There is that mania that comes over one as the major tournament draws near. Everybody wants more slots than everybody else, there's a waiting list of people who can't be bothered to follow the invitation, there's people who remind you that you promised them slots that you do sort of vaguely remember and so you add them to the list hoping that the shortage of flu vaccine this year might save your bacon at the eleventh hour, there's the usual suspects whom you haven't heard from and you've poked and prodded and nothing's happened and as a result you've made yet another enemy... No wonder one becomes something of a monster. And one does see the source of some of the so-called politics of the activity. It is, people need to remember, only a debate tournament. One of many. Yes, it does offer a large can of soup to the top LD speaker, but that's hardly a reason to make enemies-for-life over it. (If you signed up early, you'd be set, hint hint. But why would anyone do that? Do all debate teams run on fumes?) There are just so many rooms in the buildings, and so many families that will house, and so many slices of the dreaded vegan wedges. And to be honest, going over 120 in LD doesn't make a lot of sense if we break to doubles, because 5 rounds is a decent enough sorter for that number, but any higher and you'd really need 6 prelims, and God knows THAT isn't going to happen.
Good grief.
On the bright side, I've heard from the Nostrumite, who's doing his best to juggle his schedule to come back and judge for us again this year. Unfortunately he's in a state of permanent depression over the health of poor Pecksniff, the Nostrumian Applehead (and, as most people know, a littermate of Pip the Wondercat). Apparently the old Peckeroo has developed a case of feline diabetes, "which is just like human diabetes," the Mite reports, "only it's transient and you can't prick a cat's fingers to do a blood test." To cope with the situation, the Mite is giving Pecky a couple of shots of insulin a day, "which isn't as hard as you'd imagine," he says, plus giving him salve for his rheumy eyes ("which is like playing pin the tail on the eyeball") and forcing a snort of cherry-flavored antibiotics down his gullet once a day ("the fallout spray is like being anointed with holy water at an overeager Easter service"). But the hardest part, the Mite reports, is performing the regular urine test. "You have to understand that a cat just isn't going to pee in a jar," the lad says. "So what you have to do is follow him around all day, but secretly"—I have this vision of the Mite undercover in his trench coat and porkpie hat, dodging around the corners of his Cambridge apartment— "until you see him heading for the litter box, and then you sneak in underneath him with this cardboard strip that turns all shades of mud when he pees on it, and you've got to time it to the correct shade at the exact right moment, and then decide whether to increase or decrease his insulin dosage." Without Jules around to help out, this is driving Doctor Nostrumite a little batty. "At least the Nostrumutt is okay," he tells me. "You walk him a few times a day, he poops it, you scoops it, everyone's happy."
Presumably you can get further details from the lad himself next week when he once again descends on Bump.
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