Okay, this isn't a trivia recap, really, but here's what happened.
See, a year ago, my cousin Bob, who is a wonderfully awesome person, came into town. We grabbed dinner with his mom, and we got to trivia late. Against all odds, we came back from a double digit deficit to tie for first and win it.
Tonight, Bob and I grabbed dinner with his mom. We got to trivia absurdly late. Against all odds, we came back from a double digit deficit to straight up win first place. No tie. Just a win. We are champions. Take that, radiologists who were apparently jerks to my team.
And you know what? You can have an extra for good measure, because we're about to talk about me. Some of you have heard this, so you can skip it, if you're into that sort of thing.
That's right. We're talking about The Prom Saga.
Some of you may think that I'm exaggerating this. You would be wrong. Prom was a freaking ORDEAL for me.
See, junior year of high school, there were some miscommunications. I asked this cute girl, and she said she'd "think about it." Now, any guy who has seen any sort of pop culture knows to take this as a no. I did not, but after a few weeks of not hearing anything, I assumed it was an understood no. I started asking, word got back to her, miscommunication was elaborated as her having meant to say yes, but whoops, I suck, so there was no prom for me.
This was all in the context of my AP US History class, which, God bless them, was committed to getting me a prom date, SOMEHOW. The problem was that they left it up to me that year. I mean, geez. I can hardly ask a girl on a date as it is. If I'm feeling super bold, I might gaze upon her countenance. The genes I got for romance belong in the freaking Middle Ages, or the Renaissance, or SOMETHING, but not where I am now. Maybe I'll capitalize a few more words while I'm at it. It's LATE, and I'm TIRED, and I need to get this done, so I might just say a few random words now hurdy gurdy blips and bops for a thousand little tears dripping along the course of years. That's good for what, ten words? Okay, it was good for seventeen. DO BETTER, ROB.
Well, that's Junior year. I ended up not going to prom, and I instead went to a family reunion. I... I stand by that decision. You haven't been around all my family at once. Sure, we have our squabbles and the like, but then we get the folks on the porch, and suddenly it's a party for everyone. You may think your family is cool, but, sorry. You don't understand. We've got 2 Susans, 4 Roberts, a few Bens (I think), a Jaden, AND a Sofia.
But back to the prom issue. See, this is back before I even had the terrible attempt at the Jesus beard. I didn't have the magnetic facial hair that I have now.
No, this is me around this time:
If only these pictures counted for words. I just have to keep captioning all of them. Hopefully I'm keeping your interest with this cavalcade of photos of me. I know I usually offer you some hipster Christina Hendricks or some Ancient Aliens Guy, but that just can't be done tonight, because I am very tired, and this is as late as I've been blogging on a school night. It's quite a sacrifice on my part, but that's the price of quality, I'm afraid. That and a firstborn child. Boy or girl. We're not picky.
But anyway, senior year starts, and by God, I am going to get myself a prom date.
Things do not start well. I go to the fall dance with the same girl I went with the year before and briefly dated before realizing that, really, she wasn't for me. Then, I go to the winter dance with another young lady who was quite nice, but we really just needed to be friends. Clearly, I was a ladykiller somewhere deep down, but these two both basically asked me to go.
Things were not shaping up well for Rob's ability to dig deep for his big boy pants and aks a girl to a freaking dance.
Well, while all this is going on, I've stepped away from theater (i.e., I auditioned for shows and had just too much crap to do). Instead, I started doing college applications, 5 AP classes, Knowledge Bowl, Model UN, Wordsmith, some side projects for theater, and probably some other clubs that I was in that didn't really take up that much of my time. Somehow, I wasn't drinking much/any coffee.
Well, Model UN picks up. We go to LA for a competition, where I do poorly. I was Romania on the Security Council. Those of you who have tried to have a political conversation with me are pretty well aware that I have a tenuous grasp of current affairs at best, and at worst I'm woefully uninformed. I bomb it pretty hard. I had initially thought that my coach had a lot of faith in me, and I guess that's not entirely untrue. I did well in his class, I showed I was able to think, and I was usually willing to do the work. Well, when I asked him about it later, his response basically amounted to, "I wanted to put you in a situation where you could not possibly win so that you and I could see what you would do."
Well played, sir.
"But Rob, why are you talking about Model UN? You're just trying to get your word count up!" Well, duh. Why do you think I took that question? But no, there's actually a point to the Model UN stories if you give it a minute.
