The Funny Thing Is... (3 page)

SITUATION:

LOSING
YOURSELF
IN
THE
MIDDLE
OF A
CONVERSATION

There’s a well-known saying that goes, “Wherever you go, there you are.” It’s a good saying except for one thing: It’s just not true!! (I’d like to apologize for the two exclamation points. Yes, they’re fun, but sometimes you can overuse fun things and all of a sudden they’re not fun anymore. I guess what I’m trying to say is, if I could go back in time, or if I knew how to use the backspace key on my computer, I would eliminate one of the exclamation points. Sorry.) The reason the saying is false is that when our minds are deprived of stimulation they tend to wander. So, yes, you may have gone someplace, but you’re not really there at all. You’re somewhere else entirely, probably trying to remember the words to the Armour Hot Dogs song.

Now, the type of stimulation the brain needs is not something like being tickled with a feather. The mind is too mature to be amused by that (not so the insides of your knees, which are always up for being tickled). The mind craves interesting conversation. Which brings us back to the party and
Ka-
thy.

Kathy, it turns out, is a bore, which I’m guessing is why you forgot her name in the first place. She’s been talking at you for a long time about this and that and you’ve just drifted off: “… fat kids, skinny kids, even kids with chicken pox love hot dogs…” You’re kind of aware of her mouth moving, but you have no idea what she’s saying. Then you hear the words “inhaling mold spores” and, like that—you’re back. You have no idea what the subject of the conversation is, and Kathy has just stopped talk-mg. She’s staring at you (or slightly to the right of you because of her lazy eye), expecting you to say something. What do you do? What do
you
do?

Solution

Some people might tell you that you could fake Kathy out by nodding your head and saying, “Ummm. Uh, hmmm. Mmmmm. I see. Hmmm mmmm.” I am here to tell you that that’s not going to work unless she’s part of the one-tenth of one percent of the country who can be hypnotized by people humming.

The only proven way to get yourself out of this embarrassing situation is to say something about Gloria Estefan. I’m telling you, as long as you commit to it, she can fit into any conversation. You don’t believe me? Here’s proof. Kathy is still staring at you waiting for a response while you dutifully consider, then reject the honesty and “hmm, hmm” options. Finally you say, “That sounds a lot like Gloria Estefan.” Kathy looks at you funny and says, “What’s that got to do with copper plumbing?” To which you respond, “Well, Gloria Estefan is the copper plumbing of the music industry. She’s beautiful, reliable, and indestructible. Look how she came back after that bus accident! Are you going to debate me on this?!” And, presto, you’re back in the conversation and nobody’s the wiser.

SITUATION:

ACCIDENTALLY
REVEALING
INTIMATE
THOUGHTS
TO A
STRANGER

Revealing intimate thoughts to a stranger isn’t always embarrassing. In fact, sometimes it’s downright therapeutic. Many people pay strangers to listen to their darkest fantasies and most nerverse secret thoughts. Those strangers are known, of course, as Starbucks baristas. But, like most situations in life, when there is no money changing hands, the chances of being embarrassed multiply significantly.

So you’re still at the party, standing next to Kathy and experiencing one of those long uncomfortable silences that only true friends who have nothing to say to one another get to enjoy. Perhaps you make eye contact with the host of the party. A flash of recognition passes over his face, much like the flash that sprang up from his bed when you set it on fire. His face turns ashen (not ashen like the beloved first-edition books that you tried to put out the fire with, but gray and pale) and he runs off. Probably a funny reaction to the onion dip, you think to yourself.

Still looking after the host, you feel the need to reveal something deep and significant to your old friend Kathy. So you say, “My underwear keeps going up my crack.” You hear somebody say, “Excuse me?” Then you turn and see not Kathy but a total stranger. (You don’t recognize any of her, not even her elbow or a little bit of her ear.) Kathy has ditched you. “That’s it,” you say to yourself, “I’m going to forget her name again.” The stranger looks at you and says loudly, “Did you just say your underwear keeps going into your crack?” People start to look at you. What do you do? What
do
you do?

