A Scarswegian Idyll

Irons in the fire? Let's see. There's the States fracas. There's the LDEP fracas. And there's the Modest Novice fracas (although that one hasn't drawn any flies yet). It's been a busy year, eh, mate?

So how was Scarsdale, anyhow? Well, we have the continuing issue of squeezing a relatively large team into a relatively small bus, which was not ameliorated by Mr T's car dying in the Montrose shopping center. He claims his car just doesn't like debating, since this is not the first time he's had this problem. On the benefit side, I was able to send him off with the bus early Friday night while we continued to tab away, so worse things have happened. To be honest, I like these little buses, because the seats have more leg room than the big ones, plus if necessary there's plenty of room in the back to dump stuff. What more could you ask? No room for the teeming millions of Scarswegians or whatever to travel along with us, but you can't have everything.

Tabbing Scarsdale is an interesting challenge. First of all, there's the varsity division, and its judges. Then there's the novice division, which has in its judging pool all of the varsity judges, plus all of the varsity debaters who are able to judge. Then there's the Pfft division, with its small pool of very quickly sullied judges. What you have to do is, first, pair and assign the varsity. Then you pull out the extra adults and funnel them into PF and out of the novice pool for that round. Then you assign the novice judges, making sure that you're alternating the varsity students, i.e., giving them at least one round off after a round on so as not to overload the poor darlings, except in the break from rounds 1 to 2, where anything can happen. Then you find the varsity judges that are in both divisions and you change their novice room to the same as their varsity room. All of which adds up to a lot of work. And not a lot of Jack, if you know what I mean. But it all worked with only a couple of hitches, usually when we had to sub in a judge, which is why all judges need to be in all the right places at all the right times, because subbing is a royal pain and leads to issues, especially when a judge can be in any or all of three divisions. But seldom are all judges in the right places at the right times. The brain damage that affects many of them who, for some reason, forget to pick up ballots but go to rounds anyhow, is baffling, especially since this is usually former TOC people. The minds go, I guess, once they reach college. Then there's the parents who disappear. Literally. I mean, where can they go? And don't they understand that we would all like to disappear, and doing so really isn't an option?

Aaaarrrghh!

Throughout all of this, Typhoid Mimi kept dropping by to cough and collect nostrums from the assorted hypochondriacs that tab rooms tend to attract, and we kept trying to play Text Twist, and good old Grandpod kept on chootling despite the fact that everyone else had Gen 5s and I really want one but I'm holding out for Gen 6 which will have a bigger screen (turn it sideways, Steve) if I'm any guesser of such things iPodian. And the Saturday puzzle was practically a gimme, so that was a bust. When I first started tabbing, these rooms were quieter than the Vatican on the Pope's day off, but nowadays they're louder than the cafeteria during ziti distribution. But it's probably more fun, and that's something, anyhow.

Meanwhile, results on the floor were interesting. HoraceMan, the superhero without any superpowers, managed to lose the toss: that must be the part that Noah was coaching him on. (Noah is coaching him? Poor HoraceMan. Poor Noah.) The Hardware Engineer placed 17th, which is always a thrill. Termite and Peanuts both broke, thus proving the value of a nickname early in one's career. Emcee and Matt broke in Varsity, while at the same time Javo was killing 'em up in Congress. Ewok managed to get a speaker award, pulling victory from the jaws and whathaveyou. All in all, a fine weekend for the good guys. We managed to unload the Bump candy, so now Dave is even again, or he will be tonight when I give him his check. And so we bid a fond farewell to--

All right. Bidding farewell was harder than you think. It was starting to snow when we left, so I told CLG ixnay on the Indian Ousenay, but as time and the car progressed, it got drier and drier and CLG sounded hungrier and hungrier, so I called Liz who said she was in, it was cold, Pip was on her lap, and she wasn't moving come hell or high water. Fortunately, la mere de la Claire relented--she had been telling young C that she would have to eat elsewhere because this was Unitarian Taco Night--and allowed the prodigal daughter into the house for dinner. I guess one of the Unitarians bowed out at the last moment.

And thus Scarsdale II is in the can!