The Comedy Workshop Experiment Version 1

Hey, it’s great to be back.  Is everyone excited tonight?  Ok…everyone cheered but this lady right here down front.  She must have just come here after the opera.  It’s okay dear, just keep sipping that margarita. No, no, no … that’s an umbrella, not a straw. Oh, never mind.

Those of you who have seen or heard me (if you are visually impaired) know that I hate Wal-Mart.  Sam Walton was supposedly this great guy.  I don’t know, I never met him.  And I haven’t been to visit him lately either.  For those of you who are a little behind the times … he’s dead.

Anywhoo…hate may be a really strong word, but when I tell you that I hate something, I really mean it.  Every time I go to Wal-mart I have to do number two in the restroom.  I’m not the only one!  You should hear the strange sounds that echo in the restroom.  And those automatic flushers?  If you move even an inch the next thing you know you’re getting crappy water splashed all over your butt.  No joke!  Hey, quit laughing margarita girl, you know it’s true!  I started pondering why every time I step into the door of Wal-mart I have the urge to relieve myself.  Then I put two and two together.  See, Wal-mart used to sell all American products.  They advertised it that way.  Over the years everything has been re-labeled MADE IN CHINA, MADE IN TAIWAN, or even MADE IN A SWEAT SHOP.  It dawned on me that there must be something in those products that gives off a chemical aroma that makes your bowels start to loosen up a bit because we all know that when you eat foreign food, especially Chinese, it makes your bowels REALLY loosen up. 

Oh, I see someone is heading to the restroom here now.  They either ate Chinese food or went to Wal-mart before they got here tonight.

It’s been really hot here lately.  This summer has been terrible.  What with the flooding and the rain five days out of seven and the oppressive heat with heat indices in the triple digits, it’s no wonder that the plagues of Egypt have fallen upon the town I live in. Frogs, locusts, spots all over your body.  The town starts with a ‘V’, rhymes with Malaria.  What does that tell you?  When I first moved out there I was worried that I was either going to get eaten alive or carried away by giant mosquitoes or get a venereal disease.

When I say town, I really mean a racetrack.  See, there are only 18 houses – and some of those are trailers.  Whether that qualifies them as houses…well in this town it does.  And for some of you who live below the Mason-Dixon Line, it might for you too.  I mentioned the racetrack because when you scoop the loop in town all you are really doing is driving west on the highway, turning left onto Johnson Street, turning left onto Station Street, and turning left on Main Street, which means that when you come to the end of Main Street – you are turning left back onto the highway.  There’s even a pit lane.  That is Center Street.  It runs a block long east to west (remember the sun sets in the west) in the center of the racetrack – duh!  Sure, there are speed limit signs posted that say you can only go 25 miles per hour, but since there’s no cop in town, no radar guns, no speed bumps, no crosswalks, no lane markers (because the road is basically only a lane and a quarter wide), everyone thinks that it’s Indianapolis Speedway.  We all know that when you race, it’s left, left, left all the way baby!  If you meet someone in town, ask them how strong the muscles are in their left arms compared to their right arms and you will get the picture.

Now, this speedway or racetrack is not paved in the traditional manner.  It is called seal-coating.  What this means is that they lay down a strip of blacktop and then throw pea gravel over the top of it.  Our racetrack is unique that way.  You get better grip than you would on a slick track, so making those corners going 75 is no problem at all.

There are car races, truck races, motorcycle and dirt bike races, three wheeler races, bicycle races, go-kart races … you know what really surprises me though?  It’s a rural town and not one person has been smart enough to figure out that we should get a state gambling license and race horses and dogs on the track.

Everyone in town has at least one dog.  Well, ok, almost everyone.  Those who don’t – their neighbor probably has three.  There are plenty of cats in town.  They run in prides like they live in Africa.  They range from mangy to wormy to feral.  That’s why there are no rabbits within city limits unless they are a pet and in a cage.  So, I was thinking that if we started up the dog races by bringing in a bunch of greyhounds, throw in my coonhound, and then line them up, one of those cats will be running its little pads off to get away.  I am putting all my money on the dog that trees the cat first.  The dog that runs completely around the racetrack?  He’s eliminated from the competition because he’s too stupid to chase the cat.

Now I am an animal lover, so I don’t want you to get the wrong idea about me.  I love my dog even when she potties indoors because it is raining outside and refuses to go out.  I love her when I put her in the kennel because she pottied indoors because she refused to go out because she might get a sprinkle on her.  I love my two cats.  My oldest cat is like a little kid.  He wants to be held a lot and he cries when he doesn’t get fed on time, and he likes to sleep in cozy places; like on my pillow at night or under the covers.  Luckily, he doesn’t ask for milk money every day even though he wants milk all the time.  But he does beg to go out and play with his friends, which I never let him do because his friends are all mangy, wormy, and feral.  The younger cat is a female and Miss Independent.  She’s more like a teenager.  The only thing she really ever wants is to be able to run around as much as she can all over town, hang out with her friends (yeah the same friends as the other cat), miss curfew, and come home long enough to get something to eat and drink.  The smartest thing I ever did for my furry kids was to put them on birth control – you know… the kind that is permanent?

