Wednesday, January 19, 2005

Great moments in debate

The average weekend is full of them, if you know where to look. Being buried in the tab room often cuts you off from the ebb and the flow of things, but I did manage a couple of magical moments.

For instance, there was the judge who decided to riffle through the teacher's desk. While this is in itself an extraordinary event, in this particular case the teacher happened to be in the room! The judge made an attractive nuisance defense (the drawer was open and looked interesting), followed by a we-always-riffle-through-the-teacher's-desks-in-Texas defense (which is, I guess, a sort of Rehnquistian anti-federalist ploy), followed by the oh-shucks-what's-that-printed-on-the-ceiling defense. Some people are born with a silver foot in their mouth.

Then there was the moment when I went over to see if all the judges had turned up for the novice finals. As I entered the room, Robbie, rather than proceeding with his 1AC, interrupted the proceedings to take a call on his cell phone. Presumably it was his broker, or bookie, or bag man. Hard to tell. Harder too to turn your cell off, when you're expecting a call from your broker, or bookie, or bag man. Then again, maybe it was just Noah calling in with a turn off negative's second contention.

My only hope is that everyone was on the bus when I sent it home Saturday night. I still have a vague sense that someone was left behind. Has anyone seen NoShow lately?

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