I love Jeopardy!"" I've been watching it forever. I have a book of Final Jeopardy clues and I know the detailed history of Ken Jennings' destruction of his every opponent. I sing the theme song in the shower.
So when I found out Jeopardy was coming to Madison to shoot the College Championship, I was, needless to say, very excited. Not only were they filming here, but they were going to have tryouts on campus! I hadn't been this pumped up since I discovered that I could heal wounds merely on the strength of happiness and sunshine.
But, alas, it was not to be. As the date of the championship drew near, I discovered that the tryouts would be conducted during my trip to California. My dreams of hobnobbing with Alex Trebek and wagering ridiculous amounts of money on trivia questions (""Mr. Miller's response? Suck-it-Trebek..."") were dashed in an instant.
But then I got to thinking.
See, I've done trivia before. When I was in middle school, we were shown a weekly current events slideshow (yes, a slideshow, with beeps and buzzes and poor focusing mechanisms leading to lots of work for local optometrists). It was called NewsCurrents, and I assure you, it filled everyone with joy. In the spring, the company that produced NewsCurrents held a competition - teams of three would compete in a quiz-show format.
My team practiced for the competition for weeks. We went over newspapers, encyclopedias and trivia books in order to cram information into our heads. We studied Pinochet's house arrest, the Monica Lewinsky trial and the birth of something called ""Pocket Monsters.""
Off to the contest we went. We ascended through the early rounds on an emotional high and our knowledge of news minutiae. Though we nearly stumbled in the quarterfinals, where a team of private-school brainiacs correctly identified the color of Monica's dress (burnt sienna), we persevered and made it through.
Then, as sudden as a jump cut, we were in the finals. The competition was close, so it came down to individual quizzing. One teammate answered a question about John Glenn - the oldest astronaut to shit his pants in space. Another correctly identified Exxon and Mobil as the two oil companies who merged to form a giant firm dedicated to screwing consumers as completely as possible.
And then it was my turn. They asked me a question about Nobel Prizes, and I froze completely. My teammates - with their heads unaffected by the plague of pressure bearing down on my poor skull - looked on with broad smiles since they were sure I knew the answer. But it wouldn't come. I racked my brain, but nothing happened.
Time was up, and I let my teammates down. We lost, and though we still did well, the scent of victory was snatched away by the stench of common failure. Well, to be more precise - and as my teammates insisted on pointing out to every person I knew - it was the smell of my own failure.
So I realized that perhaps being a ""Jeopardy!"" competitor was not the best idea. And when I went to ""Jeopardy!"" and saw the immense pressure the contestants were under, I was happy to be in the audience and not on the stage. I was glad to simply enjoy the experience second-hand. Plus, I don't know nearly enough about ""Potent Potables.""
Although I still sang along with the theme song.
Keaton's perfect ""Jeopardy!"" experience involves the question ""Who is F. W. de Klerk?"" And, actually, who really cares? He would like to apologize to Gretchen and Mouse once again for being such a tool. TOOL! It's funnier if he repeats it in capital letters. E-mail him at keatonmiller@wisc.edu.
