THE ASKTATION

Dear Ask Boz,

I want to get a team into an ultimate tournament, but being a scientist, my writing is substandard. I've heard many a tale of your legendary writings, the wisdom and wit frothing from your lips like spittle from a rabid dog. Can you write me a recommendation for acceptance into a tournament, or at least give me some pointers on bid writing?

Thanks, Hapless Lab Rat (not to be known by the initials “SC,” nor does her name rhyme with “Smiera Schmolovito”)

RESPONSORIAL

Dear Hapless,

Thank you for your honest and melancholy plea. The first thing you need to know: it’s OK to be a scientist. You couldn’t help yourself. Let’s face it, it’s easier to coax a cell in a petri-dish to do your bidding, than it is to have to deal with awful, unpredictable humans. As all scientist are naturally socially awkward, and so absorbed in minutia that they don’t even have real relationships with themselves, never mind other beings, you couldn't possibly be responsible for any kind of real human contact. Plus, since scientists are creatively substandard and prone to unpatterned baldness, are wildly unfunny at parties, and alone as they cry, it is amazing you are only concerned about writing a bid! Imagine if anyone actually knew you! Oh, how’d everyone would hate your Vulcan-imitating guts, you cold robot!

Because you are at your best when talking to mitochondria, here are some bids for you to cut and paste for different types of tournaments:

1. Bid #1- If you want to go to a major tournament, you can’t let them know you’re from around here. Try this! Dear tournament director for the Whomp-Ass Regional Tournament to fight Herpes, brought to you by the Warthog Family of Ales. Thank you for considering our bid. We are a long-standing team, have been to several major tournaments, and also compete at a high level. Along with our positive spirit, we plan to bring beer for the field, and a huge, fully conceived and erected portal to the 5th ……….What? No! Why would you ask that? No, my team’s not from Connecticut. You mustn’t think that. Oh, God, what to do, what to do! Oh, now we’ll never get in. Never mind!

Hmmm….that didn’t work out so well … I guess this is tougher than we thought. Let's try:

2. Bid #2- Perhaps you're going to a beer soaked nude fest in the spring: Dear John, Director of The Rico Invitational. Hi, I’m a nubile young co-ed from the Midwest, with three blond ponytails and a smoldering look in my eyes. I’m tannish-pale, exuberant without being chatty, and I am the Ohio Valley record holder for quickest to get naked at a tournament (between the second and third calls for the captains' meeting.) Presently I’m drunker than a Southern woman on C.O.P.S. and I am having sex with a stranger. Also, my team will bring a six of Bud-Kingers.



3. Bid #3- Now, with a co-ed tournament, you have to be careful. Find out the Tournament Director's gender, then copy the appropriate bid below.
   If the Director is female: Dear Sue. I am so glad you are having a tournament. In my Doctoral thesis on Feminist Liberation Theology and the Co-Ed player, I often wrote about the difficulty of the four/three gender mix. Clever, the way the male always uses his phallic power to be on the heavy side of the scale. Then there’s the five/two line-up. Five times the hatred is hard to hold in, sister, but it can make a dame play powerful ultimate. So I am so very, very glad that your SHE-WOMAN man HATERS.com Unity Tournament will experiment with the 6 female to 1 male ratio. Despite the offensively phallic nature of the number "one" (see appendix five of my thesis, “Female Numerology Starts with the Empowering Curves of Number Two,”) I do feel that for the first time since the Amazon’s ruled Assyria we will be able to beat males and hurt their feelings without remorse. Outside of marriage, of course. I assure you that the males we bring will be suitably timid and docile. Also, we’ll bring a four-pack of Raspberry Smirnoff Ice.
   
   If the director is a male: Cut and paste Bid #2. Hit send.

We think you can handle the bid to the MIT tourney on your own. Just make sure to be yourself.

In general, if you hang around with other freakish, lonely scientists you will still shine from time to time. Under all circumstances, spend as much time as you can in a white lab coat bent over some instrument examining something small. That’s where you fit.

Yours unsympathetically

Ask Boz

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