It’s no secret that the hardcore quizzers at the Belmont Inn can bring even the toughest of quizmasters down (of which I alas am not… tough that is) with their relentless attention to point totals and demand for unambiguous answers. It’s not a softy bar this one, and when you fuck up here you never forget it. Well my trivia-lovin’ friends, I fucked up tonight, pretty royally, and I do believe I shall take the hailstorm of criticism that ensued to my deathbed, or at least until the day my brain goes soft with senility in the old folks home.

In trying to remember exactly where things began to go so terribly wrong, it’s hard to separate everything out, as the night started out in relative peace and tranquility before snowballing into a sweaty, incessant blur of complaints and delays. A few ambiguously worded questions on the Bingo round drew a few irritated shout-outs, but hey it’s Belmont, I thought to myself, rude yellers are as entwined with this place as the nicotine stains on the ceiling. No biggie.

In between Rounds 1 and 2, something delayed us slightly that I can no longer remember. Or maybe it was the cumulative time lapse of dealing with quibbles that arose during the Bingo round itself. Today, I can’t really see how it all went down, but somehow we started round 2, Jeopardy this week, and it was already 8:15 (time flies when you’re flailing). Suddenly we were no longer relaxed, as we usually are (me and executive assistant Renee that is… and the voices in my head of course… hi voices… hello… I’ll be with you soon, just hang on, ‘kay?) by round 2, when the end is in sight and things are rolling towards the finish. Instead we felt slightly rushed and flustered. I raced through Jeopardy and collected the forms for grading at 8:40. And that’s when things began to go really haywire.

See, I’d completely forgotten that Jeopardy is a bitch to grade, especially when you have 15 teams and nearly 60 people playing as we did last night. Instead of 5-point answers, the point totals are ascending, as real-life Jeopardy does, from 2-point values to 10-point values, so you have to do a lot of real adding as opposed to adding by multiples of 5. Additionally, there are those wonderful daily doubles spread throughout, and you have to keep track of which teams have scored a daily double and remember to give them double the points for that question. It’s not that hard when you’re feeling relaxed, but when you’re pressed for time and suddenly the pencil quiz handouts are pouring in for grading as well and suddenly five different (by now drunken) teams are approaching the table with complaints… well your wires start to cross a bit.

Finally, after 9:00, we finished grading Jeopardy and I began reading the answers. And here is where I made the mistake that would bring the hammer down and crush a quiz that was already limping (but of course it didn’t put us out of our misery; you don’t get put out of your misery at Pub Quiz, you just limp even harder from that hammer blow and hope there doesn’t come another one). I told assistant Renee to finish grading the pencil quizzes while I read off Jeopardy and also to enter the scores into the trusty Excel document. Being a wonderful and speedy assistant, she did, entering every last score from the handouts before I’d even finished the Jeopardy answers. What this means is that when I read off the scores following Jeopardy, I was actually reading the final scores, with every last round and handout total thrown in. Usually, I’ll read off the scores and standings at the end of round 2, THEN enter the handout/pencil quiz scores, THEN read of the FINAL scores and standings. This gives quizzers a chance to approach the table while we are entering the handouts and address any issues that may have arose with our grading of Round 2. But due to my ineptitude, they were not given that option tonight. Instead, I was suddenly reading off the final scores as well as the top five teams who would be playing the final round.

I think you may be able to guess where this is going. The top 5 teams turned in their wagers, I read the final round question, the answers were collected. THEN… oh then… one of the other teams that HADN’T made the cut, That Shouldn’t Be Green, approached the bench with a point discrepancy. Turns out, of course, that they were right, that in my (not Executive Assistant Renee’s, she makes far fewer mistakes than me, if any ever) hasty grading of the Jeopardy round, I’d incorrectly added their score. That Shouldn’t Be Green were not only entitled to play in the final round, but their arrival pushed out not one but TWO teams who had been TIED for fifth place!

At this point, I am tired of writing this overly long post and heavy with the dark gravity of bad memories. Suffice it to say we re-did the final round, with new wagers and an alternate question and that amidst the flurry of ensuing derision, I made out “this is bullshit,” “you suck,” and of course the imminently useful “BOOOOO!”

Now, allow me to end with apologies:

To my good and loyal friends Beige Food, I am so very sorry I let you into the final round only to kick you out again.

To team Trilateral Commission, who I don’t know at all but who seem nice enough, I am sorry for the same thing.

To all the wonderful teams who played at Belmont Inn last night (and yelled at me mercilessly), I am sorry for my poor calling in the face of a challenging night, and most of all, I am so very sorry for keeping you up past your bedtimes. While pub quizzes may come and go, sleep is one thing you can never get back. We’ll do better next week. Hang in there my friends. I pledge to keep the occurrences of this night from ever happening again. Together, together, we shall prevail. -Justin