For my happy band of miscreants who participate in the World’s Largest Trivia Contest, stayed by the college radio station where I hung my headphones throughout my undergraduate years, eleventh place felt like first place. Finishing in the top ten was the dream or goal for most of the nearly three hundred teams who spent fifty-four straight hours launching answers across the phone lines this year, because that’s the threshold that earns an invitation to the radio station to collect a trophy shortly after the end of the contest. We are proud that we’ve managed the feat a few times, as recently as two years ago. We also play the contest from a location distant enough for the station’s home in the corner of the Communication Arts Center on the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point contest that the prospect of making a late night drive to collect hardware induces a weary feeling. (Given the way we spend the weekend, rounding up sober drivers can be a challenge, too.) We joke that eleventh place is our ideal, because it’s as high as we can go without the need for a commute.

For the 2024 edition of the contest, my team did indeed land in spot number eleven. Throughout the weekend, we largely stayed within a narrow range within the hourly updated standings. Except for a freakish moment when we vaulted briefly to second place, we spent the rest of the week between sixth and fifteenth. Much as that consistency of performance felt right and satisfying, the true joy of the weekend was the riotous camaraderie that comes with being among longstanding friends who are committed to each other and the goofball pastime of ours. The finish is great; our particular process of getting to that finish is a treasure to me.