This week’s post is coming to you early because my blogging buddy Paul has issued another challenge this week: The Captain’s Quiz 5! If you remember from the last time I participated in Paul’s quiz, I came in 2nd (to blogging buddy Bill). Paul has had another Captain’s Quiz since, which I totally missed (blaming blogging buddy Bill for not letting me know — was he afraid that I would usurp his crown? Who knows!), but now I’m back for this new one.

Just like before, this quiz does not require any previous knowledge. It’s a quiz full of hypotheticals that participants answer without knowing how they’re scored. That’s right, Paul makes the scoring rubric without participants knowing what it is! We just answer the questions and see what happens. Cool, right? So happy to be back and competing in this 5th installment of the Captain’s Quiz! I know what I’m thankful for this year…

1. Question: The Fab Five were a group of all-freshmen starters for the 1991 Michigan men’s basketball team. What is something you immediately excelled at?

Answer: As my regular readers know, I absolutely love escape rooms. My fiancé Dan and I have done 26 escape rooms as of right now, and I believe that this is due in part to our first room and the sense of victory we felt. I had no idea what to expect going into my first room, but once I was in, I was hooked. I loved the immersive experience and solving all of the puzzles on a time crunch. We made it out of that first room rather easily. I was so excited about my newfound escape room skills that I even wrote a post giving others tips on how to escape them, too! Making it out of that first room was exhilarating, rather easily, so now I chase that high whenever I can. While we haven’t made it out of every room that we’ve done, we’ve escaped the vast majority. Escape rooms cater well to my love of intensity and urgency (procrastination loves urgency!), my puzzle skills, and my ability to find patterns.

2. Question: One Direction was a boy band that eventually went in five directions. If you were in a five person band, would you be the first one to leave? Why or why not?

Answer: I would not be the first to leave! As someone who is relationship-oriented and prides myself on being a reliable team player, I would not want to branch off on my own or leave. I crave being included in a team that gets me. No matter how depressed and overwhelmed I might feel by my band responsibilities, I would stick around because I wouldn’t want to let everyone else down.

3. Question: Five Alive is a line of various fruit juice blends. Create a new drink and include any number (other than five) in its name. Tell me about the new drink.

Answer: One Billion Boba. My drink is a boba drink with one billion pieces of tapioca in it. It is very unpleasant to drink and it just may kill you!

4. Question: In the mid-2000s, WWE Superstar John Cena had a weekly segment on WWE.com called, “Five Questions With The Champ” where he answered fan questions. If you were to send a celebrity five questions, who would it be and what would you ask?

Answer: You’ll read more about this in a following question, but since my favorite show is NailedIt!, I would ask host Nicole Byer some questions…

1. What are the best and worst tasting things you’ve ever had on the show?
2. Who was your favorite guest judge?
3. Which was your favorite challenge?
4. When is the next season coming out?!

Unrelated to NailedIt!, but who was your favorite cast member from Brooklyn99 when you guest starred?

5. Question: The San Francisco 49ers have won five Super Bowls, with their last one coming in 1995. What is something from 1995 that you wish we still had and/or did in 2021?

Answer: While I was only 2 in 1995, there are still some awesome things that we had back then. Cassette tapes and VHS tapes may be outdated for a reason, but when I was younger, my friends and I spent countless days recording fun skits on cassette and VHS tapes. I had a cassette player/recorder from a very young age, and one year for Christmas, I got a “kids” video camera. These were both brilliant tools that I used to create some really fun tapes with my friends.

6. Question: When you type, “Where are the” into Google, what is the fifth autocomplete option?

Answer: “Dinosaurs”

7. Question: The TV show, Breaking Bad, had five seasons. What is your favourite TV show and how many seasons does it have?

Answer: My favorite tv show is the baking competition NailedIt!. Which currently has six regular seasons and two holiday seasons.

8. Question: The PlayStation 5 has experienced supply issues due to a chip shortage. What are your top five potato chip flavours?

Answer: I prefer pretty Plain Jane flavors so sorry in advance for my boring list! I’ve also been craving kettle cooked chips recently for seemingly no reason at all…

1. Kettle Cooked Original
2. Lightly salted
3. Original
4. Cheddar and Sour Cream
5. Sour Cream and Onion

9. Question: “Remember, remember, the 5th of November” is a line from the movie, V for Vendetta. What do you remember about November 5, 2021?

Answer: November 5, 2021 was a busy one for me! I had my second meeting with my future boss (and called my dad right after to excitedly tell him all about it), then I went to work for the Artisan Marshmallow (our fancy local marshmallow shop — highly recommend!). After that, my college roommate and bestie Julia came over and we got pizza and went to an escape room with my parents. We escaped, naturally!

10. Question: How would you explain the “high five” hand gesture to someone who doesn’t know what it is?

Answer: A “high five” is a hand gesture meant to be done with two people to signal either a success or sometimes even a greeting. It’s called a high-five because typically the hands are raised above the head when completing a high five and all five fingers are extended. Both people participating in the high-five face each other and raise just one arm with their palms facing the other person and all five fingers extended. They then slap their hands together, almost as if they’re clapping, but using the other person’s hand. Sometimes, after a high-five, the two people “blow it up,” meaning they act as if there was an explosion when their hands touched. This is accomplished by making the sound of a bomb going off with their mouths and pulling their hand straight backwards.

BONUS QUESTIONS

1. Question: If you could be five-years-old for the next 24 hours, what would you do?

Answer: I would play, of course! I would meet up with my local friends and we would do all of the fun things that 5 five-year-olds do. We would bike and scooter around the neighborhood then come inside for some hot chocolate and color or make up a play. You know, kid stuff!

2. Question: How many five-letter words can you type in two minutes? Do it, but don’t share the words with me. Your answer to this question will only be the number of words.

Answer: 30

3. Question: Tell me the story behind the fifth photo in your phone (or camera, computer, photo album).

Answer: Many of the pictures on my phone are screenshots and the fifth photo on my phone just happens to be one. It is a screenshot of a text from my dad from back in the beginning of August 2014. I had spent all summer on campus working as the student leader of orientation (after spending the first three years of my college experience working in orientation in some capacity). My dad was just sending me a hello text to let me know that he had been thinking about how important my job was and how I could make a huge difference when helping freshmen acclimate to Dickinson and college life. I actually have this really nice screenshot “favorited” because of how it moved me. For someone who aspires to make life better for others and help others feel less alone, this was a great text to receive.

And that’s a wrap on my answers to the Captain’s Quiz! Thanks again for doing this, Paul. I can’t wait to see the results! Wish me luck, everyone 😉