You're all a pack of communists

I started my career in comedy last week.
It was like a fish starting a career in the ocean. You know what I mean?
It was exactly like a fish starting out in the ocean.

No-one laughed.

That’s okay. That doesn’t mean the fish isn’t going to have a perfectly hilarious time out there in the Pacific. It just means that perhaps the fish didn’t have the right audience at the start.
I guess starting my career in comedy by telling a room full of lawyers they looked like a pack of communists wasn’t the best move.

No-one laughed.

Communists, hey? Can’t trust ‘em. It was a stand-up competition and, like most things in my life I left the crucial preparation to the last possible five minutes before performance. I thought I had some gold. There was the one about stockings being the worst human invention of all time. I mean did we put a man on the moon or no? Did he have to file his nails before getting in that space suit for fear of pulling a thread? I don’t think so. Neither did any of the audience.

No-one laughed.

I then tried to appeal to our common sense of oppression by slinging a bit at the old crusty law firm partner who likes to think he is hip and cool by wearing a pink shirt – except you feel like saying, honey, you can’t wear pink. Not with that alcoholic’s rosea. The gaggle of lawyers at the bar with their double scotches straight up on the rocks turned and stared at me.

No-one laughed.

I fumbled my words, I made a bit up on the spot and rambled a little to the left. But I was wearing a nineteen twenties red cocktail gown with a diamante bow and audaciously large diamante earrings and my seven inch high heels. I thought at least someone would love they way I looked and see the irony in me talking about office fashion dressed like a depression era call girl. But, as you would expect…

No-one laughed.

If I said I was prone to self doubt, all those close to me would spontaneously erupt with passionate disagreement. I am not prone to self doubt. I am DEBILATED by self doubt. And in moments of silence (like when I was up on that stage in front of that packed audience) the self doubt can really take hold. I had to use every measure of self control to curb the rising panic and speed through the rest of my hopeless set. I can home and threw myself all over the house re-enacting blow by blow my complete failure in front of the communists.

Tam laughed.

And I laughed. And that’s all I need.