ToM: Midwest Region, Second Round Results

(5) Bobbing For Apples
def.
(1) The Rosetta Stone

In a year replete with surprise upsets, it should come as no shock that Sunday's action saw two underdogs advance to the Midwest Regional Championship. In the opening match, yet another top seed fell, leaving Google as the tournament's only surviving one-seed. The Rosetta Stone, after violently decimating Babe the Blue Ox in the first round, came into the day as heavy favorites against insouciant upstart Bobbing For Apples. Sticking with the tactic that proved so effective against Babe, the Stone invoked ancient Gods and scaled the firmament's of a rust-red barn directly over a group of children engaged in the eponymous opposition activity.

At the apex of the slanting tin roof, poised next to a rooster-bedecked weather vane, the Stone tumbled forth with deadly accuracy. Yet at that exact moment, one of the children below had captured a rosy fruit and stood to celebrate. The four other competitors lifted their heads to view the spectacle, and the descending Rosetta Stone landed directly in the full barrel, impacting none of their heads.

Though some water was displaced by the splash, enough remained to completely cover the fallen tablet. Terrified, the children sprinted away screaming, and Rosetta Stone proponents insisted that the retreat signified forfeit. Officials on scene agreed, and only required that the submerged stele free itself from the barrel to claim victory. Hopeful supporters kept a vigil for three hours, but despite a prodigious climbing ability, swimming was beyond its means. As the sun reached its meridian, and activity inside the barrel ceased, officials congregated and determined that the children had instigated the match's only successful maneuver by eluding the crashing slab, and thereby earned advancement.


(7) Toothpaste
def.
(3) Greenery Day in Japan

The evening match can effectively be called a case of poor luck, with a determined, strong competitor handcuffed into serving its opponent with each well-intentioned advance. Known for unerring discipline and tireless work ethic, Greenery Day's army of tree-planters went to work fast and early, sprouting new and variegated forests in trademark fashion. Predictably, oxygen levels rose, which in the past has hindered opponents and led to victory.

With Toothpaste, however, Greenery Day faced an opponent whose cleansing qualities were only fortified and enhanced by the uber-oxidized environment. Normally taken for granted as a bathroom fixture, Toothpaste's new cleansing abilities cast it into the limelight, earning universal laudations. Before day's end, Toothpaste had booked an interview slot on The Morning Show, been chosen as Time's Man of the Year, and had its cardboard container officially selected by Oprah's Book Club.

Relegated to anonymity, Greenery Day in Japan proved incapable of variety, instead clinging robotically to the original blueprint. Upon notification that Toothpaste was the overwhelming winner, the Greenery Day Army committed mass suicide by impaling themselves through the pointed crowns of Bonsai trees. In a gesture of sportsmanship, Toothpaste offered to clean the teeth of the dead, but only on the condition that they receive a Christian burial. The terms were rejected by His Imperial Majesty, Emperor Akihito.



MIDWEST REGION CHAMPIONSHIP:

(5) Bobbing for Apples
vs.
(7) Toothpaste