enjoyed myself.
Skip to the regional competition. Our team made it to the finals against a team that only had one good player. He ended up sitting across from me during the game. So I decided that I would try to eliminate him as a threat by freaking him the fuck out during the game! So I just stared at him. I didn't blink. Wide-eyed, unilateral focus on his eyes. He started noticing and I could see a bit of fear in his face. He would look back at me every minute or so and there I am, with my eyes fixed on him slowly licking my lips, or taking a long drink without breaking eye contact. This went on for quite some time before I realized that I was so focused on fucking with him that I hadn't answered any questions and the game was half over. So I stopped and went back to playing the game. We already had a commanding lead at this point and we won. After the game he called me a "fucking weird". Those were his exact words when I went up and apologized for staring at him. I knew that I had done some good for my team.
So we advanced it to the provincial tournament and then we advanced again to the televised round that is shown on provincial tv.
So we are sitting in this TV studio building the entire fucking day waiting for our game to start. Hours and hours of just sitting there. So the team was getting antsy and I was getting antsy and nervous as shit. I am an anxious person and I knew that my reflexes and focus and usefulness for my team was going to be somewhat compromised by being in front of an audience and TV cameras. So I told the team this and that I wouldn't be offended if they wanted to rotate me out of the lineup this game. But, being creatures of obsessive behaviour the rest of the team said no and that we should keep the same team and player positions as our previous game.
Team-communication is sometimes important during the day so we had a standard player-position system. During the televised round my position meant that I would be asked to introduce the team by the host. This made me even more nervous and I was thinking about what I would say. When I get nervous I kind of move behind my body and things go into automatic mode. I sometimes do shit without thinking.
So our game starts and we line up and we have to do this intro pose when our team is introduced. The producer recommended we give a double wave or something but my team was too cool for this shit so we just kinda stood there. I, however, blatantly spanked the teammate standing next to me. And I knew... I was off the fucking chain. I wasn't controlling me, my nervous fucking craziness was in control.
So the time for introductions comes. The host approaches me and I'm shitting myself. She asks me to introduce the team and I go go through. One of our team members, however, had to sit out and he was in the audience. His name was Jake Seaman. And when the host asks me to introduce him I say something like "...and in the audience is our team member Jake 'don't step in that' Seamen". As if his nickname was 'don't step in that'.
Sure this wasn't particularly clever. It makes no fucking sense. But it was supposed to be something that would be innocuous enough to get around any uproar from the producer while still subtly showing that I was talking about semen... in this case, semen that was on the floor that the host should avoid stepping in (for the record, I think a friend of mine actually came up with this during a previous brainstorming session).
There is a bit of an awkward silence. The host just kinda looks at me for a second. Did this kid just make a semen joke during a trivia contest on a shitty provincial television station? And I'm just kinda staring back at her with a smirk, like "yup" I just said that.
The coach of our team is also in the stands. The coach was a teacher at my school and, also, my mother.
Interesting side-note, in Grade 9 I went to a new school and didn't know anyone. I told my mother to avoid me at all costs. I didn't want anyone to know that I was a teacher's son. For some fucking reason she is helping out in my Grade 9 geography class. I don't even know why this was allowed. Anyway, someone in the class is using a pencil sharpened down to a nub. A tiny little thing that makes writing difficult. I had done this a lot in elementary school as, I'm sure, many people do. So My mom grabs this kid's tiny pencil, holds it up in front of the class, and says "hey Brett, does this look familiar?" Of course everyone bursts out laughing thinking that my mom is saying that I have a tiny penis... that was a great fucking way to be introduced to new people...
Back to the trivia contest! So the semen reference is made and there is an awkward pause. Then the host notices that the coach and I share the same last name and the host asks something like "is that your mother?" and I reply "only through blood".
This is probably one of the most clever, shocking displays of quick thinking in my life. I was completely out of it. I had just spanked my teammate, then I made a semen joke, I'm in front of these lights sweating like a beast and I can't fucking concentrate and I'm running on fucking fumes. Yet I say "only through blood" as though my mother and I had a major falling out of some sort yet she is still my trivia coach. Or, perhaps, that my mother birthed me, then abandoned me, and then became my trivia coach. It was just so stupidly absurd that it was great.
So the taping ends and the producer gives shit to my mom because I was being such a little prick on his show. They ended up edited out everything I did when they aired the episode and I just looked like a sweaty idiot.