Solution

Deny, deny, deny! Or, to paraphrase Sergeant Schultz, one of the most beloved Nazi soldiers in television sitcom history, “I know nothing. I said nothing.” So, when the stranger asks again if you said your underwear was going up your crack, you calmly look at her and shriek, “No, of course not. Are you kidding? What?! No!”

Now, there is a chance she’ll ask, “Then what did you say?” Don’t panic. Just think of something that sounds like what you said, and say that instead. For instance, “You misheard me, stranger, what I said was… um… er… my bear keeps going up my crack.” If she says incredulously, “Your bear keeps going up your crack?!” well then all bets are off. It’s now time for a different strategy: attack, attack, attack. Look at her and say, “Listen, I’ve had just about enough with the questions. Who are you, anyway? I don’t know you. I don’t owe you any explanation. You are way too curious for me, old lady. Why don’t you go stand next to someone else and eavesdrop on them, you weirdo?!” And that’s usually when Kathy comes back and says, “Oh, great, I see you’ve met our host’s grandmother.”

SITUATION:

HUG
,
KISS
, OR
SHAKE
HANDS

Believe it or not, it is as potentially awkward to greet someone whose name you remember as it is to greet Kathy. That’s because you never know what physical action to take upon greeting each other. Do you shake their hand? Do you hug them? Do you kiss them? Or, trickiest yet, do you do the complicated hug-kiss combo? What makes this combo tricky is knowing the order of the beats involved. If you think you’re going to kiss on the cheek first, then hug, and your friend feels the opposite, you could end up kissing your friend on the ear or, if your friend is very tall, on the chest. Either way is potentially embarrassing. As is sticking out your hand while your friend tries to kiss you, inevitably ending up with a gooey, kiss-drenched hand.

So, you’re at the party and the host is approaching you quickly. It’s hard to believe you’ve been at the party long enough to chitchat, have a few drinks, and eat the first piece of his grandmother’s birthday cake (looking back, you probably should have waited for them to light it, but you just assumed that they, like you, were forbidden by court order from playing with matches) without saying hi to the host. Now, there he is marching toward you and you have no idea how to greet him. What do you do? What do you
do
?

Solution

The answer to this dilemma is as simple as it is uncomplicated. Let your friend make the first move and respond accordingly (or
accordionly
if you know how to play one). What’s important for this strategy to work is to adopt the right stance so that you’re ready for whatever physical greeting is about to be laid on you. I recommend legs shoulder-width apart, shoulders leg-width apart, and arms outstretched but with a little bend in the elbow so that you don’t look like you’re being crucified. If your friend, undertaking the same strategy, approaches you with the same stance, that’s okay too. I’ve had long conversations with people where both of us stood a foot away from each other, our arms outstretched, talking for hours.

SITUATION:

ACCIDENTALLY
FLIPPING
OFF
JOHN
TRAVOLTA

Granted, the odds of this situation happening are fairly low, maybe one in eight at best, but in my book it’s best to be prepared. And since it’s my book that you’re reading, I’m guessing you feel the same.

So, you’re at the party standing in the neutral position ready to greet your host, when he surprises you by grabbing your arm, pressing it into your back, and pushing you toward the door, all the while screaming in a high-pitched voice, “What are you doing here, you crazy bed-burning lady person? (For some reason, whenever your host gets mad he talks like Jerry Lewis.)

The next thing you know, you’re being thrown out the door and given what your father calls “the bum’s rush.” You feel hurt, insulted, and angry, especially since your father was at the party and did nothing to stop your humiliation except to say, “Look, she’s being given the bum’s rush.”

So you get in your car and decide to drive until your anger and your buzz from the three dirty martinis you had wears off. You’re driving at the legally acceptable twenty miles above the speed limit, when some jerk cuts in front of you going a mere fifteen miles above the limit. Infuriated, you drive past, and give him the finger, flip him the bird, stick him the digit. (I made that last one up; it just seemed that for rhythm there should be three.) Then you open your eyes (I have no idea why you were driving with your eyes closed) and notice that the driver of the car is none other than John Travolta (which I guess is not much of a surprise given the title of this situation). What do you do?
What do you do
?

