My Life as a Comic

Sometimes, when I’m in the shower, I fantasize about what life would be like as a stand-up comic. The club is packed and loud. Everyone is anxiously waiting for me to take the stage. I stroll out and grab the mike. The crowd claps and whistles . . .

Me: So when I was young, if I had a pimple on my face, it concerned me. I’d pick at it, squeeze it, put medicine on it. Really worry if that groovy girl in my chemistry class would notice it.

Crowd: Empathetically chuckling . . .

Me: But now that I’m old, if I get a pimple, I’m happy. I’m ecstatic. It means there’s still some life in me, some juice. I’ve still got oil.

Crowd: Laughing

Me: You never see a really old person with a pimple. Old-people skin has no oil, no life. No more juice in that skin. When I see a pimple on my cheek, I think: You’ve still got it, skin! You've still got some juice left in you. And nothing is better than getting a big white pimple on your back . . . as long as you can reach it.

 I contort myself trying to reach an imaginary pimple on my back.

The Crowd is eating it up, laughing  and mimicking my various acrobatic contortions. They are knocking drinks over in hilarious spasms.

Me: And when you pop that thing, when the white goop comes squirting out, it’s fantastic, like ejaculating, like blowing your load all over yourself.

Crowd: Screaming with laughter.

Me: It’s like you’ve just had sex with your back.

Crowd: Shrieking and crying hysterically. Guffawing. Actually urinating and defecating on themselves because they are laughing so hard, but not caring, just pointing at their soiled pants and laughing even harder.

Me: They never show that in a Clearasil commercial. The pimple money shot. It’s too pornographic. The other thing I love about my body-- you know I was going to tell a funny story about my dog, but this is better-- the other funny thing is that sometimes, during the span of one night’s sleep, I grow a giant white hair. It comes right out of my forehead above my eyebrow. When I go to sleep it’s not there, but when I wake up . . . there it is!

Crowd: Screaming in agreement. Large black women are shouting things like “That’s right! baby!” and “Testify it!” and “I know that hair!”

Me: I want to make a documentary about it. The money shot would be time lapse photography of actually watching the hair growing on my forehead. It would take years of filming to capture it. My film crew would be obsessed about it-- night after night-- the director would film so much that he'd go blind in one eye and need an eye-patch. He'd be monomaniacal over my follicles!

Crowd: Muttering things like “Huh?” and “What the fuck is he talking about?”

Me: Instead of hunting the great white whale, we’d be hunting the great white hair. We’d call it “Moby Cowlick.”

The Crowd is getting irate. Someone yells, “It’s a literary allusion!” The Crowd starts yelling things like, "Nerd!" and "Go read a book!" They throw bottles and food at me. I duck and cover, then run off the stage.

My wife yells, “What the hell are you doing in there? You've got to take Alex to soccer practice!"

At this point my fantasy dissolves. I get out of the shower, happy that I don’t have to work nights.