Trivia Newton John

The Lakewood was a disappointment. I had run as far as I had ever run from Dustin's apartment, and I felt I had been rewarded when Junius Street came to an end and the spire of an old theatre rose over the tree line, announcing itself in a vertical stack of neon letters as the Lakewood. I have a weakness for old movie theatres, but I like them best when they still show movies. But the Lakewood's marquee announced Burlesque Night and some local bands and I wrote it off as little more than a landmark.

Until I discovered the Arcade Bar.

Just as the Lakewood Theater was no longer a movie theater, the Arcade Bar was no longer an Arcade. Rather it was a long side room bar, and Greg and Lauren brought us in for Wednesday night pub trivia where we sit on one end and the lawyer who usually wins sits with a friend or two at the other. In between are two teams that compete mostly for the filthiest possible name they can get Dan to say out loud when he reads the scores. There's one more team behind us, between us and the door, the team so close we choose to whisper over whether the picture clue is for Rocky Horror or Hedwig and the Angry Inch.

We know we are in a place where we should be when Greg writes down our team name as Trivia Newton John, and we are sure of it when we are lauded as heroes for knowing the final round answer is "keel hauling" or "tungsten" or "rhubarb" meaning an argument. And when, after having been in third or fourth place all night, another team is read out for the third place spot, we are ecstatic to believe we have landed in second place. But when we aren't called for second place, either, we are slow to dawn on the fact that we have displaced the lawyer at the end of the bar. And the only thing more amazing will be the next week when we discover the popcorn machine at the back of the bar AND the Chex Mix free from the bar if you know to ask and that it is just as much fun when the lawyer wins because we know in our hearts how it feels to be the only one at the table to know the answer is fajitas or the KGB and to write it down before Dan has finished asking the question.