Finding a home for random facts

This past week on This American Life one of the segments focused on people who love quizzes – people who love quizzes so much they participate in 36 hour (sometimes lot more) long quiz competitions. They started interviewing this one quiz-lover named Dave and I’ll admit that all I could think about this guy was, “What a loser.”

He talked about his love of the trivial. His love of learning. At one of his jobs he actually had a boss come up to him and complain that he made too many literary references in his conversation. (Mind you, he did not do this in his job. This man’s boss was complaining about his literary skills.) The guy was understandably confused. Then one day he and his friends were having a conversation about monkeys, something Wonder Boy and I do more than you’d care to know because monkeys are awesome, and he started throwing in all of these facts. I think the way the guy put it is that he was “forcing knowledge on people.”
What he liked about quiz competitions and clubs and such was that the people there wanted to learn. They appreciated his huge bank of random facts.

Then the host, Lisa Pollak, said, “The thing that can be annoying in the real world is the same thing that makes you good at solving puzzles.”

This is when I started thinking, “Aw shit. I identify with this guy. Dammit.”

Pollak went on to say, “On a puzzle team, Dave can be himself, only better. I think this is true for a lot of people whose talents require the right context in which to shine. Think about it. A boxer without a boxing ring is just a guy punching people. In a puzzle competition a buy with a mind for obscure facts can be a star.”

So the thing is, I think this applied to me and a lot of friends. (Yes, that’s right. I am applying this new loser status I’ve just realized to some of you.) See, I’m smart. But I’m smart about random stuff. I love school and I love learning but it’s not the mainstream stuff I love. I will never remember dates and I will rarely remember peoples’ names. But weird facts? That’s where I shine.

Put me at a game board for Trivial Pursuit and I start to salivate. Add Danny, both Jasons and Alex to the table and you watch our cheeks flush and our feet get antsy. It’s an environment where we can finally make use of all of the trivia we’ve been collecting.
It’s also possibly my most annoying state for all of the rest of my family. Sorry guys.