Optatio

Optatio (op-ta’-ti-o): Expressing a wish, often ardently.

She was the 12th contestant for Miss Morristown to give her speech in the competition, there were only four left to go. I was a judge and I was ready to snooze through them. Every damn speech began with “I wish.” It was driving me crazy. So far I heard three wishes for world peace, two wishes for people to pick up their dog poop, one wish for a steak medium rare, and five wishing that the reflecting pool would be repaired by God’s grace (technically they were prayers).

This speech was different: she began with “I ardently wish.” it was like a breath of fresh air. The speech itself did not matter, but its “ardenthood” pushed it up there. Here’s how it went:

“I ardently wish that tire pumps were included with bikes, regardless of age or ability, whether mountain or racer, two-wheeled or three-wheeled. It is unfair to deprive owners of the right to pump when they buy their bike. Pumping is a God-given gift and shouldn’t be diminished by having to go to Wal-Mart and buy a pump, when it should be part and parcel—an integral aspect—of the identity of every bike in our land.

Right now, here in America, and throughout the world, not all bikes are created equal, when despite their retail price, they all should come with a pump: a pump able to restore tires’ souls with air and get them back on the road to world peace.

We can no longer accept the dastardly greed and calculated neglect of the world’s bike makers. We must demand that pumps are universally included with all bikes sold in our beautiful land, across the waves of grain and purple mountains majesty gracing our national quest for brotherhood and pump-equality among all bikes: tricycles to electric bicycles together, together at the table of velocipedehood.

This is my ardent wish. Thank-you!”

POSTSCRIPT

This speech was beautiful, playing on revered tropes of Morristown’s ethos. As a member of city council, I had continuously lobbied for bicycle racks downtown and at the train station, and parks, and bus terminal. Nobody listened. Now, I had a dream inspired by Candiate 12–I too would “ardently” wish, not just wish, for bike racks!

I would open: “My fellow Morristowners, I ardently wish for universal bike racks, like the truth, everywhere always the same—downtown, at city parks, at the railroad station, at the bus terminal celebrating their universality, all painted Morristown Maroon. Parking places are a universal right, as such, so are bike racks located at crossroads of commerce, leisure, and travel —where we shop, and play, and travel to work or to visit our cherished friends and loved ones. This is my ardent wish! May you make my ardent your ardent wish too! Thank you.”

Dynamite!

Contestant 12 won the speech competition, barely beating Constant 14, who simply “wished” that contact lenses would be free: “I wish, like the air we breathe in this great nation, the United States of America, that contact lenses were free.”

The speech embodied Morristown’s socialist ethos, but “ardently” was missing, damaging its overall credibility and putting it in second place.