Too old for the room

A friend asked me why i don't do comedy anymore. That is a true friend. She's also a friend that has never seen me get up on stage and literally suck wind out of a place. I didn't even rate a heckle from the room, although the last time i got up on a comedy stage it was for a Nickelodeon funniest mom in America contest so perhaps the audience was too polite.

It was at Zanies in Chicago and for the first time ever, i didn't have to be first. (Even at Comedy graduation class-"Cindy, you go out first and warm them up"...riiiight...) Maybe that was my problem. I've always been the first one out so in the past whenever someone asked me, "how'd you do" i'd say i was great but my audience was too sober and whoever had asked would say "riiiiiight." But this time I was number 8 or 9, and here was my chance. My audience had had a few drinks and were warmed up so off on stage i went with my little yellow postnotes of solid gold nuggets written up with past experiences tweaked with my comic insights.

"Hello there, i'm Cindy Huber from Milwaukee, Wisconsin and my family thinks i have a problem with road rage. Yesterday when my daughter was in the car with me she asked me "why are you always flipping people off, i told her cuz mommy doesn't have a gun!"

That got a huge laugh but would you expect anything less from Illinois? Then i launched into a sweet but funny phone call i had made to my 98 year old grandma and the room went quiet. Deathly quiet. Except for the sound of crickets which at the time i thought was weird because here i am in downtown Chicago and it was November so how did the crickets get in here? Never had three minutes gone by so slowly (for me-so i could only imagine how the audience felt). Jokes that had worked on stage in Appleton only a year before were crashing and burning all over the place and i could smell the sulfer, and hear the crickets. The next "mommy" comic got up and told three minutes of kid fart jokes and the audience was applauding and screaming for more. I kept thinking "am i the only German in the audience who hates fart jokes"...i cringe whenever i hear Jessica Simpson say she toots in bed). But what do i know, that mommy got a call back. And my grandma died 3 days later, and with her, some of my best material.

So a couple of days ago i'm in the studio's backlot recovering from my radio show, and listening to the kids from promotions (alright, they're all in their twenties so technically they're not kids) but then again they are playing foursquare, burning off the excess energy that comes with being young with a healthy immune system but they're also shouting out categories, and if you can't keep up with the flow your out. So i thought "easy enough" and joined the fun. The subject was beer, when the ball came my way i shouted "zima" but apparently, Zima is not a malt liquor and so does not qualify. And i was out. Then the "kids" went on for 20 more minutes on beer and i didn't honestly know there was that much beer and that's big coming from someone who was once a country-western dj! But i'm no quitter, so when they paused i jumped into the game again and rattled off the next subject. Menopause. "Mood swings!" I won.