February 2004 BOTM

These returns are the good kind of returns, where you’re happy to see that they’ve come back from whatever deep dark pit of nonfencingness they fell into and still retained large amounts of their fencing proficiencies.  That makes we of the BOTM committee quite happy – even the fifty percent who were drafted into THIS job too.  Well, maybe not but the silent half generally stays silent so the loud, noisy and generally obnoxious half can pretty much say whatever it wants without opposition (unless one were to mention the return of the dreaded RED SWEATPANTS, but we won’t talk about that right now).
    

The returns plus the additions…no, the returns are a subset of the additions because they are not any longer in the subtractions pile of people who have once fenced at Goucher, been a part of the club or have otherwise gone away, gone away mad, or just plain…no, we already said that.  Just plain been kidnapped by aliens for twisted medical experiments involving Cartman from South Park and a bag of frozen string beans.

     So, we of the BOTM committee have spent a lot of time observing the Bitch for this month.  This person – yes, a person this time – does share many similarities with many other members of the club.  For starters, the Bitch has blonde hair.  This is unlike several prior BOTM winners and the one person who hasn’t quite wormed her way into the BOTM award hall since the new BOTM Committee was formed, as these people all have brown hair.  Some of them are female, and some of them aren’t.  A couple of them have the ability to turn invisible, but that’s not important right now anyway.
    

     The Bitch is also female, which with those two qualities puts her in the august (or maybe the February) company of several former female BOTM’s, one of which still fences at Goucher.  The other blonde BOTM that comes to mind is a guy, therefore not eligible for inclusion into the ranks of female BOTM winners (despite his best efforts to the contrary!).
   

      So, we’ve got blonde and female.  What other characteristics are shared by the new inductee into the honored halls of the Bitch?  She’s a foilist, which still doesn’t do much to narrow the field.  She’s short, but compared to those of us on the BOTM committee who are volunteers everyone except the tall skinny epee guy who demands to be called Paul and not Bob is short.  This also does not help narrow the field. 
    

     We know that she wears glasses and is a dancer.    We also know that since she’s joined the fencing club here she has volunteered for more things than any one person has since those of us who were volunteers have seen since we were students at Goucher.  She has exhausted La Presidenta’s store of knowledge of both foil AND right of way AND has expressed a quite curious willingness – even eagerness – to DIRECT FOIL. 

     Anyone who can correctly identify all the grammatical and logistical inconsistencies in the prior sentence has way too much damn time on their hands.  However, that sentence is nevertheless absolutely true.  These descriptors are enough to, we hope, finally clue everyone in on the identity of the new inductee to the honored ranks of the BOTM award winners (except that one person who hasn’t quite wormed her way into the BOTM winner’s circle since the volunteers shanghaied the silent half who may or may not have anything to do with the Red Sweatpants of Destruction). 

Of course, we’re not sure if the Red Sweatpants have ever destroyed anything…

Without further ado, we would like to present…

It has come to our attention that she has also VOLUNTEERED for the treasurer’s position.  I mean, jeez, I know we’ve have trouble filling the position in the past because there’s a lot of numberphobic people out there but STILL!
     

Whitney shares a last name with Tracy Chapman, who is a funny singing person what used to sing about cars and making livings in convenience stores.  However, we have not yet heard Whitney sing, so we don’t know if she can.  Of course, Tracy Chapman is black and has dreadlocks – of which WHITNEY Chapman is neither, so maybe she doesn’t sing. 
     

Whitney does apparently also fence without her glasses, which impairs her vision.  It has been noted by the Club Biographer that this is a strange quirk which can be used against her, but I would like to caution everyone that maybe she doesn’t NEED her eyes.  It has not yet been conclusively disproved that Whitney is not training to be a Jedi – in which case she wouldn’t need to use her eyes.  Of course, if THAT were the case she’d be better off fencing saber rather than the silly silly toothpick.
     

Er, foil.  So maybe she does need her eyes anyway.  However, her glasses are bifocals and those are really cool too.  Perhaps she prepares for a career as a dancing historian, which conjures many amusing mental images and lends support to the corollary notion that perhaps she should take after the OTHER famous Chapman and learn to sing.  No, not turn black.  I daresay we’ve had our fill with Michael Jackson bleaching himself ivory-nosejob-freaky.  And we’ve already had one blonde with dreadlocks at the club, but that was a guy and he’s since renounced his dreads.