“And the final team—the winner of the free appetizer question—is Jessenya and Shaylea! With an answer of $200 million!” yelled Trivia Tom as my roommate and I secured our free appetizer from Monte’s. The question was, “How much did ‘Black Panther’ make on it’s opening night?” Being the tech-savvy millennials that we are, we locked in the first win of the night.
After we were seated at Monte’s, we were asked if we would like to be contestants in “Trivia Tuesday” hosted by Tom Burns. Tom brought us writing utensils, and a box to put our phones in.
“Phones equal cheating,” said Tom, as he instructed all of us to put away our magical cheating machines. Prior to that, I hadn’t even thought that it’s possible to Google the questions fast enough to cheat.
Tom asked all of the people in Monte’s 20 Trivia questions to win the grand prize. The questions ranged from events that are on the school dashboard, to knowledge of the world. When it came to completing Taylor Swift lyrics and remembering if George Washington was a Democrat or Republican, my co-contestant and I were killing it.
For questions on sports and specific years that songs were released, my partner and I found ourselves scratching our heads. We ended up only getting 10 out of 20 Trivia questions right. That translates to we tried our best.
It was a fun experience. We got to sit at a nice table and drink our milkshakes while picking our brains for the correct answers to the most random questions. “We’ve been doing Trivia Tuesdays for a very long time, before Monte’s was even here—about five years ago,” said Lianne Minemoto, the UC Ballroom event coordinator. “We get about 10 or 11 teams of students that come out and play every week,” said Minemoto.
The night I attended “Trivia Tuesday,” the grand prize was a free entry to the Dining Commons for each student on the winning team. The gang that won that night named themselves the “Family of Boneless Chickens.” They seemed to be regulars to Trivia Tuesday, as they were prepared to answer as many questions as correctly as possible.
The Family of Boneless Chickens mean business. The boneless chicken eaters got 18 out of 20 questions right. When I spoke with one of the members of the winning team, they said “The real grand prize is eating food and hanging out with my friends.”
Everyone knows that the best food is free food. For those interested in toppling the boneless chicken dynasty once and for all, Trivia Tuesday is on Tuesdays at 6:15pm at Monte’s.