The Debate Weekend, certified for public viewing by the CMS (Cindy Monitoring Service):

Alright, these go in no particular order, it just happens to be what I wrote down as I though of it, so if something seems out of order, you'll just have to suffer.

We'll start with the absolute down point of the trip. After the awards ceremony on the final day of debate (Saturday), myself and Jennifer Belding (aka: David's sister, you have to love inside debate jokes) decided that the bus's current location, which, while not far from the from entrance, was not the best of locations for loading the bus with hefty debate evidence. It was bordered by a decrepit wooden fence and a large amount of mud on the right side and the left side would have been blocking other traffic had we taken it to load the bus. So we, I do concede that Jen did the actual asking, but it really becomes a moot point, told the bus driver to pull the bus around. Stein was pissed, he didn't speak harshly, cause that would have made him look bad, he just reprimanded me (so much for not shooting the messenger). Even after Jen and I single-handedly loaded all the debate evidence and carts into the bus, we got no thanks whatsoever. And I'll tell you that crouching inside the bus and hefting twenty-pound Tupperwares full of paper is no fun.

For those of you who are not aware of the Bunny, it is Cindy's rather large pink stuffed animal that we take on speech trips. So is Spitch/Spiotch, but that's an entirely different matter. Nonetheless, this trip, because of the necessity of rotating the rooms between Debate and Speech rounds, gave us poor members of the speech team (having only 3 rounds and one of finals as opposed to 5 debate rounds and then breaking to Octofinals), had tons and tons of downtime. During this downtime, I would take the Bunny, and walk around Vestavia. During the first of these trips I ran into a rather bored and pissed member of the Vestavia debate team (who, like the rest of her team, was stuck working the tournament). This particular person was a, I this will surprise you, a short Asian named Gene who was getting ready to strangle a Policy judge who was not letting go of his ballot. I, having nothing else to do, stood in the hallway with her and a rotating pack of other Vestavia members. Needless to say that the Bunny lying on my chest being stroked by me (note, I was leaning back so that the Bunny was atop me without me actively holding it) go a lot of comments. The best being from the leader of the Vestavia debate team, a blonde male senior with a dearth of common sense as he said, "That's illegal in this state." To which my reply was "No it's not, this is Alabama."

During the second day, during our second six-hour debate down time, we on the speech team elected to recall the bus and go to the Birmingham mall. Our first stop upon arrival was prom dress shopping. No, no one actually planned to go there, but yes, it was at least a good 45 minutes we spent in there choosing and trying on dresses. Umm...let me rephrase that, they (Cindy and Becca) spent a good 45 minutes trying on dresses. I was just the human shelf. At one point in time I was holding 10 dresses while we waited for dressing rooms to open. I won't go into detail as to how nice these lovely ladies looked in the various dresses, but I will say that by the end, Cindy was rather sparkly and there had been much planning over how exactly one would go about tie-dying a prom dress. After this we went to a store called Dalia, which was essentially an overpriced girl's apparel store, and spent a bit of time there. I'm not certain if it's only me, but I think a shirt with "No shirt, no shoes, no service," would be just a little weird to see someone wearing. After this we went to the food court to have dinner, cause we were hungry by this point, and then we did some splitting up. I went with Emily Pitts to a bookstore, where I stood outside eating a cup of frozen yogurt and pondered how weird I must have looked standing in a mall, eating frozen yogurt with only my tongue, and wearing my trench coat as well as a dress shirt and tie. I finished the dessert and went into the bookstore where I choose a random magazine, Ramp for those who are keeping score, and leafed through it. It was a little section on gruesome sports injuries including color pictures. Emily chose a book and then we left, thinking that we were running low on time, which we were. Then I introduced Emily to the work of DDR by showing it to her in the nearby arcade. So to complete the lesson we took a stroll over to the Electronics' Boutique where I showed her what she would need to play, and then we headed off to the bus and got back to Vestavia just in time for awards.

We also played cards during our down time moments; Spades and some rather vicious games of spoons. We had between the five of us, 4 decks of cards. One deck, 101 Dalmations, was short exactly one card, the blue deck was complete, and we had two identical red decks, both of which were missing a two of diamonds.

Time for the Final duo round. Cindy and I got 4th place out of five teams, here were the others' pieces. 5th place was "Sure Thing" which our school had done several times as had other schools, so it was nothing special. 3rd place, "Little Footsteps" was a group who played a couple with a verbally abusive (though not profane husband) and a pregnant wife. The highlights were that the piece included a dead baby joke and a dialogue about how their drug usage might affect their kid. "With all the drugs we did I wouldn't be surprised if our son looks like flipper." "Don't say such things!" and the husband's imagination of what it would be like "Umm, sir, I'm afraid your son doesn't have a body." "Doesn't have a body?! Well, I guess I could get used to that. I mean, football's right out, but at least I can still teach him chess." "Umm, he doesn't have a head either." "What?!" "He's just an eyeball, I have him right here." "My son is an eyeball?!" "He's a rather large eyeball for his age. Oh, don't hold him like that, he blinks." "My son is a eyeball, what could be worse!?" "He's blind."

The 2nd place piece was called "Greater Tuna" and was about two local radio personalities in an imaginary town called Tuna and Cindy and I cannot figure out how they ranked this high. One of their physical actions was flicking off the judges for the first minute, well, perhaps that wasn't what they intended but he was holding his middle finger on his left hand out with all his other fingers in so it really couldn't not be interpreted that way. The victors were two girls doing "Las Hermanas" which started with two wonderfully well played old ladies and then changed into a feminist modern art song that was, while weird, very good and deserving of victory.

Mrs. Jolle also brought two pieces for us to look at for next year. One was called "Darn It" and was about two co-workers (a divorced man and his secretary) who were interested in a relationship but both brought their lawyers to negotiate the first date boundaries. After the lawyers get too involved the couple goes off without them on a date and the lawyers decide to go for a drink. Yes, the man has a male lawyer and the woman a female lawyer. Best lines: "So you're saying that all your client brings to the table is free access to all her orifices?" "Just one orifice." "Two or we walk."
The other piece was a man who is in a restaurant with when God walks in and starts stealing his pretzels. Highlights: "Wait, you mean to say that man has no purpose?" "Sometimes it just works out like that. Just like hermit crabs, I don't have a reason for them, they just are." "So, you're saying that in the grand scheme of things, a man is no more important a hermit crab?" "I bet that that's a load off your mind." "So we've been giving you prayers and worship and burnt offerings and-" "Actually, you've been really slack on the burnt offerings lately." "That's not the point." "I like pretzels more than I like burnt offerings."

Emily's most memorable moment of cindy'
We're in our room watching tv and someone knocks on the door
Cindy: Who is it?
Stein: It's stein!
Cindy: Ok (proceeds to watch tv like nothing happened)
5 seconds later Stein knocks again
Emily: Cindy! Aren't you gonna open the door for Mr. Stein??
(before Cindy could answer) Katie opens the door

Round 2, which was the reason I had Cindy's clothes in my backpack defies description, though hopefully this quote from Cindy will help you understand it: "round 2 was one hot and sweaty round, but it was great none the less."