It’s all so trivial

Alcohol and intellect aren’t the best of mates. So it may seem incongruous, or even cruel, to be asked a question that requires deep digging into dark recesses of the brain while chugging beer. But that’s exactly what happens at the Sierra Tap House every night from 9 p.m. until 11ish for Trivia Night.

Here’s how it works: There are three categories of 10 questions worth 10 points each and four wild card questions worth 40 points each. Every team gets a sheet of paper on which to write down their answers after the trivia host calls out the questions. Teams trade papers for “grading,” and whichever team gets the most points after the four categories are completed wins a round of beer. Sometimes there’re special prizes. The categories, during a recent visit, sounded relatively normal: Athletes into Actors, Viruses, American Lit. But the questions were things like “What basketball great played Bombaata in Conan the Destroyer?” “What does SARS stand for?” and “To which American novelist did Herman Melville dedicate Moby Dick?”

If you know all of those, we’ll give you a free copy of RN&R.

But despite the discouraging feeling of stupidity that may ensue as the night goes on, here are five good things about Trivia Night:

1 Freedom to heckle—to your friends, to the table next to you, to the host, who’s usually RN&R contributor Brad Bynum, and lord knows he could use a good heckling.

2 Free drinks. Where else is obscure knowledge rewarded with beer?

3 Feeling smart—just for a second, right before you feel dumb again.

4 No awkward silences among those at the table. You’re too busy playing the game for that.

5 You just might learn something valuable. … Nah.