All together now: "Three Little Fitties in the Itty Bitty Poo.."

Freshmen arrived at the meeting in vast numbers Tuesday night. Apparently Robbie spent a lot of time on the announcements drumming up enthusiasm, plus Rebecca made some remarkably fine chocolates, and the freshmen Sailors couldn’t resist. I have to admit I didn’t know what to prepare for the proceedings. Normally I start with social contract analysis, but morality had already appealed to me as a starting point this year even before the Sept-Oct rez was released. But when I looked at what I had in preparation, I didn’t feel the material was ready for prime time. So, I winged it. Threw that poor fat guy over the trestle a few times, grabbed some poor novice off the streets and broke her into transplantable parts, agreed that the math was tempting on the 5 to 1 for a variety of reasons but came up with a reason why math alone just might not be good enough. A few more minutes and I would have been able to explain why we don’t eat Germans. No one seemed to fall asleep: I’m a pretty entertaining speaker when the creek don’t rise unexpectedly. Even with the likely dropoff, we should still have a decent contingent next week. At which point they will get a little touch of Locke in the night. Some of this stuff never gets old.

For those who are wondering about the recent exchange in the comments, at last year’s Monti MHL, a certain spiritual son of Hassan M (AKA “Big Daddy”—God and Hassan alone know why) was allegedly charged by RJT, leader of her own personal clone army (another story altogether), to pre-order the odd hundred pizzas or so. This was predicated on the assumption that pizzas do not grow on trees, and that some warning would be needed at Pizza Central when a vast number of their product is required first thing on a Saturday afternoon. We’re not just talking a slice and a Coke here. As the appointed hour rolled around, and the theoretically appointed pizzas didn’t roll around, suspicions were raised. Commander RJT turned to Little Daddy and barked, “Ubi est lunch?” (Latin is the native language of Monticello.) Little D immediately took the high ground, replying “Quest-ce que c’est un lunch?” (His Latin isn’t what it used to be.) “The lunch I told you to order last night, you Palooka,” came the response, all pretense of native languages having been reduced to rubble. Once RJT calls you a Palooka, or words to that effect, in any language, the jig is up. While the tabroom was suddenly flooded with hints and allegations between the coach emeritus and Monticello’s answer to Ish Kabibble, debaters in the cafeteria were passing out from hunger, and Michael B, who never skipped such an opportunity, renamed the tournament the M.T. Pizza Toss on the next batch of schematics to issue forth. To this day, of course, Wee Sma Daddy insists that a) he wasn’t supposed to order the pizzas in the first place, and/or b) he did order the pizzas. Which raises the question: if there’s about a thousand people signed up for the Kaiser Roll, who’s in charge of ordering the food? Should I pack a lunch? And a dinner? And some snacks?

Debate life is just filled with drama.