I was so geared up to knock it out of the park Sunday night. Great club, great lineup, funny host who had sufficiently warmed everyone up. Then it was my turn. Many jokes were met with polite laughter, but too many others were met with blank stares. The crowd looked like a panel of Guess Who tiles.
"Is your person young?"
Yes..
"Is your person wearing a frown?"
Yes...
Once in between silences a man in the back muttered something, and the people at his table laughed. I said, "Oh, what was that Sir?" to which he responded by becoming a stone statue--like kids playing hide and seek who think if they don't move, you'll walk on by them. I tried to show him I wasn't annoyed, just curious. "All I see over there is a Hawaiian shirt and a nice smile". This was true. When someone sits in the back of the room, beyond the bright lights, if you stare long enough their form starts to develop, like in a Polaroid picture. All that was coming through were green palm trees over white, and a few inches above that, gleaming teeth nervously clenched.
He finally showed a sign of life. "I HAD to wear the Hawaiian shirt. I knew someone was gonna crack on this shirt."
--No, there's nothing wrong with your clothes! Let's talk about MY clothes." After all, the next 10 minutes are supposed to be about me. I looked at myself. I saw nothing funny about what I had chosen to wear. I shrugged and moved on to my next joke. Sadly he didn't come with me.
Even sadder, that God-awful shirt remained uncriticized.
Photo credit: boardgamegeek.com
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7 comments:
Was the man Jason Mraz
Before we met I often wore Hawaiian shirts.
What would our lives have turned out like if you had met me then.
@ Mo: Yes, and then he said, "Bibble-dee bop, skibble-dee-dee, it's all about the melody." And we all laughed and laughed.
@ Luke: I don't need to know these things.
I'm still here guys...
I often wonder that about certain people. Not with hawaiian shirts but for instance they had a pretty picture on their online profiles, so I contacted them. But then a few months later, they changed to a horrid photo of someone else.
And if they had been using that photo, then I may have skipped over their profile and never become the 6-years friends that we are now. Or maybe we would've met elsewhere. Who knows.
So what you're trying to say is you're a shallow bastard?
Can you really imagine me any other way?
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