Some people have a wealth of knowledge about specific subjects such as the law, medicine or engineering. Others, like myself, find the brain is a repository of lots of generally useless information, unless one finds themselves in a game of Trivial Pursuit or watching Jeopardy! at home.

Sadly, I’m old enough to remember when Art Fleming was the host of Jeopardy! and the highest value answer on the board was worth a mere $100.
The show came on in the afternoon and I watched it after school, although I didn’t know many of the answers in those days.

Things have changed considerably since the game show was resurrected in 1983 with Alex Trebek as the host. The return of the show is what prompted my first purchase of a VCR because the game came on at 3:30 in the afternoon, during working hours. I still tape it because I can shoot through the whole show in 15 minutes bypassing the commercials. Some days I am on fire, knowing almost everything. Other days, I’m largely clueless.

Appearing on the show is one of those items on my life list. My list isn’t long or complicated, but getting on the show isn’t easy. When I was living in Houston, they held a contestant search there. Wannabes were asked to send in postcards to be plucked out in a lottery. I must have spent $20 on postcards, but my name was not drawn. Since moving from a large city, the closest contestant search to date was in Atlanta and even though I signed up online for a chance, still I was not chosen.

By signing up online for nearby contestant searches and providing my email, I was thus one of the first to be informed that Jeopardy! was having the first ever online test for the game. All I had to do was register and take the test being offered at the most convenient time for me. They had three days of tests, all at 8 p.m. in the various times zones. The only weird thing was the test had to be taken on a PC. The whole PC thing has mystified me for some time. I cannot play the online game against computer avatars because I have a Mac.

Fortunately my brother has a PC and I asked him if I could take the test at his house. He was excited for me and we made an evening of it, sharing dinner before the test. I wandered upstairs about 15 minutes early, which they had suggested at the website. Alas, my brother, who really doesn’t trust computers and uses his mostly for class work, did not have a version of Flash Media Player installed, which was necessary to take the test. Further, he has dial-up, which is generally fine unless you are in a time crunch. By the time I downloaded Flash and signed in for the test, I was too late, but advised I had one more chance the next day to take the test, at 8 p.m. PST, making it 10 p.m. here. Since I frequently awake before dawn, 10 p.m. has come to mean time for bed, but I was determined to take the test.

As the hour arrived to take the test, I felt alert. The test was composed of 50 questions in varying categories. Typically I do well in the areas of the arts, literature, history, general knowledge and so forth. I am abysmal in the areas of math, science and geography and there were perhaps seven of the 50 questions for which I had no answers. The entire test lasted about 10 minutes.

Those of us taking the test will never find out how well or how poorly we performed. The site tells us we will either be contacted to go to our preferred location for another test and interview or not, based on factors only they know. I chose Orlando because it was closest. Now it’s a waiting game. Will I be called or not?

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