Tuesday, July 19, 2011

Quiz Night

"NWA...no...wait, that's one's Public Enemy," said Toby, fiddling with his pencil and hogging the list of quiz questions.

"Don't Believe the Hype!" That was me, pulling some long-dormant bit of trivia out of the recesses of my brain. Then, "No, Toby, you spelled that wrong! Fix it. FIX IT!"

I'd gotten a little carried away at quiz night at an outdoor Chiang Mai bar, which resulted in a lot of eye-rolling from Toby. But I hadn't corrected his spelling of "Rumours" on the Fleetwood Mac question—damn!—so we lost that point. I tried to bluff that the spelling had been different on the American release but the quizmaster would have none of my lies.

This didn't matter. Between us, Toby and I had an encyclopedia of worthless tidbits in our brains. We crushed at quiz night, which surprised me since I'd never done a quiz night before. But then, the others were a good deal older than us and frequently said: "Bah! That's not music." So perhaps we had an unfair advantage.


Late Monday night, or early Tuesday morning—after the "best noodles in Chiang Mai" drove up on a cart, I got to ride on the back of Toby's bicycle to my hotel. I hadn't been out this late in a long time, though the expats of Chiang Mai seem to live through a whirl of late-night social engagements.

And in the morning, I had to drag myself out of bed early to head back to Immigration. I didn't know if I could get my visa renewed or if I had all the paperwork right, but if anyone asked me who sang "Pulling Mussels (From the Shell)," I'd ace it. 

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