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Trivial Pursuit

There was a terrible fuss over at the Hillman’s last Saturday night. It all started when Jerry and Joy invited What’s-Her-Name and me to their house for a six pack of milk and a hand of Trivial Pursuit. Whoever created that game hates civilization and is out to destroy us all.

First of all, I’ve never been able to develop great enthusiasm for any game that isn’t played with two or five dice. Those which require only one die are not natural. How can you roll a seven? Just try playing Liar’s Dice with only one cube. It’ll shorten the game and take all the fun out of it.

The world would be better off if there were no “one die” games and if Congress really had our better interest at heart, they’d stop posturing and making meaningless, self-serving speeches and pass a law to suppress all one die games.

Second, I lose patience with games that cheat. A little sleight of hand by the participants at the poker table is to be expected and adds spice to what otherwise might be a dull evening at deer camp - although it sometimes results in gun shot wounds. All other games should be honest.

In Trivial Pursuit, if your answer isn’t right, you lose. I’ve got no problem with that general thesis - but the damned game lies. It’s worse than a waste of time. The game of Trivial Pursuit should be outlawed - if only for the children’s sake. Society has an obligation to educate them and it can’t be done if people insist on feeding them a lot of false information through that ridiculous game.

Now friends, if you are skeptical, just listen to what happened to me last Saturday. Everything started out nice and friendly and Joy explained the game. As I understand it, you shake the one die, move a marker in one direction or another and then the person to your right asks a question. Simple enough, right?

I positioned myself to Jerry’s right and after he shook, I asked him: “Just where were you last fall when you ran into all those coveys of Ruffed Grouse?” He told me it was none of my business and I got a little disgusted with him right then and there. It didn’t seem to me like he was playing the game.

Then I think Joy changed the rules. She told me I couldn’t ask the questions. The game did the asking and the questions came printed on a little card. The one Jerry got was: “Name the starting line-up of the 1922 Chicago Black Sox.” Jerry could only remember eight, so he lost.

It was What’s-Her-Name’s turn next and I didn’t particularly like her answer to the question: “What is the most intelligent sub-human primate?” I suppose she meant it as a compliment, but I gave her a dirty look anyway.

This business about the game asking the questions wouldn’t be so bad if the questions made any sense, but it doesn’t take much time to figure out the fellow who prepared the questions had a diseased mind. Who but a person suffering from serious psychic disorders would write a question for the Sports Category as follows: “How many hoops are there in an Association Croquet Court?”

I don’t want to offend all of you croquet shooters. (I had a cousin who used to do it. He was a strange cousin.) Still, I really don’t consider croquet to be a sport and I think it amounts to out and out fraud to put that question in the Sports Category.

This whole concept of letting the game ask all the questions casts serious doubt on its basic fairness. Not only that. Some of those questions would tax the memory and knowledge of Mr. Britannica or whoever it was who wrote the encyclopedia. For instance, how many nails are in a standard horseshoe? (Who cares?) What does the Kelvin scale measure? (Kelvinators?) What does a Piscatologist excel in?

I took a guess at that one, missed it by a mile and got back that dirty look I had already given to What’s-Her-Name. It turns out that a Piscatologist is a fisherman. If I were you, I’d be careful who I called a Piscatologist - especially if he is bigger than you.

These criticisms aside, the most objectionable feature of Trivial Pursuit is: the game answers its own questions. Moreover, the answer on the card is the only one that counts. There is no room for any argument, no partial score for being part right and no right of appeal to a higher authority - no matter how wrong that card’s answer is. This is not only unfair. It’s un-American. We fought a war to do away with Hitler and now this game wants to impose the same type of autocratic control over our lives.

Here are some examples: Question - “Who ran off with a pussy cat?” Answer: “The Owl, in a beautiful pea green boat.” The hell it was an owl. It was Alex Schubert and there’s no question about it, he ran off with a real pussy cat. Incidentally, it wasn’t a “beautiful pea green boat”, either. It was a restored blue 1976 Corvette - but Trivial Pursuit insists it was an owl and there’s no arguing with it.

Here’s another one. Question: “What non-mechanical sport achieves the highest speed?” Answer: “Sky Diving”. This is absolute nonsense. Whoever made up that answer never saw Ted Johnson, with his fly rod intact and his creel full of speckled trout, being chased across that cleared forty next to Mill Creek by Teetzen’s bull.

We had gone around the table three or four times without anyone giving a correct answer. There had been some violent arguments and some of us weren’t speaking to others of us. It got to be my turn and the question was: “What important Western Hemisphere event occurred on July Fourth?”

Friends, I had the answer to that one and figured I’d win the game for sure and get a box of shells, a pair of tip-ups, some hand tied flies, or something like that. Well, the three of them got jealous and said the answer was the Declaration of Independence. They all claimed it occurred on that date.

That may be so, but it was also on July 4th that I caught a 26 inch Brown Trout on the Peshtigo River. They said the Declaration of Independence was more important. Imagine! We never got to see the answer on the card because I ripped it up and threw it away.

Relations in the neighborhood stayed strained for a few days and then the three of them got together and finally admitted they were wrong and I was right. We’re friendly again, but I don’t think we’ll play Trivial Pursuit any more.