Toastmaster:What would men be without women

Advanced Communication Series: The Entertaining Speaker
 
Project 3: Make Them Laugh
 
Executive Summary
 
Humor is an ideal way to attract and hold an audience’s attention. You can also use humor to build rapport, emphasize points, convey a sensitive point, or deal with unexpected incidents that occur during your talk. Humor includes some kind of unexpected twist that pleasantly surprises the audience. Practice delivering the material until you can do so smoothly, pausing before the punch line to create tension.
 
Objectives
-        Prepare a humorous speech drawn from your own experience.
-        Strengthen the speech by adopting and personalizing humorous material from outside sources.
-        Deliver the speech in a way that makes the humor effective.
 
Time: 5 to 7 minutes.
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What would men be without women?
 
Last week, my husband and I went hiking to the Treetop Walk at MacRitchie. For the benefit of the uninitiated, the TreeTop Walk is the first of its kind in Singapore, in Johor Bahru and also in Batam.  Once there, you be at the top of the world, a bird’s eye view of the surrounding.
 
Before we all get carried away, that’s the marketing part, which is to get you high, at the top of the world. Now, we need to be real, with our feet firmly on the ground.  In order to enjoy the beautiful scenery, one has to trek 4.5 km from the MacRitchie Resevoir Park to the entrance of the TreeTop Walk. 4.5 km equates to 1.5 to 2 hour walk. That’s not all. Unless you live in TreeTop Walk, you will need to walk back to civilization. So add another 4.5 km for a round trip. In total, it is a hike of 9 km or about 4 hours.
 
So yes, it was a beautiful place but also yes, we had a tiring time. No thanks to my impatient husband who insisted to go faster and faster and even faster. Did he not know the phrase “more haste less speed”?
 
“Why can’t you go faster” He would hurry me.
 
Puff, puff [pause] “I can’t… erh, because I am a woman?” I ventured a guess.
 
“See, I have always told you that men are better than women.” He continued as he took my panting silence as an admission that he was right.
 
I retaliated by giving him a hard cold stare that must have sent chill right down his spine.
 
For from my eyes, he must have seen the list of all the unfulfilled promises when he was then my boyfriend. Equal responsibilities in our household expenditure. Equal responsibilities in doing our housework. Equal responsibility in raising our children.
 
His definition of “Equal” in raising our baby, for example. Our bundle of joy, was his. He would carry, cuddle the baby. Our burden of joy, unfortunately was mine. I would cajole, cater to the every need of the baby.
 
There was a recent report on fewer women than men in senior leadership position. The data mentioned that there were 3 women for every 8 men at the top.
 
I salute the few women who have reached the pinnacle of their career. For it is really a mammoth task. For a woman never, ever, really leave the kitchen behind, for each step on the corporate ladder that she advances, her man is pulling her the other leg to remain in the kitchen. Just imagine balancing one leg on the kitchen ladder and the other on the corporate ladder. The higher she limps up the corporate ladder, the more precarious the balance is.
 
“Ah!!!!” My train of thought was broken by my husband’s loud scream.
 
Before I knew it, a bunch of monkeys snatched his red plastic bag containing some snacks and water for our trip.
 
“Oh mine. Who in the right frame of mind will bring a red plastic bag to attract monkeys?” I took the opportunity to rub salt on his predicament.
 
”What would men be without women?” I sighed.
 
“Scare, madam, mighty scare." My husband promptly replied.
 
Back to you Toastmaster of the Day.
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