So for all you story fans:

Here’s part two of the great Trivia debacle. This time – typed in Word, so there can be no chance of losing anything. Not that there is anything that great to be lost – but I refuse to type this a third time –and the build up is beginning to overpower the story….

The World Series of Trivia is to be broadcast on VH1. As seen from our applications – it was to be a team sport. Our team – Team Killjoy – named, incidentally after a script that was written years ago about a group of really bad clowns – consisted of Shawn, Blair and I.

If you broke us down to our individual pokemon powers, I’d say that Blair’s specialty was 70’s music and obscure movies, my thing was TV and Movies and Shawn’s was sports and general knowledge. Too bad there was no sports or general knowledge on the test.

If anything – I think Shawn and I were afraid for Blair – because the thing about this test is that everyone on the team had to pass it. If one person fails – the whole team fails.

We were scheduled for a 5:00 time slot on Saturday in Chicago. Chicago is about 2.5 hours away for Shawn and I – and Blair is in Virginia. At the time we applied – Blair planned on driving his family out and staying a week.

Blair’s kids are home schooled – so they will grow up socially retarded. Whoops. I mean – Blair’s kids are home schooled – so they can take off school whenever they want. SO it was to be a whole family trip.

But Blair also works for NASA doing a children’s TV show about science – and it just so happens that the auditions were going to take place in the middle of a very crowded week for him. He was shooting in Seattle till Friday night – had to fly to Chicago on Saturday – fly out Sunday – to be back in Virginia to interview Bruce Hornsby on Monday.

The first stage of the audition was Saturday. This was to be the test – and if everyone passed the test – than an interview. Out of all the auditioners – 8 teams would be chosen to proceed to Sunday – where there would be a fake version of the game played – and then three teams would be chosen to go to the real game.

At this point – we all felt fairly confident that we would at least make it to Sunday. How hard could the test be? They had to make it easy enough that they could get cool people through so that they could pick the most interesting ones to be on the show… or so we thought. We were confident enough in this that no on really thought twice when Blair had to throw down $400 to buy a ticket to come to Chicago from Seattle at the last minute…

No one really studied. Why start now? It didn’t help in high school, college or grad school… But on the day of the big game – I did scrape the dust of the top of my trivia pursuit pop culture edition game and pull the cards out of the box. All the way to Chicago – I quizzed Shawn. We were doing Ok. Bout 50-50.

We picked Blair up at the airport – and had time to go get some pizza at the best pizza place in the world. While we ate – we went over the cards some more. Surprisingly – Blair was holding his own – despite the fact that he wasn’t showing a huge amount of confidence. He didn’t want to be the guy that pulled the rest of the team down. We didn’t want him to be that guy either… especially since he paid $400 for the privilege of getting mocked.

We finished eating – felt loose… walked around the block a couple times – and finally headed into the hotel.

Since we had a firm audition time – we assumed that they would be taking one team at a time and giving them the test – then seeing if they should be interviewed. But as we walked in through the lobby – we saw we might be mistaken.

While it was in no way like the American Idol auditions – it was crazy. At least 10 other teams were there – all cramming trivia into their heads from notes, book and cards. We started to get that weird little feeling in the bottom of our stomachs – like… wow… I’m glad I didn’t pay $400 to come here…

We found a couch I the corner and sat down. Probably would have been a great idea to cram a bit more knowledge – but instead – we decided it would be a perfect time to watch some clips from 40 year old Virgin on Blair’s computer.

We laughed to ourselves for 10 minutes – when suddenly – Shawn announces that our slot is in two minutes. We quickly pack and get ready – when Shawn announces again – I have to go to the bathroom.

Blair and I stand impatiently waiting while Shawn goes tinkle. Again.

We finally get in an elevator that goes down before it will go up – and we make it to the third floor. We walk up and see the two girls that must be there to check us in.

She says- Are you here for the auditions?

We say – Yup.

What time?

5:00.

OH. Wow. You just missed it. They are already in there.

Blair looks at his watch. It’s only 5:02!

Yeah. Well. Sorry. If you want you can hang out till the next group and if someone doesn’t show up – you can go in their place….

Blair and I both turn and look at Shawn – accusingly.

Ok. We’ll be back….

Did we come all this way to not make it in to even take the test?

I leave you with this quote from Blair:

I don’t care what happens – if we don’t make it in – we just better tell everyone that we did and didn’t make it. Cause I won’t be able to tell everyone that we missed our big chance cause Shawn had to take a piss….

SOMETIME LATER THIS WEEK: PART THREE…..