Most Saturdays during the fall and winter I was going to debate
tournaments. The coach would meet us early in the morning at the
school and then we would drive in a bus or Suburban to the school
where the meet was at and spend the whole day competing in events and
hanging around making jokes, flirting, and talking about the events
we competed in. It was all very soothing in a very nerdy way to be
with other people who knew what it meant to really tear into someone
during cross examination. You tell a regular person something about
how you absolutely destroyed this kids case and had him fumbling his
notes and not being able to find his place for the last speech and
they would not give a flying filibuster. Debate nerds wouldn't
exactly listen but sometimes they would wait quietly, feigning
interest, until you were done talking before they started telling you
how they did something like that too. My brother and I were both
pretty big jokers and in these, often long, down times we would laugh
and joke and make fun of people or play tricks on others. One trick
that we would do was a prank where we would pretend to be telepathic.
I would tell a someone, usually a cute girl someone that My brother
and I were twins and that we could read one another's minds. I would
tell my brother and the rube that I was thinking of a number and he
would bear down in obvious mental effort and then proclaim the number
and I would excitedly confirm any number he said as being the very
one I had thought of. About 90% of people would be amazed, not
guessing the trick and some would even get so excited that they would
want to see it again or run go grab some friends to see this
unfathomable trick. With those quicker on the uptake usually letting
the game play out the real fun came in seeing how long it would take
some people to suss out that we were just faking it. Sadly, there
were a few who never caught on and a couple who struggled with the
concept once it was explained to them step by step. At that point it
turns from comedy to tragedy and we lament the state of the American
educational system.
