There’s No I In Team

I’ve always been more of an individual sports gal. I started gymnastics when I was 6, maybe 7. As a middle schooler, I ran track. Does cheerleading count as a team sport? Or bowling? I bowled in a league as a 6th grader. 100 Things To Do Before You Grow Up encourages kids to think about groups or clubs, not just athletic teams, so I’ll throw in dance and drama. Alright, already. What are we doing this week? It’s time to BE A TEAM PLAYER.

My parents were not overly invested in my athletic future, and although they dutifully attended every dance recital, play and most gymnastics meets, my mom was definitely not a stage mom. They did, however, provide the perfect environment to help me excel in one particular area. Nightly Jeopardy! viewing, Trivial Pursuit as the family game of choice and, maybe most importantly, a library card. That’s right, folks. I was raised on trivia.

Tomato Jake’s Pizzeria hosts a weekly trivia night less than two miles from our house. I’d seen it mentioned in our neighborhood Facebook group but never been there. With a team to recruit, I wasted no time, sending a link to Tomato Jake’s event page and texting our Fam chat:”Let’s play trivia next Wednesday. Let me know if you are interested.” Wednesday came and we gathered in our entryway, grabbing keys and putting on shoes.

Rachel: “This is fun. What made you decide to do this?”

Me: “I needed a team activity that wasn’t sports.”

Rachel: “This is for the blog?! Was bowling for the blog, too?”

(For the record, it was not.)

Okay, so maybe recruited is not the right word.

We squished into my Civic for the short drive to Tomato Jake’s, like an old school family outing except everyone has bills and they don’t argue as much. The parking lot was crowded and the restaurant was busy. We lined up to order and circled to find a table. Two pizzas and a round of drinks later, team Forced Fun was ready for action.

Lessons on teamwork and life from Trivia Night:

• Choose a good leader

Elisabeth was our leader and scribe, corralling our answers and filling out our answer sheets. It was pretty much a thankless job and we appreciated not having to do it.

• Trust your gut

Here’s the question: What animated movie sequel included the characters Duke Caboom and Giggle McDimples? We were not sure, but we thought it was probably Toy Story 4. At the last minute, someone said it kind of sounds like Cars 2. We all agreed. Elisabeth wrote Cars 2. Spoiler: it’s not Cars 2. On four separate questions over the course of four rounds we did this same thing. Four times! Go with your first instinct.

• Be creative

You have to have a team name, which was arguably the night’s most contentious decision. We needed a name, and we needed it fast, and we were not among the many teams rewarded for BEST TEAM NAME. It’s okay. We didn’t like it either.

• Use your resources

We signed up for the Quizling Club, a weekly email that offers hints and prize opportunities. We’re pretty sure the hint from the week before we joined was about the Toy Hall of Fame. The questions were sprinkled across the four rounds and were the source of debate and at least two incorrect answers. In case you wondered the baseball card was inducted in 2023 and the clapping monkey has not yet been included.

• Trust your teammates

The most vigorous discussion of the night concerned whether a particular tea brand was called Celestial Seasonings or Celestial Seasons. Our resident tea drinker, Elisabeth, quickly said Seasonings but then someone overheard Seasons from a nearby team. Soon we were debating the word seasonings and if it made any sense. Repeat the word seasonings a couple of times and it won’t make sense to you either. Ultimately, we convinced (bullied?) Elisabeth to write Celestial Seasons and the rest is history. See also, don’t cheat off your neighbors, they don’t know any more than you do.

• Sometimes you get rewarded for trying

We had a discussion concerning the name of the submersible that vanished last year and was found to have imploded . Was it Titan? OceanGate? We weren’t sure and finally settled on Titan2. Yeah, I know. Our intrepid leader kept a de facto scorecard noting which answers we thought we got correct. Turns out we got partial credit for some answers that we weren’t so sure about.

• Stay off your phone

Trivia might be one of the last phone-free spaces. They didn’t confiscate our phones, but Sparky, our quizmaster, was not playing with people looking at their phones. It is the only fair way to play trivia, and it’s also an excellent way to spend undistracted time together.

• Know your strengths

Which lake in the United States is the largest by surface area? Bodies of water, geography, astronomy: not my area of expertise. Which author, famous for his children’s books about a pig named Olivia, died on March 7, 2023? Now that I can answer.

• Diversity is strength

Okay, diversity might not have been our strength—not in terms of race or ethnicity or maybe many other measures, but we did have two men and three women, spanning three generations. It might not hold up in court but the mixture of interests, educational focus, and pop culture knowledge served us pretty well. Round out your team with members who bring a diversity of knowledge, experience, and education.

• Have fun

We are a competitive bunch. If we heard the correct answer was the first one we discussed but not the one we wrote down, we groaned and rolled our eyes at each other, and then we laughed. If you can’t enjoy eating pizza, answering meaningless questions, and spending time together, I’m not sure I can help you. We will do it again and we will be laughing all the way to the winner’s table.

I’m not going to lie. We had some challenges beyond the questions. It was very difficult to hear between the restaurant’s noise and the less-than-booming speaker. As soon as the quizmaster started to talk we’d all focus blankly into the distance, willing our ears to understand. Also, everything felt a bit sticky. Not necessarily unclean just that wiped-in-a-hurry vibe. The pizza was pretty good but the answer to “is Pepsi okay,” is no.

In the end, we tied for 4th but ended up 5th because we had more partial or misspelled answers than the team we tied with. Honestly, we were pleasantly surprised. We were way harder at judging our answers than Sparky was. Maybe that’s another life lesson. Don’t be so hard on yourself!

Before you go…this week we went to another Trivia Night at a different location. This time, at a local tap house next door to a pizza place. We recruited Elisabeth’s partner, Michael, and readied to win. Team name: Not Here to Make Friends. Pluses: the pizza was better, the music round was quite fun, and a visual round with famous paintings was a nice touch.

Minuses: terrible sound quality, and I mean terrible, very lax phone supervision, not as challenging. We finished 5th again but still didn’t win for Best Team Name. We all agreed, better pizza or not, we’d go back to Tomato Jake’s. Also, I let unnamed others convince me we should change Bon Jovi to Poison when I second-guessed myself. Folks, trust your gut.

Thanks for reading!