In case I have to ever defend myself in a court of law (or on Oprah), I will say that this is mostly-true-to-memory, but is most certainly not 100% true-to-life. For example, I do not do ventriloquism. Some names (but not my own) have been changed to protect the innocent. It is an excerpt from a "puberty memoir" that I am writing.
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| Now you know why I wasn't popular. |
Talking in Tongues
I’ve always fancied myself a
bit of a public speaker.
From early on, as a result of my prolific reading I had a pretty good vocabulary that could impress the adults in the crowd; I could spin a story about myself,
pulling graphic, tantalizing details out of thin air (read: I could lie); I could tell a mean joke thanks to the “Pretty Good Joke” books that my parents kept for bathroom reading; and
I was good at making fart sounds and burping noises. All in all, I felt I was equipped for a job in front of the
pulpit, inspiring millions with my message of salvation.
It was indeed my aim to be an
evangelist, Billy Graham style with a feminine touch, but I knew I needed to
start with slightly humbler beginnings.
When my private Mennonite high school announced that 10th
graders would be participating in a public speaking contest, I knew I was up to
the job. After several days of
mulling over what would prove most compelling for a speech in front of a panel
of traditional, conservative Mennonite teachers and parents, I decided to write one on the importance of having good manners: it would include my talent
for mimicking body functions using my armpit and substituting obnoxious sounds
for obscenities that seemed to come from other parts of the room. (I had been honing my ventriloquism act while most kids were trying out for sports teams and practicing piano.)
I set to work about two days
before the due date and about a month and a half after the announcement had
been made. Within about half an hour, I had what I considered a
masterpiece. I was all atwitter
just reading it. Students would be
sure to fall off their desk chairs at the hilarity of it all. And the judges? Well, their tightly-wound buns would
be unspinning and those too-tight polyester dress pants would be splitting
their seams. I couldn’t wait!
Rather than work on
perfecting my speech for the tenth grade student body, I used the crumpled
first draft, practiced four or fewer times in front of the bathroom mirror
while trying to pop some pesky pimples at the same time, and pronounced myself
ready. After all, if I was going
to be an evangelist, I’d have to be pretty good at charming the crowd without
too much practice. I mean, with
all that work of saving souls, I imagined there wouldn’t be much time left for
speech writing. And besides,
charisma was part of the job description.
I believed I had it.
And have it I did! I went from strength to strength. I first presented to my homeroom class
along with my peers. It was
quickly evident that I was the only one cut out for the role of evangelist in
that classroom. Oh sure, students
had index cards and facts and transitional words like “therefore’ and “in
conclusion,” but there was no fire behind the words. No charisma. No
chutzpah. I had ventriloquism,
farts, burps and illusions of bathroom doings. I had cheap thrills to give away and they were funny.
Granted, some of the
students, particularly the boys, in my 10th grade homeroom were
immature, bordering on
blowing-your-nose-in-your-hand-and-using-it-as-hair-gel immature,
but we were a match made in heaven.
The boys hooted and hollered, and when it was announced by anonymous vote
(the only way a geeky girl like me would ever be able to win anything), that I
was clearly the winner, I was not in the least bit surprised. The most academic, the most ravishing,
the most popular girls in 10th grade had nothing on my speechifying
gifts.
The story doesn’t end
here. Oh, no. I went on to handily win the
competition between the other three homerooms in 10th grade – their
winners being the “brainiacs” who had memorized and polished and practiced
their speeches until they were nothing but regurgitated facts, figures and
transitional verbs. Even the adult
judges had to agree that at least I had got the audience fired up after the
snooze sessions on “Why We Have Recently
Learned That Smoking Endangers Health,” “Christ’s Seven Step Plan For Teenagers,”
and “The Mennonite Diaspora.”
This meant that I was bound
for the district championships.
Obviously by this time I was cockier than a rooster who had had copulated with
all the hens in his coop MULTIPLE TIMES.
I went from being one of the nerds to being the cool kid with voice throwing gifts who could make
it sound like little Miss Popular and Pretty over in the corner had a nasty
case of gas. It was a week or
three of pure heaven.
I was so enjoying my
recently-found celebrity status that somehow I completely forgot
that I was meant to be stepping-up my speech; practicing, refining it. I was going to be running with the big
dogs: the best 10th grade orators in all of Abbotsford school
district.
The day before the big
district competition I got a vague discomfort in my stomach and a niggling in
the back of my brain that I should be doing something. What’s that? Practicing?
Well, maybe. Just a
bit. I conceded that another run-through
or two might not be such a bad idea.
I even went so far as to practice in the full-length mirror in the
hallway. First, I needed to gauge
my entrance, and to be sure I stood at such an angle that was most flattering for my stocky frame. That brought on a
whole new set of worries. What was
I going to wear?
I abandoned the practice
session for an impromptu rummage through the closet and came out victorious
with my new, shiny-buttoned overalls, a rocking plaid shirt and my mother’s
high heeled clogs that were a bit too big, but who was going to notice? I looked bitchin’!
I went to bed smug and
self-satisfied, assured of wrapping the competition up with a bow and taking
home the prize. What’s more, my
notes fit perfectly in the pocket of my bib overalls. Not that I needed them. I’d just have them handy in case. I knew my clever little speech backwards and forwards.
The next morning I woke up
and decided to make my outfit a bit jauntier yet by creating a ponytail on the
side of my head. Mix it up a bit. Square Peg. Round Hole.
