I’m the worst kind of couch potato ““ the sort who structures his life around TV. I’ve been known to hesitate before making plans if they interfere with TV, like going on dates, to concerts, to class or taking a final.
There’s one show I’m particularly bad about, though, that causes me to sprint back to my apartment from the Daily Bruin office at 6:45 p.m. regardless of whether all my work is done.
I’m a “Jeopardy!” fanatic.
It began when I was 4 or so, when my mom would watch the show nightly. At first, I was just entranced by the music and the fact that my mom would fly into a hysterical frenzy every time “Jeopardy!” recruited contestants. When we lived in Indianapolis, I recall driving around with her to every Pip Printing store location in the tri-county area so she could pick up as many applications as possible. Being 5, I wondered why anyone would do this when perfectly good shows such as “Transformers” and “Dinosaucers” were on.
As time went on, I began to display a knack for trivia and shows such as “Jeopardy!” The first hint of this came when I managed to memorize the presidents ““ and I was 4. Despite the fact that I insisted on pronouncing Ulysses S. Grant as “Yoo-LISS-e-us,” it was clear that one day I’d inherit the mantle in my family of “person with the most useless knowledge at his disposal.”
You can imagine how my heart skipped a beat when I saw that the “Jeopardy!” Brain Bus would be visiting UCLA. Immediately, I cleared aside my entire Thursday schedule ““ I mean, this is “Jeopardy!”, for Trebek’s sake.
I tried to anticipate what would be thrown at me during the initial five-minute, 10-question test. My roommate Derek and I, frequent viewers, have come to realize a few things about the show. Specifically, there are two categories that always seem to come up on the show: Royalty (particularly British) and Bodies of Water.
The last one always causes a particular brand of frustration, as bodies of water are perhaps the most difficult feature of geography. Plus, the show finds ways to work bodies of water in at seemingly random times. For instance, in a category about British literature, they’ll throw out a question like “Romantic author Percy Bysshe Shelley drowned in 1822 while sailing in this body of water.” What is the Ligurian Sea?, obviously.
With this in mind, I headed over to Ackerman Grand Ballroom last Thursday morning giddy with excitement. Here was my chance to put all of my useless knowledge to, well, use.
As I neurotically analyzed everyone within 50 feet of me (Who wasn’t quick with a buzzer? Who couldn’t wager to save their life?), the door to the grand ballroom suddenly opened. We were invited to sit down and begin taking the test.
As we sat down, we were told to flip our papers over and begin. I dove straight in, having just five minutes to do 10 questions. How hard could this really be?
Things started off well enough. I nailed my first few questions, which asked things such as the author of “The Cask of Amontillado” (Poe) and which biblical figure returned his 30 pieces of silver and hung himself (Judas). Yet I did commit the classic “Jeopardy!” gaffe of not reading the title of a category, which was something like “things that start with “˜e.'” Had I paid attention, “enamel” would have jumped out at me as “a glassy, often opaque substance applied to the outside of pottery.”
To this point, I was doing pretty well. And then I saw it. Staring at me from the middle of the page, looking about as smug as a collection of words can look on a page.
A category titled, simply, “Bodies of Water.”
I nearly lost control of my bowels. “No way,” I thought to myself. I quickly took a deep breath and read the question.
“Which is the western-most of the Great Lakes?”
I stared for a moment. “That’s easy,” I thought. “It’s Lake Superior.” I was about to write it down when I suddenly second-guessed myself, remembering that there was a piece of Michigan in the western area of the Great Lakes. That meant that one of these two lakes was Lake Michigan. But … which one?
Crap! I sat there sweating bullets. It eventually got to the point where I decided to pick one or the other … and I ended up going with Lake Michigan.
Bad choice. I raised my hand to indicate that I was finished and one of the “Jeopardy!” volunteers came over to grade my test. Sure enough, I had failed, with the Great Lakes question having been the one that put me over the edge. I sat in silence for a moment. Fittingly, my dream of appearing on “Jeopardy!” had been derailed by a “Bodies of Water” question.
I spent the rest of the day going over the questions obsessively. What if I had sat down at a different seat and gotten a different test form? Why was I cosmically doomed to get a test with a “Bodies of Water” question?
A few days later, I turned on the TV and, without thinking, flipped to the Game Show Network and a rerun of “Jeopardy!” I nearly changed the channel, but decided to stick around for one question.
“Julius Caesar’s crossing of this river in 49 B.C. marked the start of the Roman civil war.”
I froze. Suddenly, a feeling that had been absent in me since a few days prior welled up inside. I angrily shook my fist at the TV. “What is THE RUBICON?!?” I screamed like a maniac.
“Yes! Select again,” Trebek replied.
Suck on that, Lake Superior.
Humphrey hopes the polar ice caps melt and make bodies of water obsolete. E-mail him at mhumphrey@media.ucla.edu.