He stood in front of the class, and his hands were so wet from nerves that his scant stack of notecards felt like used toilet paper. The professor sat with all his glasses. The old man had a pair cocked on his forehead, a pair on his eyes, and a pair hanging on a little beaded necklace. The prof would swap them from time to time. Why so many? How bad can eyes be, and in how many ways? It didn't matter. Just an observation.

He set the notecards on the podium. It lurched like poorly nailed gallows, rickety and old. He let out a laugh, an exaggerated thing that bespoke his nerves. He felt immediately obvious, immediately the fraud he was. He wasn't prepared. One shitty night of prep using Wikipedia and some other crap he got from that podcast full of dick jokes and whiskey. He'd have to fake it.

Plus, there was Missy. She never gave him so much as an errant look when they were in high school together last year. Now, she seemed different. Alone. She'd talk to him when they were on break. She'd laugh sometimes. Now she was staring at him. She must have seen the sweat. Oh, god, was he sweating through his shirt? Jesus. So much for making a good impression.

"Any time, if you please," the professor said. No humor. Just impatience. The clock was now on.

He set his notecards down. He started to speak with the opening line he thought up on the bus ride to campus. The one one about a zen master and a hot dog and being one with everything. But he couldn't remember how it went. Why didn't he write it down! Jesus, this was a disaster and it hadn't even started yet. And his tongue. It felt like the organ of a dead animal, killed for cheap meat, was limp in his mouth. Dry. He needed water, or his mouth would just stick. Missy was looking out the window. Bored.

Why did he take a debate class?!?!?

Oh, sorry. This was supposed to be a pithy little introduction to this bonus episode of the Sofa King Podcast. We turned to the Patrons during our live stream, and they gave us random numbers between 1 and 100. The three of us then used them to give us topics from a list of the top 100 college debate topics. Then, we debated. Was it a mass debate? Perhaps. Was there whiskey? What do you think?