What is “my foolproof plan to pay off student loans,” Alex?
People admire me for my large…brain. I’ve often said that my head is an endless font of useless information, thanks to years of watching TV and movies, reading books, listening to music, etc. And it’s something that is both a blessing and a curse. Especially when someone says, “Hey, you should go on Jeopardy!”
In a sense, though, I already know whatever chances I have of being on Alex Trebek’s wall of fame were dashed several years ago, when I was but a youngling in the land of TV trivia. Come back with me, if you will, to a simpler time: 1996.
It was the Clinton era, America was a kinder and gentler nation, and a young Canadian named Celine Dion was a year away from enslaving the world with her high-octave vocal hypnosis. I was in high school, on the one team that our school could claim as a winner in any way: the academic team. Think “nerds with joy buzzers” and you get the idea. We traveled across the state, crushing other greasy pizza-faced opponents in feats of sporting derring-do. Never again would knowing the capital of Switzerland or the square root of how many dentists it takes to screw in a lightbulb would ever come in handy.
I was the pop-culture/history guru of our group (everyone else had science and math cornered). I had the advantage of spending endless hours in front of the TV, and also of having spoken to real girls on occasion. But there always seemed to be a rash of hair-washing parties every time I tried to get a date. Alas, you couldn’t hate me because I was beautiful, but it was worth it.
We were so big that we got to be on the premier public TV station’s showcase for smart losers. I can’t remember the name, but I think it was “Scholastic Showdown” or something like that. Anyway, our coach (the school librarian) drove us down one morning in her van, with NPR blaring in the background. We were pumped, ready to take on the dreaded Dorman team. They were the New York Yankees in the cutthroat world of high-school academic teams. We were within 10 points of winning when the bearded gentleman who hosted asked something about the Austrian empress who in the 18th century…did something, what I can’t remember. I buzzed in and confidently said “Mary Theresa”.
Which would have been right, except that it was Maria Theresa. Big difference, especially to the judge (some fossil from the Mesozoic era), and we didn’t get the points. We went on to lose. The horror, the horror.
But that was then, this is now. And now I’m well on my way to being horribly in debt whenever I get done with Clemson. So maybe, just maybe, I can toughen up mentally and physically to prepare myself for the day when my path crosses with the frosty-headed Canadian trivia master of my nightmares. And when he says “Jeopardy”, I’ll buzz in and respond in the form of a question: “What is the only way I’ll be able to pay off my student loans, Alex?”
