If this is Wednesday it must be Nostrum

I spent a lot of last night explaining what I used to do as Sailor coach to those who might follow in my footsteps. I know that you think I didn't do anything, but that's where you'd be wrong. I did all kinds of things, most of them analogous to being a travel agent. I do also have a dim recollection of once actually working with the plebes on their cases, but I also recall the one time someone actually took my advice and did so poorly that they swore never to listen to anything I said ever again, including "Good morning" and "The school is on fire." Glory days, glory days.

So I retreat into my other reality. Like the arrival of a pet!

We almost didn’t make it this week. The Nostrumite is in a state of permanent depression over leaving his job at Cambridge Ma ‘N’ Pa Pet-a-Porter. Mr. Ma ‘N’ Pa wasn’t that happy about it either. I mean, whodathunkit? One day the Mite’s going batty complaining that he wasn’t born to be a master of the hounds, and the next day he brings home a black cocker spaniel puppy and announces that he can’t take being the jailer to all those poor pooches and he’s liberated this one using his employee’s discount and the next thing you know there’s now three of us in the apartment, the Mite, me and the Nostrumutt, and two of us are unemployed, present company excepted, and one of us is a piddlin’ fool, to put it mildly, present company also excepted.

I hate dogs.

Ah, the Nostrumutt. It was always fun to maneuver all manner of things beginning with M: the Mite, the Mate, the Mutt. 

At this point we went on hiatus, and when we came back? Oy.

We almost didn’t make it this week. The Nostrumite is in a state of permanent depression over the fact that we take a wee sma’ break for a lousy month, and the world pretty much goes to hell in a hand basket as a result. The stock market collapses, the only person left in Russia with a job is Lenin’s corpse, our Commander-in-Chief admits putting his hand into the naughty-bit cookie jar while Mrs. Commander-in-Chief is lionized for yet again standing by her man (there is another Tammy Wynette song, “D-I-V-O-R-C-E”; somebody might want to play it for the First Lady while there’s still time), and if that isn’t enough, at least two of the remaining Spice Girls are pregnant. We can’t leave you people alone for two minutes! Get a grip!

Anyhow, we’re back now, the four of us: me, the Nostrumite, the Nostrumutt, and a new arrival, the Nostrumite’s mustache. If it isn’t one thing, it’s another. A mustache? I mean, talk about going out of style with the leisure suit. The only people in the world who still have mustaches are policemen, baseball players, and Saddam Hussein’s cabinet. What is this boy thinking, anyhow? He looks like he should be standing at the edge of the grammar school playground selling heroin to fourth graders. He claims he’s been so busy training the Nostrumutt that he hasn’t had time to attend to his tonsorial chores, but I know a deliberate cookie duster when I see one. And I won’t even go into the subject of the cocker Nostrumutt who does, by the way, finally have a name. Unix. For two reasons: the Mite likes the operating system, and it will plant a subconscious idea in Unix’s mind of the eventual fate of certain aspects of his anatomy. I shiver at the thought.

School’s open; drive carefully. Especially if you see a mustachioed drug dealer walking a cocker spaniel.

So why, I have to wonder, didn't I call it the Nostrumoustache? 

In which we admit that we are the scum of the earth, but we're only following orders

I’m not listed as the contact for any of the tournaments I’m working this fall. Which means that others will be dealing with the steady stream of silliness that always flows one’s way. Except, of course, once I let people off the waitlists. That always stirs things a bit, and at that point, they’ll know where I live.

Here’s some predictable stuff. I’ll send a message saying that I do not know when other slots will be open. I will immediately get half a dozen emails asking when other slots will be open. I think tabroom.com needs to add a feature that drops anyone’s entry if they ask a question so dumb that you don’t think they should be allowed around children for any extended period of time, like the length of a debate tournament. Better yet are the threats. You didn’t take my entries off the list because: A) there’s 3270 of them and your ridiculous limit is 4 which I refuse to accept; B) my coach is unavailable but I know that he/she really really really wants me to debate at your tournament; or C) granted, we registered under a phony name for a bogus school, but we’ve already bought plane tickets so you have to let us in. Therefore, the message continues, I will: A) consult with my vast army of personal lawyers, which I know will scare the bejesus out of you just thinking about it; B) I’ll never come to your tournament again no matter how much you beg and plead with me; or C) I’ll tell everyone that you’re a poopyhead and no one else will ever come to your tournament again either, not never, not no how. 

