I Hate Meetings: Reading Aloud Edition

I checked the meeting agenda to prepare for my meeting this afternoon. We're being revisited by one of those folks who really likes to hear his own voice. He likes his voice so much that he reads aloud the stuff he brings forward. And he reads aloud badly. (But, lest we forget, he hangs out on the porches of the powerful around here, drinking and bonding with the other men who have power.)

Imagine, if you will, a dramatic reading of a budget report. And not with Patrick Stewart or someone like that doing the reading.

I've heard at least three different versions of this material read aloud in various meetings so far.

Yes, I know he's reading it aloud so that people will pay what he feels is sufficient attention to the immense amount of labor he puts in. Seriously, I recognize that the stuff is important but also boring enough that we don't actually want to spend time reading it. And, he doesn't send it out ahead so that we can prepare it by reading it ourselves so we can just ask questions or whatever.

I'm at the point of thinking:

Crappy Meeting vs. Playing on the Freeway in Hopes of Being Killed, and playing on the freeway is looking not that bad.

Or maybe I should think:

Crappy Meeting vs. Unemployment because I've been fired for being mean to one of the good old boys.

One hour of really crappy meeting looks a little less bad, doesn't it?

I wonder if I can find a way to become incredibly, dangerously, contagiously ill for just about an hour this afternoon? Is it any wonder I turn to sugar?