Sunday, July 10, 2011

Pub Quiz Mystery

In our trip to the UK the past two weeks, my husband Richie and my cousin Jeremy and I got in on a pub quiz in York. We weren't really interested at first, so we didn't take any answer sheets, but to pass the time I went ahead and started writing down the answers on my own sheet of paper. I started with number one, so we didn't miss any. Around number 15, I believe, I heard the lady calling out the questions skip to 17 or something. I can't remember the exact numbers, but I know she skipped at least two. As Richie was at the bar, I looked to Jeremy for confirmation that I had heard correctly, and he agreed she had skipped a couple numbers. I expected some participant in the quiz to correct her or ask about it, but nobody said anything. The lady went on calling out questions. She continued in order to number 25, then suddenly she skipped to 29. Again, this anomaly was confirmed by both Jeremy and Richie, and again nobody corrected the lady or asked about the skipped numbers. I could only assume 1) the quiz worked in some odd way we weren't familiar with that the locals were or 2) somebody would point out the mistake before the lady called out the answers, maybe ask what the number to those questions were.

However, that never happened. The questions stopped at 30, and then the lady began calling out the answers. I waited curiously for her to get to the numbers she had skipped. I was positive that when she called out those answers, somebody in the pub would protest and say she had never even given the questions. Instead, when she DID get to those numbers 16-18, 26-28, I remembered those questions being called out. By the end of the answers, I realized that every answer she had called out had been to a question that I had, in fact, heard her ask. What's more, Jeremy and Richie both remembered those questions too.

We couldn't figure it out. We never did figure it out. There appeared to be no confusion in the pub whatsoever. Unfortunately, we didn't think to ask anyone else in the pub if they had observed the same thing we did. I wish so much that we had.