So, spring comes. For some reason (I guess I passed the test?), I get selected to go to New York for this conference at the UN. The conference itself was pretty terrible, because it was a bunch of high school students (and even some adults) getting up there and talking about how the UN should regulate Wal Mart. One person talked about it in favor of the free market, and honestly? He was the best spoken one of the bunch. Maybe I'm biased because I got SO FREAKING TIRED OF HEARING ABOUT HOW WAL MART IS THE DEVIL. WE GET IT. THEY TREAT THEIR EMPLOYEES LIKE CRAP. LET'S MOVE TO ANOTHER COMPANY. GEEZ.
However, due to the UN voting about something "important" like a "world affair," our first morning session was cancelled. We find this out once we've gotten into New York. So, we spend the night wandering around New York, seeing various things that we were going to do with our morning off.
Well, all these folks know of my problems with prom. It's also March, so there's plenty of time.
Then we pass by Rockefeller Center, and a joke is made. A joke about a show where people have posters and how, haha, wouldn't it be funny if Rob (then Robbie) went on with a poster about a prom date? Well, showman that I am, I take that challenge. My friends help me out with a poster (which was phenomenal), and I commit to getting up at the crack of dawn the next day to make my way over to Rockefeller Center to stand in the long line between me and GLORY.
Well, it was a Friday morning, and it was cold and snowy. There really wasn't much of a line. There were some folks from New Jersey or Wisconsin or some such, and they see my sign and let me go to the front. They think it's hilarious. They tell their parents about the idea, and their parents agree to tape it. (I do NOT tell my parents, because I figure they're going to try to talk me out of it, because let's face it- I'm about to make a royal spectacle of myself on national television).
Well, while I'm doing this, Stephen (the guy in the middle up above) and Coach are going to grab some bagels for breakfast. They come back, look up on the Jumbotron, and see the following.
Pan, pan, pan, pan, Rob, pan, pan, stop. Reverse pan, reverse pan, Rob, stop.
Oh, cool. I just got to be on the Today Show. Let's see where this goes from here.
About 20 minutes later, I'm sitting with my new friends from New Jersey/Wisconsin, when these three folks come outside. There's this short lady between a black guy and a white guy. There's also a camera and microphone. These people are talking to the cameras.
The following may disturb you. Heck, when I watch it (I tried to figure out how to upload the DVD version I have, but I haven't quite figured it out yet), I find it disturbing.
Before I register what's going on, Katie Couric is right next to me saying, "Hi. I like this. What's your name?"
I deftly respond with, "HI I'M ROBBIE CAMPBELL FROM MEMPHIS, TENNESSEE."
It continues from there. Some highlights though:
Of course, there were calls from someone who said they were a producer on the show, and Lord knows if anything was going to come of it, because I lost my phone about a month after that. So, no dice on getting that prom date via the Today Show.
See, a year ago, my cousin Bob, who is a wonderfully awesome person, came into town. We grabbed dinner with his mom, and we got to trivia late. Against all odds, we came back from a double digit deficit to tie for first and win it.
 |
| Not even re-sizing it. |
And you know what? You can have an extra for good measure, because we're about to talk about me. Some of you have heard this, so you can skip it, if you're into that sort of thing.
 |
| I'M A CHAMPION |
Some of you may think that I'm exaggerating this. You would be wrong. Prom was a freaking ORDEAL for me.
See, junior year of high school, there were some miscommunications. I asked this cute girl, and she said she'd "think about it." Now, any guy who has seen any sort of pop culture knows to take this as a no. I did not, but after a few weeks of not hearing anything, I assumed it was an understood no. I started asking, word got back to her, miscommunication was elaborated as her having meant to say yes, but whoops, I suck, so there was no prom for me.
This was all in the context of my AP US History class, which, God bless them, was committed to getting me a prom date, SOMEHOW. The problem was that they left it up to me that year. I mean, geez. I can hardly ask a girl on a date as it is. If I'm feeling super bold, I might gaze upon her countenance. The genes I got for romance belong in the freaking Middle Ages, or the Renaissance, or SOMETHING, but not where I am now. Maybe I'll capitalize a few more words while I'm at it. It's LATE, and I'm TIRED, and I need to get this done, so I might just say a few random words now hurdy gurdy blips and bops for a thousand little tears dripping along the course of years. That's good for what, ten words? Okay, it was good for seventeen. DO BETTER, ROB.
 |
| Do. Better. |
 |
| We will end you and all you love. |
 |
| We're trying so hard to break away. It just... can't... be... done. |
 |
| The H is for "Hardcore." No, seriously. |
If only these pictures counted for words. I just have to keep captioning all of them. Hopefully I'm keeping your interest with this cavalcade of photos of me. I know I usually offer you some hipster Christina Hendricks or some Ancient Aliens Guy, but that just can't be done tonight, because I am very tired, and this is as late as I've been blogging on a school night. It's quite a sacrifice on my part, but that's the price of quality, I'm afraid. That and a firstborn child. Boy or girl. We're not picky.