I have a form letter for all of these.

It is pretty easy to detect bogus entries on tabroom, by the way. But I won’t list the details here, because if you’re the spalpeen I think you are you’ll use that information to make my life more difficult, and though I’ll win in the end, it will take longer to get there, and I don’t need the bother. I know there are some people who think I care about this on a personal level, but I assure you I don’t. I have occasionally been taken aback when I’ve been accused of evil motivations, but thinking that high school debate tournaments ought to be limited to high school debate teams strikes me as less than Machiavellian, much less inherently Satanic.

I wonder if athletic departments go through the same hoo-ha. “My school doesn’t have a football team but I demand that you let me play your school this homecoming weekend. If you don’t do it, you will be undervaluing the importance of athletics as a part of education, and you’re also a racist/sexist/speciesist/ageist/ableist/ecdysiast pig.” Well, maybe not an ecdysiast. I remember one kid who claimed that the tournament director who wouldn’t let his bogus entry in was a “repellent slime.” The kid was pretending to be an adult coach in the email exchange, and this sort of gave away the game. Needless to say, we nicknamed him Repellent Slime for the rest of his debate career, which as far as I know consisted entirely of signing up for, and not getting into, any debate tournaments.

The number of people behind the scenes at debate tournaments is very small, and we all know each other. Especially if we need to put out a Repellent Slime alert.

So the tournament directors I'm working with, meanwhile, are contacting schools as we speak, to verify questionable entries. Is your entry among them? Don’t blame me for the tournaments’ posted rules about official entries. Find some other repellent slime to complain about. I only work here.

In which the teeming masses come out in the proverbial bazillions

Holy cannoli! It was a busy Saturday, wasn’t it?

Let’s go in order. Byram Hills, with its combination varsity prep and Academy divisions, is a little short of 200. Looking at the entrants, this seems pretty solid to me, which means we’ll kick off locally with a nice little bang. I guess Benk knew what he was doing. Or maybe, following JV's lead, he just didn’t want to play footsies with the February weather. Can't blame him for that.

Yale looks as if they were offering Black Friday sales. I know it’s a popular tournament, but nearly 2000 entries popular? Amazing. I’ve watched the Pups go from absolute zero back in the 90s to one of the best and most popular in the business. Some of this might accrue to people wanting to visit an Ivy on the school dime, but the number of repeat schools demonstrates the real draw: a well run tournament year after year. And certainly one of my favorites. And now that JV and I know that a certain restaurant has opened a new branch there, right near the campus… Oh, yeah!

And finally Big Bronx. I can’t say that, deep down, I wasn’t worried. We so associate tournaments with their directors, and for that matter, we associate programs with their directors, because we see so often that when a director moves on, the program expires. But I’ve been working with the Bronx since April, and they’ve insisted that forensics is a priority for the school, and that they will carry on with firm resolve. And I’ve been trying to get that message out to people. But in the event, would people commit? Would the Usual Suspects believe that the resolve was there, and that a good tournament could be had? Lord knows that, once upon a time, the Usual Ss had abandoned Bronx in droves, requiring years of rebuilding. Would it happen again? No. Early numbers, over 1200, are bigger than ever. Any of us who thought we might have an unexpected weekend off can start thinking otherwise. The game is on!

So now we’re starting to comb through, looking for shenanigans and, in some cases, henanigans. Next weekend or so we’ll start clearing the decks, which means that, as promised, people who didn’t sign up in the first minute will still get access. I mean, debate isn’t a horse race. It’s not who gets there first who wins. It’s who bribes the most judges. 

It’s who wears the sharpest outfit. 

It’s who slips the guy in the tabroom a couple of tickets to The Book of Mormon.

You know what I mean.