Last week at a stand-up comedy performance I experienced two milestones in my personal life: First, I became involved in a truly "this-can't-be-real-life-conversation," and second, my mother learned how to text message.
Now, there are a few types of stand-up comedians that you'll encounter before a show. There are the comics who sit quietly in the corner and usually don't talk to anyone. There are the comics who think they're already onstage and make every conversation some sort of punch-line or performance. And then there are the ones over by the bar who will probably be wasted by the time they take the stage.
Usually, I'm the guy alone in the corner. Last Wednesday night though, I was joined by another curly, blonde-haired female comic. I'm not quite sure why she was there though. She was extremely talkative, much more of an offstage performer than anyone I'd ever met.
I asked what she did for a living and she told me it had something to do with pharmaceuticals. "What about you? Where do you work?" I was a little flattered that she might view me as a real adult, but admitted, "Oh, I'm a senior at Tufts." Now, here's where the conversation took a right turn out of banal street and into surreal territory.
"I just f-ked a guy from Tufts last Friday," she told me, fairly matter-of-factly. How do you respond to that other than saying, "Oh ... great," which I did.
"He wasn't very good though, and he had a small penis." In retrospect, I should have made some comment about how that's sort of ironic seeing as how our mascot is Jumbo, but I was too stunned to be witty.
So then when she told me that this guy had a bit of problem with impotence I just murmured something back. What I thought I said was, "Yeah, a lot of people have that problem." But I guess to her it sounded a lot more like, "Yeah, I guess I kind of have that problem."
Upon her eyes widening I got a reprieve. But, not really. It was a text message from my mother. Her first ever. I was both angered and relieved that I had an excuse to get away from this conversation.
"Did you call gramps to wish him happy birthday? - mom." At first I thought that maybe my sister had sent it for her, but I realized that a sophomore in high school knows better than to sign a text message.
It must have really been happening. My mother was finally entering the technological age with the rest of us. And I had to comply. "Yes. I called him." Short, to the point. Done, I thought. Not quite.
Half a minute later I got another text from my mother: "Did you speak to him or did you leave a message? - mom." You're kidding. I started to imagine how this technology could now allow my mother to further govern the minutiae of my life to the nth degree. "What are you having for lunch?" "What kind of sandwich?" "Is it wheat bread or rye?"
OK, just a quick reply I thought. "Spoke to him," I wrote. She texted again. "How did he sound? - mom." "Fine!" I wrote with an exclamation point hoping she would get the point to step off.
I walked back over to my curly-headed friend and hoped to maybe keep the conversation a bit more tame. "So, why didn't you go to Rutgers?" she asked me. "Oh, I wanted to get out of New Jersey." OK, this is going well, I thought.
"Too many STDs there huh?" she followed up. "Uh ... oh right ... Slutgers. Ha ha." (That ha ha was a fake laugh by the way, in case it doesn't translate in print). "Have you ever had a one night stand?" she asked me, point-blank. "I mean ... not with sex," I replied. "You sound like Bill Clinton," she retorted.
Just then I got another text message. I was ready to throw my phone at the wall, but fortunately for my phone, it wasn't my mother. It was from my friend Craig from high school. "Good luck tonight."
What happened next, I'm not really quite sure. I think somewhere in the technological heavens the God of text messaging decided to spurn me, to send down the wrath of Verizon Wireless and paint me as a fool.
I sent my friend Craig a reply. "Dude, I told this girl I go to Tufts and she's like ... 'I just f-ked a guy from Tufts last Friday.'" Four minutes later I got the reply. "Interesting. Where is this girl from? - mom."
Neil Padover is a senior majoring in English. He can be reached neil.padover@tufts.edu.
