Beauties and the Brains

I have a confession. I cheated. Well, actually we cheated. But I’m the one with the guilty conscious. Ok, here’s the story:

Wednesday evenings feature two great happenings in the Broadway neighborhood of Sydney. The first is Australian-rules football practice in the park by our apartment. The second is trivia night at the Australian Youth Hotel (hotel means bar here.) Jorie (my roommate and best friend since the first day of our freshman year in Boston) and I discovered both indiscriminately on our first night in Sydney.

After an evening stroll through the park sprinkled with Australian footie players, we stumbled upon a happenin’ little pub where five or six tables of mostly Australians were engaged in a game of trivia quizzing them as much on American history and culture as on Australian history and culture. But because jetlag told us it was bedtime at ten, we agreed to play the following week. Because we play to win.

Come Tuesday, a group of boys in our study abroad program approached us to inform us that the Lansdowne Hotel does trivia on Tuesdays. The boys already had a team name—The Sunburned Americans. We, the self-named Beauties and the Brains, which consists of Jorie, five of our friends and me, accepted the challenge. So, we go. We play. We win third and beat the boys. Prizes include $25 in Lansdowne mula and an Ashton Kutcher-style trucker hat.

Provoked by our winnings, Beauties and the Brains trek to trivia at the original bar the next night. We’re convinced that we’ll be able to make a living out of trivia bar hopping. Too embarrassed to play again, the boys aren’t there. But guess what? The questions are the same questions from the Lansdowne the night before. We know every answer, including questions about Australian cricket players, New Zealand films from the 1960s, and random facts about the earth’s highest and lowest points. But we’ve still got some competition—mainly the McClosky’s. Hence, we’re in third as we enter the jeopardy round. True to our philosophy of playing to win, we bet all our points. Palms sweaty and hearts racing, the final question is asked and it’s a new question: what country is 22 times longer than it is wide? Now let me stray for a moment and say that in the last five months I have become obsessed with a little place called Chile. I bought Frommer’s guide to Chile before I bought a book on Australia. I revamped my Spanish studies last semester, and I dream of moving to Chile next January after I graduate from school. So, back to the story, I know this answer. I have to muffle my mouth with my hands to keep from screaming the answer out for everyone to hear. We win the game—the whole thing, including a fifty-dollar gift certificate to the bar. Take that McClosky’s! Sweden is not that long!

So it’s funny at this point—the looks on the faces of the Australian men who thought a group of American girls knew more about cricket than they did. We leave laughing, check in hand.

Here’s where I hope you’ll forgive us: we did it again the next week. Another fifty dollars to the bar. More applause from the moderator. More dirty looks from Australians. Now I have a guilty conscious, so I’m out. I can hear my little sister Taylor telling me to keep going—“Kate, who cares!? You win free drinks!” My best friend Allie would agree. Big sister Brooke would laugh and ask, “but is it really fun if you already know the answers?”

I broke the news to them the next day; I told Beauties and the Brains that I can’t do it again. The lies haunt me at night.