The Contest

So Saturday was the Tall Tale Speech Contest for Toastmasters.  I don't think that I had ever been to the tall tale speech contest outside our club.  People brought props.  Really.  A box of stuff to enhance the story.  In my area (the clubs are divided into areas and then districts--we had a couple areas competing the same day), only one other club sent a contestant, so there were only two of us competing for first and second place.  In the other area, there were three people competing. 

Now don't get me wrong, I love a good story and I felt that my story, while not earthshattering or anything like that, was a darn good story.  Only one of the speakers (from the other area) had a darn good story too.  She didn't win.  The winner in the other area was a guy who's story was completely true (a little boring), with some very well rehearsed jokes sprinkled in.  You could tell that he's been telling that speech for some time.  Oh well.

I came in second.  The other lady in our area had props.  Lots of props.  She had some enthousiasm, a little surprise (although she kind of ruined the surprise with the title) and well, her story was true too.  Nothing too tall about it.  Someone came up to me after my speech and asked me if my story was true--yeah, my nephew met Bob Dylan in a two room shack with Poncho.  No, I told her, "it's a tall tale..."  I don't think anyone gets this category.

So I am a bitter loser.  When I was a kid, if I didn't win, I didn't want to play anymore.  I've either been rewarded for such behavior or it is in the genes, because I haven't changed a bit.

The contest event itself was very dangerous.  You know how you see a natural disaster and your first instinct is to go and help pull out the survivors?  It was like that.  A complete train wreck.  It took all of my strength of will not to voluteer to help them.  I spent most of my time outlining how I would do everything differently and then playing tug of war with myself not to open my big mouth and volunteer.

There were a few bright spots--I heard a few excellent speakers.  The other person from my club, Dennis was in the table topics contest and his response was really good.  Then the other person from our area gave an equally terrific response.  I told him I didn't like his chances and it was too bad he was not in the other area which had not as good responses.  They announced that he won second place and that seemed like the right outcome--lucky us, we don't have to go to the next level.  Afterwards, he sent me an e-mail, in fact he won and they announced it wrong (train wreck!!).  So now we get to go to the next level.  (The second place winner is the back up in case the lady with all the props bails on the next level of the contest AND to support Dennis, who now goes to the next level--he's really good, so I like his chances.)

Vive le contest!