Rebel. I loved it. I click-clacked to school in the clogs,
only stumbling once on the way to carpool.
My English teacher drove Clive Driedger (the runner up) and me to Abby Senior after morning homeroom. The class wished me luck with a hoot
and a holler and as those sounds tinkled away into the distance, I couldn’t
help but wonder if I would be hearing them again.
I sat in the back seat and
ran through my notes while Clive engaged Ms. (She was a liberated Mennonite
feminist!) Klassen in a philosophical discussion about the rapture and did she
think that it was okay for Christians to get cremated. The car smelled of scented tissues and
wet dog. It made me sleepy. I had a bit of a snooze and dreamt of
bringing home the coveted cup. I
wondered if I could make my way all the way to the 10th grade WORLD
championships and if there was such a thing. Surely, I’d have a shot at the big times.
My dreamy state dissipated
immediately upon stepping into the auditorium of the high school. There must have been 300 or more people
present, most of them adults.
Would they be capable of appreciating the finer nuances of my speech, I
wondered. Where were all the
10th grade gum-chewing, fart-faking boys who would have been
cheering me along to victory?
Way, way down the centre
aisle, at the very front of the daunting auditorium, were two tables, with five
chairs each. As I clopped down the
aisle toward the stage, I felt deeply ashamed. It wasn’t a wedding, of course, but suddenly, walking down
the aisle in my farm girl overalls and clunky mother’s clogs, I knew that
something was amiss. I had made a
fatal error in judgment. Cockiness
had superseded sense. I was the
wrong person in the wrong place in the wrong clothes making the wrong
speech. I wanted to turn and run,
but my pride and the ridiculously large clogs prevented me from making an
escape. They clopped loudly down
the wooden aisle, echoing into the cavernous space.
The other tenth graders that
greeted me with eyes either askance and averted, might just as well have been
stock traders on Wall Street.
Suits. Ties. Blazers. Pumps. Shiny. Polished. Combed. Automotans.
And then there was me: my
limp pony tail dangling from the left side of my head was an apt metaphor for
my feelings in that moment. It
wasn’t pretty. I was looking down the pike of a disaster and there was no
averting it. For all my lack of
insight, I knew, even then, that the only way out of a situation is to go through it. And
so I did.
I listened to one speech
after the other, each more polished and professional than the last. Students paused at the right moments,
ahemed and aha-ed in just the right places, and with effortless flicks of the
wrist, moved from one fresh cue card to the next. Each of them was tight and practiced, like a first class
circus act, only minus the entertainment.
Even in the depths of my
humiliation, I couldn’t help noticing that not one of the students possessed
the charisma that I had and there wasn’t an iota of spontaneity. I have no doubt that every last one of
those candidates is now the CEO of a major company or is managing hedge funds
or entrepreuring their way out of paper sacks. I will also wager a million dollars that not one of them is
an evangelist or even a traveling salesperson. They were all yawn-worthy. You could call my speech a whole lot of things, but you
could not call it that.
And so, when my name was
called, I summoned my courage and charisma, and took to the podium, pulling my
sodden A-4 crumpled paper out of the bib of my overalls in case I should need
it.
I took a deep breath, looked
out at the crowd of conservative, judgmental folks eying me with trepidation
and put the notes down. I wouldn’t
need these. These people were in
dire need of entertainment, and I was about to give them a run for their money.
I burped. I farted. I simulated orgasms.
(Okay, that was When Harry Met Sally, but I do recall doing something that merged on being
nearly as inappropriate.) I told my
lewd jokes and made sure people knew how NOT to behave at the dinner table or
in front of distinguished company.
I felt my face burning red
throughout my impassioned speech, but I forged on, ad-libbing and making full
use of the stage. Why use a podium
when there was an entire stage to be exploited? The clogs echoed as I stomped around, vividly waving my arms. In my avid gesticulating, one of the buttons on my overalls came undone
causing the strap to slip down over my shoulder.
Ladies and gentlemen, the
speech was well and truly a disaster in most every sense of the word. I have no recollection of how it ended
or if I even did end it, but I found myself back in my seat after eight
minutes, approximately three minutes over the five minute deadline. The applause was muted to say the
least. After the exhilaration of
my one-woman show, I was now a limp, shuddering mess whose one clog had someone
been lost in the exodus from the stage to my seat.
There was a ten minute recess
while the judges conferred and people made a beeline for the bathrooms. I skulked to the stage steps to
retrieve my clog, clipped my overall strap into place and sat with my head
down, hands folded in my lap. The
animated clown had metamorphed into a lifeless ventriloquist’s doll. That’s what I felt and looked
like. My eyes stayed down, even
while the judges came to the stage to make their pronouncements.
Readers. I have no surprises
for you at this point in the story.
I think you can guess the ending.
Well, almost. I didn’t come
last. Well, not exactly. I placed ninth out of tenth. Because two people tied for seventh.
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| I think this is the outfit I wore, only WITH clogs! |
As an addendum: in 2008 I won the Toastmasters championship for public speaking in China - yes, I speak better English than a billion Mandarin speaking folks. Now that's saying something!
I did learn some lessons on that fateful day. My biggest lesson, surprisingly, was not that I need to change so very much but that I need to stay true to myself. I am who I am and people seem to like it okay. (I do, however, wear properly fitted shoes when on stage, I never wear my hair in a ponytail on the side of my head, and I have given up the overalls.)
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