Hang in There

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It was a Wednesday night and as I looked at the crowd I was calling myself an idiot. Why? I finally had decided to give stand up a try and I was standing there with a microphone in my hand and calling myself all kinds of a dumb shit for doing it. I took a deep breath and:

"I'd like to start out with some thoughts for the day. Wouldn't it be nice if whenever we messed up in life we could simply press 'Ctl-Alt-Delete' and start over?

If raising children was going to be easy, it never would have started with something called LABOR!

Brain cells come and brain cells go, but fat cells live forever.

I used to eat a lot of natural foods until I learned that most people die of natural causes.

In the sixties people took acid to make the world weird. Now the world is weird and people are taking Prozac to make it normal."

I got some polite laughs and figured that I was dying up there, but I went on.

"A man staggered in to the hospital with a concussion, multiple bruises, two black eyes and a five iron wrapped around his neck. Naturally the doctor asked him:

"What on Earth happened to you?"

"Well, I was having a quiet round of golf with my wife. When we teed off on the sixth hole we both sliced our drives over the fence into a field full of cattle. We went to look for the balls and while I was looking around I noticed that one of the cows had something white on her rear end.

"I walked over and lifted the cow's tail, and sure enough, there was a golf ball with my wife's monogram on it stuck right in the cow's ass. Still holding the tail up I hollered at the wife "Hey! This looks like yours!"

"I don't remember much after that."

I got a good laugh out of that one so I tried for one more.

"An Amish boy and his father were in a mall. They were amazed by almost everything they saw, but especially by two shiny silver walls that would move apart and then come back together. The boy asked:

"What is it Father?"

The father (never having seen an elevator) responded "Son, I have never seen anything like this in my life. I don't know what it is."

While the boy and his father watched in amazement a fat old lady in a wheel chair moved up to the moving walls and pressed a button. The walls opened and the lady rolled between them into a small room. The walls closed and the boy and his father watched the small numbers above the walls light up sequentially. They continued to watch until it reached the last number and then the numbers began to light up again in reverse order. Finally the walls opened up again and a gorgeous twenty-four year old blond strode out.

The father, not taking his eyes off the young woman, said quietly to his son "Quick. Go get your mother."

I was surprised as hell when instead of getting booed off the stage I got laughs and lots of applause when I finished. I decided to quit while I was ahead and I thanked the audience and headed for the bar.

I was sitting at the bar having a cold PBR when someone sat down on the stool next to me and I heard:

"Hey sailor; buy a girl a drink?"

I turned and saw Pauline French sitting there. I just stared at her unable to say a word. She laughed and said:

"Your sister told me I could find you here."

"You came looking for me?"

"I did."

"But why? I chased after you for years and you wouldn't have anything to do with me and now you come looking for me?"

"What can I say? I want to see what I missed out on way back when."

My sister had been right all the time. "Hang in there" she always said. "Hang in there and things will get better."

Well I hung in there by God and things did get better. One hell of a lot better and now ten years and two kids later I'm glad I hung in there.

It got me Pauline.

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Okay now let's run a check on things.

XYZ Corp. Check.

Landing Strip Lounge. Check.

Village Inn. Check.

Pabst Blue Ribbon (PBR). Check

Harlina Collins. Check.

Beverly Abbeg. Check.

Nancy Wilde. Check.

Pauline French. Check and double check.

I think I got them all. If I forgot one I'm sure someone will let me know.