Bar Flies

Last night, my buddy Dawson and I found ourselves at the Record Bar. As it happened, it was Trivia Night. I, for one, had never sat in on any of Kansas City's traditional bar trivia contests, but figured it might be interesting when Dawson brought it up. We would be meeting two of his co-workers who, apparently, are there every Thursday night for the event.

"Are they cool?" I ask.

"Uh. No. Not really. They're actually a bit annoying and big time nerds."

Now, this isn't the first time I've had to spend an evening with an annoying acquaintance of a friend. An acquaintance that, as it turned out, my friend didn't really like to begin with. I can recall at least one occasion where I've had to rub elbows with one of Brandon's co-workers who he found to be "a pain in the ass." Flatscreen's entire life is spent around people he doesn't seem to care for, yet finds time to hang out with. I'll never quite understand this. If I work with somebody I don't like, I generally try to avoid them outside of the workplace.

Dawson and I reached our destination and immediately ordered two beers. We settled into the booth with our "teammates" and introductions were made. A couple of personal anecdotes, some Star Wars references and one Simpsons quote into it and I was ready for another drink.

We spent only about an hour there and, as it turned out, everybody in the room shared the annoying habits, lame jokes, and worthless trivia knowledge as the Hardy Boys. I also pointed out to Dawson how the majority of the "funny" comments are pretty old. And not all that funny the first time around. One prime example is when a person would ask a "guess who" question, followed by a pause and two thumbs back toward himself, saying "This guy!" As in, "guess who forgot to pick up the milk after work? This guy!" I seem to remember that gesture being linked to a dirty joke in the mid-nineties, but it looks as if the Record Bar trivia crowd will find any excuse to use it. They also forget to include the notation of the two thumbs in the original statement, which is what made it somewhat humorous to begin with ("Guess who has two thumbs and forgot to pick up the milk after work? This guy!"). And it's always a guaranteed crowdpleaser. But what did I really expect? I was at a trivia night, for Christ's sake.