Toastmasters Humorous Speech Competition
This speech won second place in our club for the 1998 Humorous
Speech Competition.
Time: 5 to 7 minutes
Guess Who's Coming to Dinner?
When we kids, dinner at our place was always a chaotic affair. My mother
used to despair of
ever completing a meal without one of us spilling something all over the
table. For some
reason, my aunt was reluctant to bring the new man in her life to meet us.
Finally, my mother
persuaded her to invite him to dinner, and my aunt took great pains to
instruct us in our
etiquette.
Now, the morning before his visit, my sister and I had had a scientific
debate over whether we
were any bigger immediately after a meal. To find out we decided to measure
our girth before
and after the meal. Anyway, by the time our visitor arrived, we were perfect
little models of
decorum.
My aunt watched us apprehensively during dinner, but we were on our best
behavior. It
wasn't until we were halfway through dessert that my sister with a mouthful
of icecream,
suddenly spluttered, "Hey, we forgot to measure our bellies before we sat
down!"
My father groped in his pocket for a handkerchief to wipe the icecream from
his eye and pulled
out a sock. He stared at it in bemusement before knocking over the milk jug.
That seemed to be
the signal for everyone to resume their true personalities. Things were back
to normal.
Dinnertime had become almost civilised by the time my third sister Jany was
born. It now became
a circus with Jany as ringmaster. She refused to take a spoonful of food
unless everyone else
took a mouthful at the same time. At first we cooperated because it was
funny and cute, but we
soon became victims of a tyrant tot. All eating and drinking had to be
perfectly synchronised
with our eyes on our conductor in the highchair. Dinner guests usually found
the performance
highly entertaining specially when our pet chickens rushed in to pounce on
the scraps of food
that Jany flung from her highchair.
Jany was about 3 when the minister came to dinner. He was a nice man, but
known for his
longwinded prayers. While he was saying grace, we heard this plop, plop,
plop up the stairs.
"Oh," said Jany, "That pesky chook's in again."
She climbed down off her chair and yelled, "Shoo, shoo!" The ministered went
on praying. The
hen ran round and round the table, squawking and flapping it's wings with
Jany after it,
yelling "Shoo, shoo!" until finally it ran outside. By the time the minister
had finished
praying, a haze of feathers hung in the air but Jany was quietly sitting in
her place, with her
hands clasped and an angelic expression on her face.
Another day, when Jany was eating a fried egg it suddenly slid off her plate
and disappeared
below the tabletop. She was quite unperturbed. "It's alright," she said. "I
caught it between
my knees."
My younger sisters were still going through an awkward stage when it was my
turn to bring home
someone special. Now I knew what trepidations my aunt must have had.
I warned Deryck about my family, but nothing could have prepared him for the
welcome he
received. My mother had prepared one of her famous roast dinners.
Unfortunately, as she was
taking the baking dish out of the oven, it slipped and some of the fat
spilled onto the floor,
just as Deryck arrived at the front door. As I rushed to meet him, I slipped
in the grease and
slid through the hall on my bottom to land at his feet.
Order was soon restored and we sat down to dinner. I needn't have worried
about my little
sisters. Their manners were impeccable. Then in came the cat with an
enormous grasshopper.
Deryck had just picked up his knife and fork to tackle his dinner, when the
grasshopper
suddenly flew through the air and landed on his plate. We all gasped, but
before anyone could
move, the cat pounced on top of the grasshopper, right in the middle of
Deryck's dinner. Baked
potatoes and gravy flew all over the tablecloth.
That broke the ice, I guess. Deryck fitted right into our crazy family and
we were married
later in the year. So it just shows it best to act naturally.
Oh, were you wondering what became of the man my aunt brought to meet us? We
never saw him
again. Just as well. He wasn't our type.
MAMALADE
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