Holding Forth for Naught

A friend once told me, "If you’ve been vaccinated and baptized, you don’t have an excuse to be afraid of much." I owe him a huge debt of gratitude because that’s one of the few such proverbs that wormed its way into my brain long enough to have an abiding effect. It took time, and some practice, but after a while I realized that fear is an optional emotion that can be voluntarily suppressed. It's not easy for anyone, but for me it's an unnatural act that requires practice and maintenance, and the maintenance is easy to forget about because the practice works so well it almost eliminates the need for itself.

I am grateful for a loving God who seems eager to provide me with clear and gentle reminders when I need them. I got one last night at a community-group meeting. 

I should have recognized the onset of the symptoms.  Before the meeting had even been called to order, one of the members who had been passing out a petition with copies of the By-laws suddenly shouted above the rising din, "I'm sorry everyone.  I've just been informed that distributing information about club business is 'out of order.'" with quote-fingers around "out of order."

I had mixed emotions because I used to be a volunteer parliamentarian, and it always kind of irked me when people would mock procedural terms in spite of how I mostly agreed with their mockablity.  At the same time, saying something is out of order before the meeting is called to order is pretty much just as out of order as anything else. It occurred to me that the member probably knew this, and maybe what I took as her mocking Robert was just her way of pointing out that the chairperson had said something was out of order before there was any order to be out of, which would have been brilliant even if it was lost on mostly everyone.

The meeting still hadn’t been called, but the chairperson stood in response and proposed a correction with equal gusto. "That! is not exactly true.  What I said was that it is out of order for a member to pass around a petition before a meeting."

This was still no big deal, but now that I look back, it was definitely part of the ramp-up. At the time it just seemed like a nice reminder of why I no longer sit parliament. It didn't bother me because I left my imaginary powder wig on the post a long time ago. Most community group leaders spout roll-your-own Robert’s Rules-ish rules on the fly, and the members who elected them will eat you alive if you challenge dear leader on a point of order. I tried to whisper my nomothetic observations to Mrs. Salad who was sitting next to me, but she was already talking up out-of-order girl, so I just settled in and anticipated the nice “cat fight in lieu of meeting” that seemed imminent at the time.

I'm not sure it was ever called to order an a way that would give my repressed inner parliamentarian a warm fuzzy, but then that's exactly the sort of pedantic nonsense up with which no one wants to put. In or out of order, when it finally started, the chairperson announced that we would be holding a ballot vote to give the club's property (valued in millions) to the civil government of the constabulary in which said property is located. She went on in a staccato rush to proclaim that only one member per household could vote, and since there was no need for further discussion, it would not be discussed further.

I have strong opinions about the matter at hand, so to avoid getting upset, I lapsed into parliamentarian mode and looked up the member privilege section in the by-laws because I suspected the chairperson had just created and invoked a new one-vote-per-household rule. Another member sitting a few rows back tried to ask the chairperson about the same new rule I was failing to find in the by-laws, but he was having trouble because he was the sort of well-mannered and soft spoken man most people probably wish I would make an effort to be more like.

I heard myself screaming, "Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!" to myself as I found myself standing up with my hand in the air, and heard the following words coming out of my mouth.

"Madam Chairperson, I rise to proxy a question of privilege on behalf of a member present."

Now, a “question of privilege” is real parliamentary motion from Roberts Rules of Order. If you are not familiar with the book, or the rest of this jargon, "motions" are like the magic spells used in D&D games, and "Roberts Rules of Order" is like the Dungeon Master’s Handbook. Questions of privilege are the most powerful spells. They suspend all other spells until the player is satisfied that it achieved the intended effect, or until the other players hog-tie him and put him in a closet.  There are a couple of RR’s of O motions that are more powerful, but part of the blood oath you take to get into the Society of Parliamentarian’s is that you can never ever ever tell anybody about them---ever.

I may have exceeded the volume required by a slim margin, but I think I said it with aplomb because instead of telling me I was out of order, which is what I was hoping for so I could just sit back down, Madam CP appeared to have been impressed with my courtly ejaculation, and granted me the floor by stabbing the official palm-up parliamentary gang sign of recognition in my general direction.

No fear.  I just whipped out my imaginary powder wig and held forth.

In response, the chairperson cited a by-laws section that used the term "membership" which she explained was to be taken to mean "household." I usually don't fall for the classic "this means that" gambit that Tweedles Dee and Dumb used so well on Alice, but I was stunned because it had been delivered in a way that seemed to make the last two unspoken words "you nitwit" actually audible. Thinking on my feet, I considered a number of maneuvers that included filibustering, a motion to postpone, and burning down the building, but in the meantime it became clear that the best option was to skate away. The vote had been in progress when my question was taken up, and I suddenly realized that this, among at least ten other infractions, meant that this vote no longer meant a damned thing even if it ever had. I successfully suppressed a strong urge to point out that the rule she cited said nothing at all about member voting privilege, as well as a similar urge to demonstrate how said document actually requires a SIGNED ballot as opposed to the little slips of paper with the words "yes" and "no" on them that the membership had been given. 

