A few days ago I did the biggest show of my young standup career. It was a charity show that took place in my hometown of Findlay, Ohio at my old middle school. There were about three hundred people there (more than triple that of the next-biggest crowd I've done). I was nervous as hell but the show went amazingly well. I opened the show, my younger brother went on second, and "World's Funniest Cop" Dwayne Gill closed out the show. All three of us had great sets, the crowd was having a great time, I set the house on fire with my Ben Roethlisberger joke in his hometown, which has clearly turned against him. The biggest surprise of all for me was that I got a great crowd reaction with a totally clean set with an audience consisting of ten year olds, eighty-year-olds, and everything in between. I was shocked. And here's the set that did it:
Wow. Central Middle School. I went to school here when I was a kid. I graduated from Findlay High School, class of 2000, but I've lived in the Dayton area ever since. This is actually also the first time I've done standup in Findlay. This is also the first time I've performed for a totally sober audience. At least I hope you're all sober. So I have to say that, all things considered, I'm a little nervous, so if you happen to see some dark circles forming in the front of my pants, don't worry, that's just me peeing myself.
So I've been doing the standup thing for awhile now, and I just wrapped up my first TV taping the other day. Yeah, pretty excited about that. My very own episode of COPS. You should check me out. I'm the fat guy in the tighty-whiteys and handcuffs with the giant man boobs and the mosaic over my face.
But seriously, I really hope the standup thing works out, because I can't seem to get a real job. Employers keep telling me I don't have any experience, which is ironic, because Obama didn't have any experience, and he got a job. Of course we all remember the paranoid Republicans who started screaming bloody murder when he was elected and said they were going to have to move to Canada to escape. But now the funny thing is, they don't have to anymore. With all the new programs he's gotten moving and the ones he's talking about, it's like he's bringing Canada to us.
I used to be a radio DJ. During my orientation for that job I was told that I would probably have lonely, desperate women calling me on the air telling me they wanted to hook up. Which was perfect, because that's just the kind of women I look for. So I thought this was going to be the coolest job in the world, until they told me that these lonely women usually end up as stalkers who end up kidnapping you and tying you to a pole in their basement. So I was a little worried when I had a regular female caller who kept calling me wanting to meet up. Then one day I was doing a live remote event and she just showed up. She came up and started talking to me. And then out of nowhere she blurted "Don't take this the wrong way, but you sound cuter on the radio.” What? So all of a sudden I'm not cute enough to tie to a pole in your basement? Freakin women.
So I hate flying. The last time I flew was with my wife on our honeymoon. And we flew coach because we're poor so of course the seats are not very big. These seats were so small, I had half a butt cheek on the seats to the right and left of me. But the real problem was the seat belts. I finally got myself into a workable position to sit, but when I went to put on the seat belt, it was about six inches too short.
So there I sat, too fat for my seat belt when the friendly little stewardess walks by to make sure everyone is buckled in. I explain that my belt doesn't fit, which is a real problem because the plane can't take off until everyone is buckled in. The stewardess had no idea what to do. Apparently this had never happened before and I was the first fat guy to ever waddle onto that plane. So she was asking other people and they didn't know either and pretty soon I had the whole flight crew staring at me like they're trying to solve a story problem.
Meanwhile the plane can't take off because I still didn't have a seat belt on so the flight attendant got on the radio to explain the situation to everyone. “Sorry everyone, there's been a slight delay in our takeoff. We have a fat passenger who can't fit into his seat belt so we can't take off yet. We're working to find a solution, but as soon as we get the fat guy buckled in we'll be taking off. Once we're airborne, flight attendants will be around to pass out your in-flight sodas and snacks. Except for the fat guy. You don't get any. Fatty.”
I tell you, sometimes it's hard being fat. What I do is I try to hang out with people fatter than me so I don't feel quite so fat. I like hanging out with people that are so fat they even sound fat. You know, they are always making these loud sighing and snorting noises, even when they're just standing there. You could be standing there with your eyes closed and all of a sudden you hear all these gross noises and you know a fat guy just moved up next to you. Hard to sneak up on someone as a fat guy. People hear us from a mile away.
I think that's what you never see any fat ninjas. People hear us from a mile away. I always wanted to be a ninja. I was the chubby kid in karate class. I wanted to grow up and be able to break cement blocks just by head-butting them. Instead I grew up to be able to break folding chairs just by sitting in them. Hiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiya! Take that, folding chair.
So it turns out I suck at gift-giving. Last Christmas, for example, I didn't know what to get for my wife. I bought her a couple bottles of perfume, which happens to be Calvin Klein's Obsession, that I saw on a display at the store. I figured I'd get her a real present later, but it was a start.
Well then I got home and in my living room was a brand new, big screen, HD TV with a football game on and a six-pack with a bow on the couch. I thought I had died and gone to White Trash Heaven. I was ecstatic. I was like a fat kid in a candy store. Or Ben Roethlisberger at a drunken sorority party.
Well, it turns out my wife got my new TV at one of those Black Friday doorbuster sales. And if you have ever been to those sales, you know those people are crazy. Last time I went there were two women pulling each other's hair out over a toaster, and another woman who was shredding the plastic wrap off a display until her hands started bleeding. So these are the kinds of loonies there, and my wife walked out with a TV? That means she won. She beat Bloody Hands McGee and the hair-pulling twins at the Wal-Mart Black Friday battle royal. I don't even want to think about the terrible things she must have done to escape there with a TV.
I know some guys would think it's a rush being married to someone tough enough to pull off something like that, but not me. I'm not tough at all, and I do not want to end up as one of those guys who ends up in the hospital because his wife beat him up. No sir. You've seen the guy, just sitting by himself, the look of shame in his eye. Dude got beat up by a girl.
So here my street-fighting wife comes home with my new TV and I was excited as can be. Then I realized, oh crap, all I have for her is those two little bottles of perfume. That's perfect. So I figured oh well, I'll give her the perfume, tell her I just haven't picked up her real gift yet, and run like hell just in case. So I handed my wife the perfume, and she unwrapped her two bottles of Calvin Klein's Obsession….for men.
And THAT is how you end up as the guy in the hospital who got beat up by his wife.
You ever have one of those times when you suddenly realize the type of family you really have? You know, the moment where you stop seeing your family as the All-American poster family, and start seeing them as a Jerry Springer show waiting to happen.
I had one of those moments a few weeks ago. It was at one of those family gatherings where there's free chicken so all the backwoods relatives you don't like to talk about show up on their donkeys with their eleven kids. So my uncle had locked his keys in his car. So we're all trying to leave and he was holding everybody up because he couldn't get in his car. Well fortunately my cousin who has been to prison for stealing cars was there, so he was able to break into my uncle's car and save the day. And that's when it hit me. Most families are grateful to have someone like a doctor or a lawyer in the family. Us, we're grateful to have a car thief in the family.