Sunday Night Trivia
I sometimes ask myself why I do it. All I can ever think about is how much I would rather be somewhere else, how I really should be filling out college applications, or why my headache is coming back. Yet no matter how dull I feel, I always find myself back at Mellow Mushroom every Sunday night, playing the 7:30 trivia game with my friends.
We get there around seven, so that there’s time to order before the trivia game starts. The stories fly across the table at first: “So I talked to this girl online last night…” “I can’t believe I saw them kiss!” “…and then I pitched three games…” (What else is new?) “I was trying to burn this stump out of the ground today with gasoline…” “A cat puked on me today at work.” (Marnie works in a vet clinic.) “Jessica, how was your night with Rob?” That subject is always taboo. “…then we ran from the cops and these guys kept on throwing the 40’s out the window.” (Weekend lust.)
Now I see where the headaches come from.
When the game starts, the fat man at the front table asks his questions through his microphone. We never get any questions right, either because they’re based on completely useless information, or because we fight over the answer too much to come to an agreement (and we always pick the wrong one). “Who has the most hair on their head: a blonde, a brunette, or a redhead?” Who the hell knows that? We pick redhead and submit our answer…now we wait. “So when’s David coming back from Texas?” Useless small talk. “I dunno, but he’s gonna have some obnoxious stories about it that he won’t shut up about.” “Lauren, why don’t you just say it too his face instead of talking about it behind his back like that?” “He’s not here, Ames, and it’s not like you’ve never said anything about me behind my back.” Why do I still do this?
“The correct answer is blondes. Blondes have the most hair on their heads,” the fat man says.
“I knew that! I told you guys, but you wouldn’t listen to me!” “That’s not true, I never heard you say that!” “I heard it.” “But I didn’t. I was the one writing the answers down, in case you haven’t noticed!” Why does this even matter? It’s a game. There are better things to fight over.
The food arrives.
“Want some beefy-chunk pizza?” “No, I don’t eat mammals. It’s against my religion.” “Some religion.” “You wanna talk about your religion’s rules?” Charlie touches my shoulder to signal that I’m getting too vengeful. I really don’t know why I even bother to argue anymore. It’s the same thing every week. It’s always over something useless. There’s never any reason why any of us should question the same things week after week, and why it’s so important in the first place. Whatever the answer, I have a headache and it’s time for me to go home. Same thing every week. Sometimes I just want to finish this year and get out of high school, go to college, and get a new group of friends. Others, I don’t mind as much, but the desire for change always outnumbers the wanting to stay. The thing is I don’t mind it a bit, and I don’t think I would trade anything on a Sunday night to spend a couple of hours with my friends at Mellow Mushroom trying to answer the same useless questions every week. Maybe one week, we’ll get them right. Driving home, the loud punk rock actually sooths my nerves and heals my headache. I roll down the windows and sing along at the top of my lungs, “I don’t wanna grow up, I don’t wanna grow up…”
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