It's not about winning -- it's about glittering

GLORY. OBVIOUS GLORY. I'm, of course, referring to my books. 

My mother handed me a roll of paper towels, a bottle of Windex and told me to hop to. A boring task though it may be, I’ve become used to the monotony of spray-wipe-repeat on every surface in my living space. I’m a college student and therefore holistically apathetic to the layer of dust comfortably settled on nearly everything in my room, yet I fear the earth-shattering wrath of a woman with a dirty home. 

After the dresser layered with knick-knacks has been rearranged ad nauseum to give the illusion of cleanliness and the desk piled high with outdated documents and school supplies I’ve yet to use or have the heart to throw away has been tragically ignored yet again, I’m left with one task: the second bookshelf (normal people need two bookshelves, right?) Spray-wipe-repeat across the shelves. But that leaves what adorns the top.

My debate trophies.

During my run as an active interper on the state and national circuit, it was my parents’ duty to proudly festoon the den with my glittering accomplishments. Plaques adorned the wall and my statues of greatness beamed as the sunlight struck them on the table. But once I waved farewell to high school, I come home during the Jewish new year in September to find them all staring back at me in my room. My room.

What were they doing here, I wondered.

“Well, they are yours, so we figured you would appreciate having them in your room,” Mother mused, as she eyed the plentiful collection of nude wreath-bearers. “Besides, you’re not competing anymore, so what’s the point of having them all displayed somewhere else in the house?”

But now here we were, a couple weeks later – them a dusty mess and me armed with Weapons of Mass Cleaning. These golden beauties had never been my responsibility – it was Mom’s proud duty to keep them polished and pristine. While dusting trophies doesn’t seem like anything worth mentioning, to me, there was something about the notion of maintaining them that makes me feel like a washed-up high school football star polishing his Mayor’s Cup with the corner of his soiled wifebeater, a lone tear in his eye, as he hollers at his 7-year-old son to drop and give him twenty.

There were very specific ways debaters interacted with their trophies. For some, they were great towers of wonder to be cared for with kid gloves and ultimate pride; they were humbled by these masses of plastic and marble. For others, it was essentially their sole reason for competition.

Alas, for many of my peers who were seasoned, talented and placed at nearly every tournament they entered (or double or triple entered), it was yet another nuisance to tote home. Some even collected them in the backseat of their car until the end of the year when their trunks looked as though they had just pulled off a major gold heist. There was, I suppose, little space left in their bulletproof, sliding glass door display case at home.

Not having reached my stride until the beginning of my junior year, trophies for me were the former for quite some time – sacred and humbling. As the year went on, my collection grew, and I did as well. Namely, I grew weary of my parents’ gushing and having to take company to the Trophy Room to give explanations of how I came to inherit such worldly possessions and talents. If I happened to be wearing a polo shirt at the time, I must’ve looked like a disgruntled museum tour guide.

But now, a year or two after many of the remnants of greatness were acquired, dusting off these holy relics while I have friends competing in national finals in Kansas City as we speak makes me feel something like a has-been. What used to be so precious now has empty meaning. The new competitors coming in will have no recollection of my “accomplishments” in the world of speech and debate; I am destined to be forgotten on wrinkled schematics and my name embedded in a database of endless code. My precious ballots scrawled with 1s and “this is the best HI I’ve ever seen!” lay in a manila foldered heap on my desk. I’ll continue to haphazardly dust off my trophies to keep my filth-fearing mother at bay, as well as use my 1^st Place 2007 Nova Titan Invitational in Humorous Interpretation as a charging cell phone holder. At least it’s still good for something.

I wonder if Cher has this problem when she has to tidy around her Oscar.  

Note: Sara Solano was co-captain, webmaster/historian and interpretation squad leader throughout her four years of competition on the J.P. Taravella High School speech and debate team. She has competed in Humorous Interp (her main event), Oral Interp, Duo Interp, Extemporaneous Duo Interp, Original Oratory and Domestic Extemp Speaking. The latter of the list made her want to cry and to this day she reads “The Economist” with a look of anxiety. Her debate career was NOT completely successful as this may imply, and she did not place or break at plenty of tournaments -- she’s not a demi-god by any means. When Sara isn’t being totally conceited, she’s sewing patches on hobo’s trousers and serving leek soup to Ukrainian exchange students in a Texan youth hostel.