Putting My Skills to Good Use
In many instances my mind is a sieve... the other morning it took me ten minutes to find my keys. A co-worker can make a simple request of me, and as soon as they step away from my desk I will forget it if I haven't written it down. I have known my best friend for over 10 years and I know her birthday is in August, but I don't know the exact date. (17th? 18th? I think it's the middle of the month sometime).
But I know my pop culture trivia. Particularly of the 1980's variety. Some of the stuff I know embarrasses me. Sometimes facts will spill off my tongue surprising even myself, as I have no idea where I picked the information up. But it is there, and it will not be budged with such minutiae as to remember to pick up milk on the way home from work.
Which brings me to this morning. The radio station that Sweetie and I listen to most often has a feature every morning called "Mental Aerobics." They ask a trivia question, and if you are the first person to call in with the correct answer you win a prize. Before I came along Sweetie would frequently play it on his own. The way the schedules work now, it's on about the time I need to be waking up in the morning, so Sweetie wakes me up so we can play it together and then he heads off to work and I start my day.
We've had pretty good success thus far. You can win once every thirty days, and we have already won tickets to see Handel's Messiah (which we ended up skipping), and an NFC Champion Seahawk t-shirt. That t-shirt was won on January 23, so our re-eligibility was established this morning.
Now usually when we play Sweetie is the one who comes up with the answer. Even if I know the answer, he comes up with it first, as if you know me you know I am NOT a morning person, and the gears are just getting started at 6:10 am.
But this morning was my opportunity to rise to the occasion. The question was, "On this date in 1985 a sitcom was broadcast live. What was it?" OK, I'm not THAT big of a freak. But they KNEW it was an impossible question, so they played the first few bars of the theme song. It took me a few seconds, but I knew the answer. And we got connected.
While Sweetie was chatting with the hosts (he's responsible for calling in, as I'm really only capable of mumbling at this point in the morning) I even made the comment that the show totally jumped the shark when they added the little kid. Later I realized that I could have made that comment about almost any sitcom ever played. It's always either adding a little kid or hooking up the two leads. But that's a tangent.
We won tickets see Cosi Fan Tutte. Something kinda' cool about winning tickets to the opera because you can identify TV theme songs from 20 years ago.
When they replayed Sweetie on the radio, the DJs then commented that we seemed like cool people and they'd like to hang out with us. We'd like to hang out with you, too, John and Mike. Wanna' go get cocktails sometime?
I can serenade you with the theme to Charles in Charge while we're out.
But I know my pop culture trivia. Particularly of the 1980's variety. Some of the stuff I know embarrasses me. Sometimes facts will spill off my tongue surprising even myself, as I have no idea where I picked the information up. But it is there, and it will not be budged with such minutiae as to remember to pick up milk on the way home from work.
Which brings me to this morning. The radio station that Sweetie and I listen to most often has a feature every morning called "Mental Aerobics." They ask a trivia question, and if you are the first person to call in with the correct answer you win a prize. Before I came along Sweetie would frequently play it on his own. The way the schedules work now, it's on about the time I need to be waking up in the morning, so Sweetie wakes me up so we can play it together and then he heads off to work and I start my day.
We've had pretty good success thus far. You can win once every thirty days, and we have already won tickets to see Handel's Messiah (which we ended up skipping), and an NFC Champion Seahawk t-shirt. That t-shirt was won on January 23, so our re-eligibility was established this morning.
Now usually when we play Sweetie is the one who comes up with the answer. Even if I know the answer, he comes up with it first, as if you know me you know I am NOT a morning person, and the gears are just getting started at 6:10 am.
But this morning was my opportunity to rise to the occasion. The question was, "On this date in 1985 a sitcom was broadcast live. What was it?" OK, I'm not THAT big of a freak. But they KNEW it was an impossible question, so they played the first few bars of the theme song. It took me a few seconds, but I knew the answer. And we got connected.
While Sweetie was chatting with the hosts (he's responsible for calling in, as I'm really only capable of mumbling at this point in the morning) I even made the comment that the show totally jumped the shark when they added the little kid. Later I realized that I could have made that comment about almost any sitcom ever played. It's always either adding a little kid or hooking up the two leads. But that's a tangent.
We won tickets see Cosi Fan Tutte. Something kinda' cool about winning tickets to the opera because you can identify TV theme songs from 20 years ago.
When they replayed Sweetie on the radio, the DJs then commented that we seemed like cool people and they'd like to hang out with us. We'd like to hang out with you, too, John and Mike. Wanna' go get cocktails sometime?
I can serenade you with the theme to Charles in Charge while we're out.
posted by Swankette at 9:15 PM
1 Comments:
Sounds like we have the same condition. My friends at church are always asking me who directed what movie,or who wrote what book.
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