I tend to spend much of my time on this blog apologizing to, more than any team in Pub Quiz, Beige Food. The Beige and I have this love/hate relationship: They love Pub Quiz and I love them for coming each and every week, but they hate when I muck up their scores (understandably so) and I hate when they muck up my flow. Case in point, last night:

I’m doing three quizzes a week now, which on the one hand means if you followed me around you might hear the same jokes over and over, but on the other hand, it helps me to hone my comedic timing for Thursday at the Belmont, one of Pub Quiz USA’s premiere venues. So anyway, Howard of Beige Food, God love him, walks up to register his team last night, and says, “The team name tonight will be, “Sorry Mario, but Beige Food is in another castle.”

“Goddamn you,” Howard, I reply. “You just stole my biggest joke of the night.” My plan was to pull a total psych-out in the Challenge Round, actually trumpeting the LOSING team, before telling them that “their princess was in another castle.” Now I couldn’t do that, because the joke would be running wild in the bar every time I read Beige Food’s name.

Well, all’s well that ends well, because while the Beige made it into the Challenge Round, they ended up coming in third, losing to the mighty Sirens of Titan in first and those mischievous No Mouth Monkeys in second. So, when announcing the final scores, I could see Howard wincing in pain, because he already knew what I was about to announce. Beige Food’s princess was, indeed, in another castle.