03/30/07
Colloquium. A few short weeks ago I had never heard of the word. Last weekend I attended one. And to be perfectly honest with you I’m still not sure what the hell it means. The story goes something like this…(Actually, it goes EXACTLY like this..)
Once upon a time in a galaxy far, far away The Rambling Man was perusing areas of the internet he had no business perusing (if you know what I mean), when suddenly he mysteriously found himself on the website of an organization known as Mensa (yet another word to which I have no clue as to its meaning). After a few minutes I realized it was not the MILF site I had been seeking, but something else entirely. Even though I was disappointed, it did appear to be somewhat interesting so I stayed and looked around. One thing that caught my eye was information on something called a colloquium to which people were being invited entitled, “Aspects of Humor: The Art and Science of Laughter” which offered to “Explore the social and psychological functions of laughter and comedy, the techniques of their generation, and their practical applications”. Sounds like a laugh riot, doesn’t it?
Despite the fact it is unnecessary, The Rambling Man is always on the lookout for ways to improve the levels of hilarity contained in each Friday Ramble. This “colloquium” appeared to be something which might do just that. The only problem was, one had to be a member of this “Mensa” outfit to be able to attend the “colloquium”. For all my readers who may be Stanford-Benet challenged, Mensa is an organization comprised of incredibly intelligent people. In fact, one must have an IQ in the top 2% of the entire world’s population to qualify for membership. In other words, Mensa members are smarter than 98% of everybody. These are the kind of people who are so intelligent they can qualify for that game show, Jeopardy. This means Mensa is comprised of the nerds and geeks we knew from high school all gathered together in one big bunch. That’s right, dear readers, Mensa is the pocket-protector/slide rule crowd. Needless to say, The Rambling Man was way out of his league. In fact, The Rambling Man belongs to an organization which only allows the bottom 2% of IQ scores to join. It’s called “Densa”.
But, I still wanted to go to this “colloquium”, if for no other reason than to find out what the hell a “colloquium” is. I figured the only way I was going to accomplish this was to talk to an honest to goodness intelligent person. I scoured a list of all of my friends and came up empty. Who, of all the people I know, was smart enough to be able to belong to Mensa? Then the obvious answer came to me. Of course it was my Great Great Uncle Snoop Dogg Arnold. Uncle Snoop is the smartest person I know. When I called him and asked, he told me the people from Mensa had begged him to join in an effort to bring prestige to their organization. When Uncle Snoop joined Mensa it raised the average IQ of the entire group by 37 points. He is, in fact, so smart he almost instantly came up with a plan which would allow me to attend the “colloquium”. He would sign up for it and I could go in his place by impersonating him. At first the idea sounded totally absurd, but after he told me he had never attended any Mensa meetings or functions and no one in the organization knew what he looked like it began to make more sense. Could I really pull off impersonating one of the most intelligent people in the world for an entire weekend with a bunch of other intelligent people? It would be a challenge, that’s for sure. That afternoon Uncle Snoop signed up for the “colloquium” and the game was on.
My nervous apprehension grew as I pulled into the hotel parking lot last Friday. Uncle Snoop had lent me one of his credit cards and when I checked in the desk clerk excused himself briefly and returned with the hotel manager. The manager smiled and told me they were aware of my impending arrival and had reserved the Presidential Suite for such a distinguished guest. So far this was working out real well. The Presidential Suite consisted of three huge rooms. A living room/lounge area, a huge bedroom with the biggest bed I have ever seen (but no “magic fingers” machine, dammit) and a “game room” which had a pool table, big screen TV with Xbox and Playstation3 hooked up, two pinball machines, and a fully stocked bar. Uncle Snoop travels in style.
It was easy to tell how fancy this hotel was because the urinals in all of the men’s rooms were constantly filled with crushed ice. I have no idea why they do that, but I do know it is only practiced in the finest hotels. When was the last time you saw ice in the urinals at a Motel6? I rest my case. Although I have often wondered if the guy who does that enjoys his work, and if he uses the term “urinal icer” on his resume’.
After quickly unpacking I went back down to the lobby to register for the “colloquium”. The moment of truth had arrived. I slowly walked up to the desk marked “Colloquium Registration”. When I gave one of the ladies seated behind the desk my phony name they looked through all their paperwork, but could find nothing. Then the lady asked me, “Are you possibly here for the “Mensa Colloquium”?” When I said yes she chuckled and told me, “We are the registration desk for the Proctologists convention. Your registration desk is on the other side of the lobby.” In my overanxious haste I had misread the sign on the desk. Sure enough it read “Colon-quium Registration”. As I walked across the lobby to find the correct registration desk it occurred to me how ironic it was to have a group of anal probers and a group of anal retentives at this hotel at the same time. Again I gave my phony name. The ladies seated behind the desk went pale. They stuttered and stammered as they gave me the schedule and other information on the “colloquium”, saying what an honor it was to have such a distinguished guest. I thanked them and I could tell from the far away, dreamy expression on their faces that apparently all it took was the mention of Uncle Snoop Dogg’s name to make these ladies moist. Have I mentioned that he is my hero?
Inside the ‘goody bag’ I was given at the registration desk was a day by day schedule, my nametag and a lanyard from which to hang it, and a big, red clown’s nose. At that point I suddenly understood why I all those people I had seen in the lobby looked like rejects from a Ronald McDonald audition. Several “Mensans” had been wearing their clown nose in the approved manner. Others apparently fancied themselves more creative. I saw one guy who had his clown nose attached to his lower lip. One lady had hers attached to her ponytail scrunchee. And yet another woman had somehow managed to obtain two big, red clown noses and had them dangling from her earlobes like earrings. This actually didn’t look all that bad, except the red of the clown noses clashed terribly with her purple outfit. In yet another ironic twist of fate, the Proctologists had also been given clown noses to wear around the hotel. Fortunately you could still tell the smart asses from the ass smarters because the Proctologist’s clown noses were not red. Theirs were brown. If you stop to think about it, that’s pretty appropriate.
Friday afternoon I attended the welcome session. The speaker was some Mensa head honcho who didn’t seem to understand the weekend was supposed to be about humor. The only two unintentionally funny things he said in his whole speech were, “People have a tendency to not take humor seriously”, and in talking about how much Mensans like to debate one another and discuss various topics he actually said, “I hope you all enjoy a great deal of humorous intercourse over the entire weekend”. When he said that I waited for the rimshot, but alas there was none, although it did elicit a few chuckles reminiscent of Beavis and Butthead, “Huh, huh…He said intercourse”.
After dinner the keynote speaker was an extremely funny lady who was once the top comedy writer for David Letterman. The stories she told of how she got her career in comedy started and some anecdotes about well known comedians were very enjoyable.
But when she was finished talking she mistakenly opened the floor for questions from the audience. Apparently a high IQ is not a prerequisite for making insightful inquiries. I particularly enjoyed the confused look on the speaker’s face when she was asked deep and meaningful questions such as, “Are people funnier on the East coast or the West coast?” and “Why are all the best comedians Jewish?”. I knew nothing the rest of the evening could possibly top that so I just went back up to the Presidential Suite and played Xbox till I fell asleep.
Due to the length of the "Colloquium Ramble" it is being divided into two parts. Part 2, "The Colloquium Conclusion" will be posted next Friday, so stay tuned to this channel.