This coming weekend, I’ll participate in the fifty-fifth staging of The World’s Largest Trivia Contest^TM. As per tradition, this week is filled with idle reminiscing about trivia answers that have been especially memorable for me over the years, in that contest and now from another weekend-spanning event of quirky questions.

Way, way back, during my days as a undergraduate student, I used to help run 90FM’s Trivia Weekend. There is a longstanding model, established by my immediate predecessors in station leadership, to graduate from that experience to playing in the contest rather than sweating its execution. It’s been so long since I handled the radio station side of such an endeavor that I nearly forgot how much fun that could be, too. Thankfully, I was given an opportunity to enjoy that experience again thanks to my role working with the student staff at KVSC-FM, the radio station at St. Cloud University that has a similar annual event of questions and answers. This time, I even get to write some of the questions.

One of the things I appreciate most about the KVSC version of Trivia Weekend is that the theme for the contest factors into the questions far more frequently than is the case with its big brother across the border. Because this year’s theme was Trick-or-Trivia, celebrating all things Halloween and generally spooky, there was a true bounty to choose from in crafting queries. And I was immediately dead certain of one of the pop culture places I would look to when the time came to write my Trivia offerings.

A devoted fan of David Letterman’s late night programs, I knew well that every Halloween season involved the host on a flimsy household set inviting in a parade of youngsters dressed in delightfully absurd costumes. There were so many different possible questions to be culled from these segments, but this is the one I settled on: “When a young trick-or-treater named Lindsay arrives at the Letterman living room in a costume described as ‘stuff found on the floor of the D train,’ what treat is given to her? Please be complete.”

Given that the Lindsay in question would become wildly famous a few years later, this wasn’t a particularly difficult question to tackle. That was by design. Although I was happy to submit a couple real stumpers to the pool of questions, I wanted this one to mainly be entertaining for the people playing. Maybe it helped a few folks find their way to a giddy bit of comedy they wouldn’t have discovered otherwise. In these over-the-air contests, those kinds of questions are often the best ones.

And the answer? 40 feet of garden hose. What kids wouldn’t be absolutely overjoyed.

More info about 90FM’s Trivia can be found at its official website or at the radio station’s online home. More info about KVSC’s Trivia can be found at the radio station’s website.