But anyway, senior year starts, and by God, I am going to get myself a prom date.
Things do not start well. I go to the fall dance with the same girl I went with the year before and briefly dated before realizing that, really, she wasn't for me. Then, I go to the winter dance with another young lady who was quite nice, but we really just needed to be friends. Clearly, I was a ladykiller somewhere deep down, but these two both basically asked me to go.
Things were not shaping up well for Rob's ability to dig deep for his big boy pants and aks a girl to a freaking dance.
Well, while all this is going on, I've stepped away from theater (i.e., I auditioned for shows and had just too much crap to do). Instead, I started doing college applications, 5 AP classes, Knowledge Bowl, Model UN, Wordsmith, some side projects for theater, and probably some other clubs that I was in that didn't really take up that much of my time. Somehow, I wasn't drinking much/any coffee.
Well, Model UN picks up. We go to LA for a competition, where I do poorly. I was Romania on the Security Council. Those of you who have tried to have a political conversation with me are pretty well aware that I have a tenuous grasp of current affairs at best, and at worst I'm woefully uninformed. I bomb it pretty hard. I had initially thought that my coach had a lot of faith in me, and I guess that's not entirely untrue. I did well in his class, I showed I was able to think, and I was usually willing to do the work. Well, when I asked him about it later, his response basically amounted to, "I wanted to put you in a situation where you could not possibly win so that you and I could see what you would do."
Well played, sir.
"But Rob, why are you talking about Model UN? You're just trying to get your word count up!" Well, duh. Why do you think I took that question? But no, there's actually a point to the Model UN stories if you give it a minute.
So, spring comes. For some reason (I guess I passed the test?), I get selected to go to New York for this conference at the UN. The conference itself was pretty terrible, because it was a bunch of high school students (and even some adults) getting up there and talking about how the UN should regulate Wal Mart. One person talked about it in favor of the free market, and honestly? He was the best spoken one of the bunch. Maybe I'm biased because I got SO FREAKING TIRED OF HEARING ABOUT HOW WAL MART IS THE DEVIL. WE GET IT. THEY TREAT THEIR EMPLOYEES LIKE CRAP. LET'S MOVE TO ANOTHER COMPANY. GEEZ.
However, due to the UN voting about something "important" like a "world affair," our first morning session was cancelled. We find this out once we've gotten into New York. So, we spend the night wandering around New York, seeing various things that we were going to do with our morning off.
 |
| Like being badasses. |
Then we pass by Rockefeller Center, and a joke is made. A joke about a show where people have posters and how, haha, wouldn't it be funny if Rob (then Robbie) went on with a poster about a prom date? Well, showman that I am, I take that challenge. My friends help me out with a poster (which was phenomenal), and I commit to getting up at the crack of dawn the next day to make my way over to Rockefeller Center to stand in the long line between me and GLORY.
Well, it was a Friday morning, and it was cold and snowy. There really wasn't much of a line. There were some folks from New Jersey or Wisconsin or some such, and they see my sign and let me go to the front. They think it's hilarious. They tell their parents about the idea, and their parents agree to tape it. (I do NOT tell my parents, because I figure they're going to try to talk me out of it, because let's face it- I'm about to make a royal spectacle of myself on national television).
Well, while I'm doing this, Stephen (the guy in the middle up above) and Coach are going to grab some bagels for breakfast. They come back, look up on the Jumbotron, and see the following.
Pan, pan, pan, pan, Rob, pan, pan, stop. Reverse pan, reverse pan, Rob, stop.
Oh, cool. I just got to be on the Today Show. Let's see where this goes from here.
About 20 minutes later, I'm sitting with my new friends from New Jersey/Wisconsin, when these three folks come outside. There's this short lady between a black guy and a white guy. There's also a camera and microphone. These people are talking to the cameras.
The following may disturb you. Heck, when I watch it (I tried to figure out how to upload the DVD version I have, but I haven't quite figured it out yet), I find it disturbing.
Before I register what's going on, Katie Couric is right next to me saying, "Hi. I like this. What's your name?"
I deftly respond with, "HI I'M ROBBIE CAMPBELL FROM MEMPHIS, TENNESSEE."
 |
| Smooooooth. |
- Katie drops multiple hints that I should ask HER to the prom. I'm not biting, because hindsight is well beyond 20/20 here.
- Al Roker disses my bowtie. That's right. I was wearing a bowtie.
- Matt Lauer insists that the bowtie is cool.
I knew it! - Al Roker hangs his head in shame and proceeds to ask the crowd if there's anyone who would be my prom date. There's an impressive response.
 |
| Never heard of him. |
 |
| But I have my ways. And a snazzy tuxedo. |
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