Nearly Halfway Down

We join this story in mid-broadcast.

Two glasses of crappy Trader Joes white wine into today's installment of the chronicling of my downfall. Today a new rock bottom was established, one that will most likely be exceeded tomorrow.

Game show. Yes, fucking game fucking show. That's how low I've stooped. Ace in the hole I figured. As bad as the job market gets, I can always rely on be more charming and smarter than everyone else, right? Wrong. Fucked this one up too.

Set Up: newish syndicated show Trivial Pursuit. Same production company as the ill-fated piece of shit Merv Griffin's Crosswards. I'm on first show of the day, and my opponents (two very nice women in their late 20s-ish) don't appear to be Nobel Prize candidates any time soon. First round, I blow them out of the water. I'm sitting there on the side of the stage waiting for one of them to catch up and play me in round 2. They keep missing the easiest conceivable questions (e.g., "which basketball star carried the flag FOR CHINA in the Olympic Games last summer? One guesses Labron James, the other Kobe Bryant. DOH!). Finally, one lurches to the finish line and we start Round 2, during which I fuck up and mis-read which actor (actually, "What character..." to which I hear Mrs. Cox groaning wherever she is) says the line, "Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn," as "which character..." so I confidently answer "Rhett Butler" and am an idiot. Later, I am asked which city has 40% of the population of Alaska. I KNOW the answer is Anchorage and somehow guess Juneau anyway. This is a long way of saying I'm a complete tool. There goes 15K or so out the window. She wins and then blows all the questions in the 3rd round and wins $0.

Just another kick in the balls in what has been a 2.5 month constant ballkicking. Line up. Plenty of nards left to dent, evidently.