Thursday, March 04, 2010

"You kids get off my lawn."

When I was checking onto the ship there was a cute girl behind the pursers desk. We struck up a conversation about my show. She said, "Your show must be very good since they've assigned you a suite and not a crew cabin." I bragged that my show was very good but said I also had some "compomising Polaroids of the Captain in my safety deposit box."

She had no reaction except confusion. I immediately realize that, for her, a reference to Polaroid pictures is from Pluto. I haven't used that joke in 30 years and it was probably too old to use at that time.


The girl behind the desk is much to young to know about Polaroid Cameras. I momentarily forget that although I play with dolls that is probably the only thing we have in common. I'm am, after all, more than twice her age.

I tried to explain (comics never give up on a joke or a possible laugh) but it went immediately wrong: "Why....back in my day we had to wait 60 seconds to see a snap shot."

At this point my wife, if she was here, would simply look at me and say "you kids get off my lawn" and I would laugh. That is her signal that I have started sounding like the crazy old man up the street.

There is a phrase Charles R Meeker, Jr. (My first boss and show biz mentor) used to say, and I quote: "there comes a time in a man's life when temptation is easy to resist because it becomes so hard to find."

Time was when I could make a cute girl behind the desk giggle with a joke. Damn, if I will stop trying now. I refuse to believe I am ready to do command performances for the Red Hat Society.

As you were,
Jay

www.monkeyjoke.com

1 comment:

Roomie said...

R,
Mandy and I tell the kids that very thing all the time....wait...they're aren't any kids on our block, or for that matter, miles....and how is that you can remember all these fabulous quotes from CRM, Jr....when I don't remember him saying them...are you making them up...OR...did you write them down at the time in your "to keep" notebook?
Carry on,
D&M