Lately I’ve been thinking about tearing my house down.  It’s an older house and my parents like to refer to it as the Money Pit.  If something can go wrong with it – it will.  The other day I was in the bathroom – hey, quit laughing.  You have a bathroom in your house too unless you live in Kentucky.  I was in the bathroom on the throne and suddenly I felt something hit my shoulder, and it was cold!  I sat there frozen to the toilet for fear there really was a ghost in the house.  See, really weird things have happened in the house.  Shelves mysteriously fall off the walls, our old television used to turn itself on randomly, we think we hear someone walking around – it can sort of freak you out in the middle of the night when you’re having a dream you wish you could put onto DVD and re-watch.  So, I sit there feeling that cold thing hit me, afraid to look around.  I am trying to reach for the toilet paper that is in the cupboard because the other roll had a single piece on it – the piece that is glued to the little cardboard tube?  You know what I am talking about.  I narrowly miss falling off of the toilet seat but manage to use a clothes hanger to get the new roll of toilet paper out.  I sit back up and PING – another wet thing hits me on the shoulder.  I decide to ignore it and I put the new roll of toilet paper on the stupid holder on the wall, flush, wash my hands – yes I did wash my hands.  I know most of you guys out there don’t, but I smoke and I eat and I am … well I am going to wash my hands!

A couple hours later I walk back into the bathroom and look at the roll of toilet paper in its holder on the wall and the double roll (they’re cheaper by the way – if you get them at Wal-mart) has quadrupled in size.  It now resembles the Stay-Puff Marshmallow man.  I say Stay-Puff because the Michellin man has flubber around his middle.  The Stay-Puff man is just all flubber, solid, white, fat.  I am confused.  I touch the toilet paper and it is wet.  I look up and realize that the entire day it has not only rained outside, but it has been raining inside too – right on my toilet paper!  This is no joke.  I had to drive into the real town (about 8 miles) and stop at a convenience store at 11:30 at night to get more toilet paper.

Do you ever wonder why they call them convenience stores?  I have.  It seems like an oxymoron to me.  I went in there to buy a 4-roll package of toilet paper and paid a dollar per roll.  Four dollars for toilet paper, and it was the kind that when you go to use it, it disintegrates in your hand?  It’s like the tissue paper you use to cover gifts with when you use those stupid gift bags because you’re too lazy to wrap the present?  No, it’s worse.  It is as shear as silk stockings, and why is it rougher than regular toilet paper?  I don’t get it.  The more see-through it is, the softer it should be.  I have pantyhose that are shear and they are soft, even though they are hot and I have to spend an hour trying to get them to stretch over my legs, thighs, and butt.  I usually end up splitting the dang things halfway up the leg and look like a cheap hooker. 

That’s why I don’t go to church.  No – not because I am a hooker!  Wow, you people are really judgmental.  I don’t go to church because I don’t want to be sitting there all holy and reverent and have the people with 10 kids that are all under the age of 6 sitting next to me thinking I am some tramp that just walked in off the street because the sign said ‘visitors welcome’.  Although, if I were a hooker, church might give me some guidance.

Anyone ever have a chigger bite?  Chiggers are nasty little pesky insects that like to burrow under your skin and lay eggs.  Oh ma’am, I’m sorry that just came out your nose – I didn’t realize that the idea of bugs laying eggs under your skin would make you choke on that margarita.  Since it has rained for 40 days and 40 nights times 3 this year, the chiggers are really bad.  I think it is mainly because no one can get out and mow the lawns to the proper height – and I am talking about your yard looking like a golf course, not like that guy that was on the news that decided he was going to grow weeds so the butterflies would have a habitat.  That guy was pretending to be a conservationist because he was just too lazy to get his butt off of his recycled couch and pollute the air with carbon dioxide from mower exhaust.  Back to the chiggers.  I came home last night and didn’t even notice a thing.  I wake up today and my ankles and lower legs look like someone used a red bingo dobber on me while I slept.  Let me tell you how bad my ankles itch.  Ever had jock itch?  Yeah you have you right there in the second row.  That’s why you keep getting up and going to the restroom instead of listening to me up here.  Don’t shake your head at me and laugh.  We all saw you adjust yourself when you came out, and by the way did you wash your hands?

Jock itch is nothing compared to chigger bites.  Chigger bites itch worse than chicken pox but are comparable to poison ivy without the ooze and massive spreading to other areas, which leads me to another point.  I’m glad you went to the restroom sir, because if you’d gone out back you might have gotten poison ivy on top of that jock itch.

I have heard that if you cover the chigger bites with clear fingernail polish it will smother them and they’ll die and the itch will go away.  I decided that I would start hunting through the house for some fingernail polish.  I found a small bottle and started putting it on.  When I was done, my legs looked like I was wearing a pair of Nancy Sinatra boots with purple sparkles.  And I wasn’t going to walk over anyone with them because someone would probably think that I had gone to get a pedicure and it was done by a drag queen.

And I definitely wouldn’t go to church and sit next to the couple with the ten kids all under the age of six.

You’ve been great.  Make sure you leave a donation at the door before you leave so that I get paid because the guy that owns this place – he just remodeled the restrooms to look exactly like the ones at Wal-mart.