You Say Anagram, I Say Acronym

Another one for the PTM archives.

Monday night Tim walks in the door and announces, "Do I have the perfect thing for you."
"What's that?"
"Trivia Tuesdays at Sullivan's."
"This sounds promising."
"Want to check it out?"
"Sure."

So at 8:00PM on Tuesday night, Tim and I are sitting in John L. Sullivan's Irish Pub, waiting for the trivia contest to begin. Somehow I managed to get my husband to agree to drive, so I started the night right with a shot of Jagermeister.

Here's how it works:
You pay $10 per team to enter the contest. Teams are not limited to a certain number of participants. The contest is 6 rounds of trivia with a bonus round. Prizes consist of various monetary amounts you can use to contribute to your John L. Sullivan's tab.

Round 1: General Trivia, Simple Question and Answer.
We sailed through.

Round 2: General Trivia, Multiple Choice and True/False.
Again - no problem.

Round 3: A handout round. We were given a sheet of paper with 10 celebrity pics, and we had to name the stars.
Piece of cake.

After round 3, Tim and I (the only team with less than 5 participants) were in 4th place out of 12 teams. I was so excited I had a 3rd shot. (During rounds 1-3 I had downed a second shot and a vodka and red bull. Note: I'm definitely starting to feel the effects of the alcohol.)

Round 4: History.
Crap.
We were given another hand out. Left column had events that occurred on January 1st. Right column was full of years. Match the event to the year.
Again, I say: Crap.

After 10 minutes, we were left with Ellis Island's first day of operation as January 1, 1994.
"Something's not right," Tim says.
"You think?" I asked.

We re-worked the sheet, and ended up with Fidel Castro taking control of Cuba in 1862. Turns out the fact that NAFTA was formed in the 90's completely threw us off. Who knew?

Round 5: Anagrams.
"What's an anagram?" Tim asked me as the host passed out a third sheet of paper.
"You know. When letters stand for something, like AWOL. Absent Without Official Leave."
"I thought that was an acronym."
"Crap. You're right. What the fuck is an anagram?"

Luckily, it was explained to us.

I looked lovingly at my husband. "I'm too drunk to unscramble anything," I told him.
"But you're the one that's supposed to be good with words!"
"Not tonight I'm not."

There were 5 anagrams to unscramble, all with a central theme: Let's Get Stoned. Turned out that the theme was The Rolling Stones, but I kept looking at "Wagon Burrs," seeing "Bong" and trying to make a word out of R-R-S-U-W. I was insistent. We never made it past "Wagon Burrs." (Brown Sugar, in case it is going to make you crazy.)

Needless to say we ended up in last place. The host was kind enough to note that we were the only team of 2.

And maybe we're crazy, but we're planning to show our faces and try again next Tuesday. We may bring a larger crew; either way, it's been decided that I'm driving this time.