Clincher Question

When I was growing up, I was a regular participant to various quiz bees and quiz shows. I knew the routine perfectly: a written or oral examination for the eliminations, and if I make the cut I get to go to the finals round.

The finals rounds are usually oral in nature: quizmaster asks the questions, then you have an x number of seconds to answer. The answering style varies: sometimes, you write it on a piece of paper or illustration board (for school or university quiz bees), other times you need to press a buzzer and announce your answer through a microphone (for those televised quiz shows) and in a couple of instances the answers are given at the end of the hour (programming competitions) in a mini-floppy disk.

The questions are broadly categorized in terms of difficulty: easy, average, hard and clincher. I always get a good rush whenever I get to answer a question rated as "clincher". On the other hand, I do not get disappointed if ever I fail to answer a "clincher" question. In the field of academics and general knowledge trivia, I consider myself as mediocre.

So why bring up my past of quiz bees and clincher questions?

In the last month, there's a certain question being asked me by numerous people that I find difficulty in answering. Oftentimes, I can't give an answer because I don't know how to answer it plus I find it a really difficult question to answer. Truth be told, I want to find out the answer myself too. I'm actually surprised of the timing of their questions --- it's too closely-spaced. Colleague #1 asked me that last month, then sister #1 asked me the same question a week after that. A faraway colleague asked me a similar question two weeks ago, then last week college friends 1 and 2 asked me the same thing. Then this week, girls #1 and #2 on separate occasions asked me the very same question. That makes 7 unrelated people asking me the same question.

I think fate is telling me to find the answer to this question soon, or else it will haunt me. (However, I do admit that I have this talent for ignoring fate. Its one of my best/worst talents, hahaha).

I'm sure you're guessing now what that question is.

I'm sorry to tell you that my personal clincher question for the month is not "When are you getting married, Stip?". Hahaha. Though I've been getting that a lot too.

I'll leave you pondering while I attempt to search for the elusive answer to my clincher question.