I recalled a little more Parli-proc and realized that I had only contributed to the growning number of truly out of order things that were going on. I didn't want to get accused of tricking dear leader into letting me interrupt a vote in progress with a question of privilege (a no-no), so I just serviced the question by consent of the member who put it, said "Thank you Madam Chairperson, the question is answered," and sat down.

I think the near comic futility of the proceedings sank in more slowly for the membership present, but they got it. Just before the voting started, the CP had explained that after the vote was taken, they would decide whether or not to disclose the results based on some kabbalistic formula that also may or may not be disclosed, and went on to complain about the inevitability of having to “go door to door" to get signed ballots, so it was pretty clear that there was nothing to see here.

It was also pretty clear that the assembly had decided to dismiss formal proceedings. By the time the vote was counted, adjourning the meeting would have seemed silly because the core membership had wandered off with the quorum in its pants.  Most of them had bolted the gate as soon as they crammed their slips in the cigar box, and those of us who remained had lapsed into a sort of ice-cream social without the ice-cream.

(You can think of a quorum as a magic rock that has to be in the room before the witches can cast any spells.)

All done, the meeting proper had resulted in the best thing a staunch libertarian like me can hope for, absolutely nothing other than a brief waste of time. In a lot of ways it was the perfect meeting. Nothing was decided and no actions were planned. Nobody was wounded or killed, and in fact, nobody even seemed any angrier than they had already made up their minds to be, so I was clam happy when the assault started.

I was talking to one of my neighbors about something entirely else when a woman standing behind him with her arms crossed asked, “What makes people think they can just show up at meetings and stir up trouble?"  

I recognized her as one of the club’s newer board members. I didn't realize it wasn't a rhetorical question, or that it was directed at me.  I misinterpreted it as light-hearted sarcasm and an invitation to join her in witty banter.  I thought about saying, “Because we can,” but went with, “Probably because we're possessed by the devil."

This had the unforeseeable effect of spinning board woman up into a state of high dudgeon almost as rare as the phrase “high dudgeon," but I was still hanging out in no-clue land. Mrs. Salad, being much more sensitive to social queues and body language, had joined the fray before I knew we were having one.

Board woman was saying something to the effect of "Who are you people, I don't even know you!" and demanded our names, while Mrs. S was just beginning to contribute to the escalation.  Now, here is where I think remaining calm might have paid off. My wife did a great job of it when she calmly announced the official termination of the conversation, but broad woman was bent on indulging herself in an epic snit, and just wasn't having it. She looked at me and restated her demand for us to identify ourselves based on her not even knowing us as a result of never having seen us at a meeting, etc. Somewhere in the rant she had triggered my allergy to self-appointed cops, so I sneezed, "I'm not going to tell you," before I reiterated Mrs. Salad’s previous statement in something close to Mrs. Salad’s exact words. Unfortunately I stood as I began, so I towered over board woman by a foot or more.  It probably didn’t help that I said it a lot like Warf the Klingon from Star Trek, and that's without mentioning that, this time, there was no question about my having exceeded the necessary volume.

I started to worry about legal repercussions when I suddenly realized how this might scare the crap out of some people, so I wasn't ready when board woman stepped into the loud Klingon's kill zone with her hands in his face and yelled, "What is wrong with you!?" 

For the first time in the whole assault, I recognized the distinct smell of fear, and it was coming from me! By the grace of God, I couldn't think of anything else to say, so I just sat back down in order present board woman easy access to the exit, and pray that she would avail herself of it.

Yep, regrets.  Had I kept calm, I might have come up with something appropriate or even helpful, and I wouldn't have to spend the next few days listening to the steady stream of possible witty crap I might have responded with when board lady got up in my grill and asked what was wrong with me. Just so it doesn’t go to waste, I’ll share a few selection from the witty crap steam with you here.  Don’t worry. I've heavily censored it so that it will conform to the decorum of the venue.

"Look, I had to pay a guy twenty grand for the fifty page answer to that question and if you think I'm just going to hand it over for free..."

"I'm glad you asked. If you'll take out a sheet of paper, fold it in half lengthwise, and number each column to one hundred, we'll begin."

"Wrong with me? Are you asking what's wrong with me? You must be asking what's wrong with me. I don't see anybody else with something wrong with them here."

"Do you have a lighter and a hairpin? I want to show you something."

"I'm sorry, we don't have time to get into that now; but hey, I know this trick that usually gets people to tell me their names when I want to know them; I just introduce myself!

"Hi, my name is Oleander Salad, and this is my wife Slipicksewerp."

The last two tie for first place so far, but this stuff had already started to flood my head when I ran into my friend the Councilman on the porch as we were leaving.  He actually complemented me for trying to get the other guy’s question resolved and said that I should run for City Council. I think I trotted out a canned quip that I always use in the situation. “If nominated, I will not run, and if elected, I will not serve.”  I'm sure he has good intentions, but he doesn’t know me well enough to know that I’m the last monkey-wrench anybody wants to see anywhere near the cogs of government.

I was looking for a laugh when I mentioned my friend the Councilman’s remarks to Mrs. Salad on the drive home, but she actually encouraged me to consider his proposition! Maybe they're right.  Maybe it’s time for somebody to get in there and bring everything to such a dramatically grinding and perpetual halt that it will be impossible for anyone else to screw it up any more than it already is.  Come to think of it, that sounds like a platform I could actually support!