Solution

This is an easy one. All you have to do is move your arm to your side, raise it up at a forty-five-degree angle, and pump. During the second pump, casually switch your protruding finger from the middle one to the index finger. Suddenly you’re no longer flipping John Travolta off, you’re doing a touching homage to one of his most beloved movies,
Saturday Night Fever
.

This, according to the unwritten laws of showbiz, officially makes you John Travolta’s friend. So you’re perfectly within your rights to follow him wherever he’s going, get out of your car when he does, and engage him in conversation. Tell him your dreams, your fears, and all the embarrassing things that happened to you at the party. And don’t be surprised if after you’ve told him all this, he looks at you blankly for a beat, then says, “That sounds a lot like Gloria Estefan.”

I
have learned in this business not to believe anything that I read or hear about anyone until I sit down with that person and hear it for myself. Fortunately, that’s one of the perks of this business—you get to meet a lot of interesting people and you get to have a lot of interesting conversations. I’ve been lucky enough to meet the President and Oprah and Madonna and a lot of other fascinating people, so it was only a matter of time before I would meet God. And I have. What a day that was!

Imagine my surprise when one afternoon I received an invitation with the return address
God in Heaven
. Here’s what it said inside:

Ellen, please join me for fondue and Chablis.

When: Saturday May 3rd, 2:00 P.M.

Where: My house

(No need to
RSVP
. I’ll know if you’re coming.)

Now, normally I don’t like Chablis, but this one was nice. It was dry with a peppery oak aftertaste. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

I was nervous with anticipation for weeks. Finally, the big day arrived and I made my way over to God’s house. As I was pulling up, Jennifer Love Hewitt was just leaving. (She is
so
sweet.) I was led into God’s living room and told to wait. (It was so bright in there! Let me tell you, every lamp was on—it was crazy, crazy bright!) As I was sitting there, I started to think,
I wonder what he dresses like? Does he wear that robe all the time
? Like the Pope. I mean, he can’t
always
wear that Pope outfit, can he? Once in awhile, don’t you think he throws on a pair of shorts and a tank and just, you know, chills out? And then I started thinking,
I wonder if I’m dressed appropriately to meet God? I
don’t know how you are supposed to dress. Then I realized the obvious. God has seen me naked! So I just took my clothes off.

Anyway, I was looking around the living room and in front of me there was a coffee table with two magazines on it,
Teen People
and
Guns & Ammo
, and a poster of a kitten on the wall that says “Hang in There, Baby.” And there were pictures of Jesus everywhere! You can’t believe how many pictures of Jesus there were. A picture of Jesus on a pony with a cowboy hat. A picture of Jesus on the beach wearing a shirt that says, “My parents created the universe and all I got was this lousy T-shirt.”

I started to get nervous.
I’m going to meet God in just a minute
, I thought.
I don’t even know how to greet God. Do I shake hands or do I curtsy or bow? I mean, do we hug? I
feel close enough to God to hug God, but I know how it is—a lot of people want to hug me (TV does that), but I don’t want to hug a lot of people. You’ve got to be respectful.

So, a couple of minutes later God walked in the room carrying a tray with a fondue pot and a bottle of Chablis. I would say she was about forty-seven, forty-eight years old, a beautiful, beautiful black woman, and we just immediately hugged. She smelled so good. She said it was Calvin Klein’s Obsession.

We sat down and started drinking the Chablis and talking about the weather and what was going to happen to it. I asked her a bunch of questions I was curious about. “What is the hardest thing about being God?”

“Trusting people,” she said. “You never know if people really like ya or if it’s just because you’re God. And people always want something from you. They want money and then they want more money. That’s what they always ask for.”

She told me nobody ever thanks her anymore. The only people who thank her are boxers and rappers, but she said she thinks it’s a little odd that rappers are doing songs like “Slap the Bitch up the Ass,” and the next thing out of their mouth is, “I’d like to thank the Lord Almighty for this award. Praise Jesus!