Monday, July 18, 2005

Speaking of coffee...

Speaking of coffee (see three posts back) I left work early enough for the gormet coffee chain in my building to still be open. I stopped to get me a cup and checked out their trivia question which entitles you to 10 cents off. For a while I wrote this store's trivia questions for a free cup of coffee every day. I told you I was a junkie. I was a coffee trivia whore. I was fired when a new assistant manager wanted the job, and since she was essentially a free trivia writer, I was fired.

Anyway, I, always looking for a bargain, checked out the question. It was as follows:

"This President defeated his opponent by exactly 10,000 votes."

I, being the political savvy and smart person that I am, said it was a trick question and that the answer was no one. My reasoning was that a President is elected by the Electoral College, which has always had fewer than 10,000 possible votes, and thus no President had ever won by 10,000. The person behind the counter said that it refered to the votes in the election. I argued that the President didn't win by the margin of votes in the popular vote. He won by the getting the most votes in the Electoral College. I continued that our current President won his first election after losing the popular vote, and that he was the second President to do that. Thus, no President "wins by X number of popular votes" ever.

I didn't get the 10 cents off because I was getting the refill price for using my own cup, which meant I couldn't get the discount. Still, the issue couldn't go unchallenged.

8 Comments:

At 5:05 PM, Blogger spd rdr said...

Go KJ! Another person now hates lawyers. YAY!

 
At 5:18 PM, Blogger KJ said...

Well, they shouldn't have fired me. I came up with much better questions, and my answers were right.

 
At 5:58 PM, Blogger Pile On® said...

So, even though you are correct and the question is worded badly who were they referring to?

Kennedy over Nixon?

 
At 8:09 PM, Blogger KJ said...

Garfield.

 
At 10:58 PM, Blogger Jane Bellwether said...

Are you trying to get kicked out of the place?!? This is hilarious.

Maybe you could get the new assistant manager fired, then take over. Or you could get the question first thing in the morning, then post the answer or hand out flyers to everyone who goes into the coffee shop until they run out of business from giving 10 cents off to all their customers. Or perhaps the efficacy of quizzes could be part of the argument for your eminent domain project to take their space.

 
At 12:07 AM, Blogger KJ said...

I can't go too far. I need good coffee, and this place is between my office and my car.

 
At 12:41 PM, Blogger Jane Bellwether said...

Jacked up on caffeine and trying to explain the electoral college to the masses. That's the Tick for you.

 
At 1:52 PM, Blogger Pile On® said...

Yes, it is super-heroic.

 

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