Episode 3 The FFA Banquet

" And that's when I fell down the rabbit hole."

* Names have been changed.  The stories, unfortunately, have not.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:07

I'm Lori, and welcome back. You're listening to Apparently I'm the Punchline. Okay, so we had been in Mountville maybe a month, and Mike came home from work and said, we have a banquet to go to. I have to present something there. They asked that you tag along. And I'm like, well, great. I'd love to go get out of here the house and um meet some people. I hadn't really met a lot of people. So I quickly run upstairs, throw on black pantsuit, silk blouse, pearls, pumps, out the door. And we're in the car heading to this banquet. And I turned to Mike and I said, Oh my god, I didn't even ask you, what is this banquet? And he said, Oh, it's the FFA banquet. Oh, okay. Um, what does FFA stand for?

SPEAKER_01 1:32

Future Farmers of America. Oh. Hmm.

SPEAKER_00 1:42

So as we pull into the high school, we are escorted into the cafeteria. And everybody turns to look at us as I am looking at them. Sitting there comfortably in their flannel, jeans, and tennis shoes. And we found our lunch table. I straddled it, and we sat down. Just in time for the lunch tray to be placed in front of us. Three squares across the top, rectangle at the bottom. Carton of whole milk, corn, mashed potatoes and gravy, and salesbury steak with more gravy. So we start eating, and I'm trying to make conversation, but everyone was too into their gravy. And all of a sudden, this woman, kind of catty corner for me, just pops up and said, So you're Jewish? What did you just say to me? She said, So you're Jewish. What? Why would you say that? And she said, Well, that's what the mailman's telling everybody. He's telling everybody you're Jewish. Um, no, we're not. What the hell? Who says this stuff? Are you kidding me right now? Thank God just then they announced they were having a silent auction. So I regrouped and I'm thinking, okay, I could bid on a spa package, maybe a weekend getaway to a bed and breakfast. I'm sure there were many around there. Or I'll bet they have a big Ohio State paraphernalia basket. The usual stuff, right? So we enter the gym, and the tables were all lining the walls. Mike and I walk up to the first table. It was just a big bale, a very large bale of barbed wire fencing. I thought no. So we walk over to the next table and look down, and there's blueprints for a chicken coop. Cute. But no. And about now, I'm losing all hope of there being anything I might want to put a bit on. So we go to the third table. And I look down, and there are four large syringes. Just four large syringes sitting there on top of the table. I turned to Mike and I said, What do you think this is? And he goes, I don't know, grab the clipboard, it'll tell you on there. So I did. And it said prized bowl semen. From last year's prized bowl from the county fair. And that's when the floor just opened up from underneath me, and I flew down the rabbit hole and I hit hard. And as I look up, here comes Alice. And she says, You'll be down here for a while.