In
the first full tournament of the year they had a cut after six rounds
and only the top 16 went on to debate after that. The rest of the
tournament was over as we debated into the double digits of Saturday
night the rest of the team was just waiting for me to win or lose. I
won out in the round of eight, four and it was down to me and one
girl for the final, finally. Going into the debate I noticed that she
was wearing a loose knit tight sweater with nothing but her nakies
under it. Now it may not be to everyone's taste but she did make a
strong case for the sexual attractiveness of a shapely young woman
with a cute face and a devil-may-care/peek-a-boo sensibility to her
clothing. An optimist might have called her state of dress
half-naked, and a pessimist might have called her half-dressed but
either way I was quite relived to see that we had a panel of judges
and there were four women and one man.
Ha, ha, those ladies care nothing about your ladies.
I
am not saying that her provocative clothing was the only reason she
had won out to the finals but she was definitely not the hardest
round of debate I had all day. I felt good as my last speech ended
and I was pretty sure that I was going to win my very first solo
tournament. They sent us out to sit in the hall and wait for the
results which meant trying to make small talk and pretending to not
notices her transparent attempts to manipulate the system by cashing
in on her sexualizing clothing. The head judge came out and was
holding the two trophies a tall three tiered first place and a more
modest second. Without ceremony or flourish he handed me the first
place trophy and my opponent the second and told us that I had won
four ballots to one. I thought I knew how that voting had gone but
when we got our copies of the judges notes I saw that the dude had
voted for me. Good for him. I was euphoric walking down the echoy
shiny halls of the empty high school out to the commons area where
the other twelve kids and my coach were waiting to go home. Then I
felt even better as they made a big fuss and gave a loud cheer
celebrating my victory. It was a good ride home.
