Dramastic Slackitude

I’m currently sitting at the end of an extremely long conference table, waiting for a delightful (read: soul-crushingly boring) 2 hour presentation to commence. I’m prepared to sit at the end of a table – growing up a lefty in a right-handed world often dictated chair assignment. But I wasn’t prepared to spend the next 120 minutes engrossed in a Power Point presentation that is promising no less than 14 bullet points.

Oh, how I love quantity over quality. [/sarcasm]

However, while I’d prefer to be at my desk typing this rather than in my notebook scribing this, you have to figure that this could be a far more unfavorable scenario. Sitting quietly basking the muted hues of the overhead projector could be way worse for any of the following reasons:

1. The presentation could be in French, and the presenter could be Gerard Depardieu.
2. The refreshments tray could be out of bagels.
3. I could be sitting in the middle of the table and forced to write this right-handed.
4. I could be the one presenting.

Regarding, Numero 4, it wouldn’t be the first time.

Most presentations command a large amount of practice, preparation, and attention to detail. Oftentimes, note cards, a professional wardrobe choice, and a time expected duration are all devised beforehand. If given the opportunity to prep, this legwork can make your presentation more of a sure thing than $28 million for Roger Clemens.

Notice I said “if.”

Senior year of high school, our AP English class was assigned a phone-it-in project that had little to do with either literature or poetry. It was a simple premise; learn something new and then present it to the class. Some of our class’ ideas included yoga, maritime cartography, acoustic guitar, and how to construct a big-ass subwoofer so loud it would blow women’s clothes off. (Or at the very least, torture the unfortunate souls who rode backseat in a certain Swedish automobile.)

As for me, I opted to play through.

My venture to learn the sport of golf was a lot of fun, if not necessarily educational. A foursome of the Senior Slack Pack hit the links, armed with four bags of clubs, a video camera, and a dry sense of humor. But hey, no windows were broken, and no Caddyshack lines were beaten to death. So we’ve got that going for us.

With the learning part all done, I could sit back and wait until my turn to present. We had drawn straws, and I drew an enviable 19th out of 21. Sure, there was a minor catch that even though there would be only two presentations each day, the on-deck presenter for the following day had to be ready if his predecessor was absent, but what are the odds of that??

Oh.

For the first 8 days of presentations, things ran silky smooth. 8 pairs of presenters presented, precisely as the schedule had dictated. I could sit comfortably while my classmates got up and invented new words. (Note the title of this post.) Still a day out, I walked into class on Day 9, ready to watch Presenters 17 and 19 in action –

Wait. Where’s Anatoli Semenov?

Number 17, as lore will remember it, wasn’t finished with her presentation, and opted to come in after 3rd period that day. Newman (not Wayne Knight) directed her icy death stare my way. “Chris, you’re up.”

Of course, she underestimated by slackitude. Newman didn’t anticipate my lazy self not taking the golf clubs out of my car yet. She couldn’t have guessed that Chris Smith would have randomly brought the VHS-transferred golf footage on that day to class. Armed with a 5-iron and a deep breath, I delivered everything I had learned about golf.

Best damn presentation I’ve ever made.