Robot Boner

Ethan and I at the local bar.

After I graduated from college I got married and moved to the rural small college town (population was about 9,000) where my husband and I worked. Living in a small town is kind of a funny way to spend your first years as an adult, and, as it turned out, all your child-free adult years. We'd run into coworkers at the grocery store(once while picking up the morning after pill, awkward!). We were considered regulars at all the restaurants (except Taco Johns, yuck. I'm a strait-up Taco Bell girl). And the rowdiest parties were held at the local Red Man's Club (I once seriously called the cops on a Metallica cover band they hired).

I could talk at length about the pros and cons of living in a small town. But I won't. Suffice it to say, small town living was nice, I liked knowing the people and being able to walk from one end of town to the other, but it was hard being so far away from my family, my hockey team, and Target (I'm never living more than 5 minutes from Target again). We eventually got new jobs and moved up to the Twin Cities, where we can be hip and eat sushi and go to shows (and by "shows"I mean Yo Gabba Gabba Live. Twice.), without driving over an hour to get there. But there's something I will always, always miss about those years in a small town: Bar Trivia Night.

Trivia night at the local bar was the best. It wasn't the kind of bar trivia you can do at Buffalo Wild Wings or those other fancy city bars. There were no TV screens, or electronic answer machines. No sir. There was a guy with a microphone and a box of Trivial Pursuit cards, and waitresses who handed out slips of paper. They'd read out the questions, you'd write down your team's answers, and each round you'd have a chance at winning a pitcher of beer, and the point totals were kept from week to week and at the end of the trivia season the top team got a tour of the local brewery.

Proof!

The whole thing had a great sense of community. And my team was the best, with the best/worst name ever: Robot Boner. We were a force to be reckoned with (a drunk force, but a force). In fact, we became well known enough that other teams started naming themselves after us. My favorite was "Premature Robot Boner Ejaculation", mostly because it was hilarious to hear the guy who announcer have to say that over and over each time he read out team point totals. They may have meant it as an insult, but to me it was totally a compliment. It was like being a celebrity  A metallic phallic celebrity. We even had our own (kind of disgusting) drink in the bar computer.

The Robot Boner:
1/2 shot of cream de cacao
1/2 shot cherry schnapps
dropped into a Schell's Dark beer.

We may not have won the grand prize, but we came close. And really, the true winners are people having the most fun. Or getting the most drunk (remember what I said about being able to walk across town? Well, we were only 3 blocks from the bar) And I'm pretty sure that was us.