What? Me? Heckle?

I went to a rather small school for undergrad. It was located in a rather pastoral setting at the south end of a very small, farming-oriented community. Describing it as one-horse probably is lending it too much credit, though it was the town that the driver's ed kids from the next county over would come to, so that they could practice driving through intersections with stoplights. From a certain point of view, it could be described as a booming, thriving metropolis...I guess.

Anyway, the college tried to get comedians and shows in to entertain the students as much as they could. Bear in mind, this was a small college, so the acts weren't always the greatest, and I doubt I could name a single one of the performers or comedians who stopped off in Rensselaer for an hour's worth of self-promotion and a meager paycheck at the end.

However, sometimes, we got really good acts or really good comedians. That was the case on the night in question. The comedienne was actually a very funny lady. I remember a couple of times laughing until tears came to my eyes. As per usual, she went on about driving through cornfields and such to get to the college. Everybody pretty much did that when they came to Rensselaer, but when she entered into her own act, it was damned funny.

I say all this as a preface for the crux of the story. Now, this particular comedienne was a black lady of, we'll say, ample proportions, and as such, she started talking about her love of ice cream. She had me right there. If there's something I love, it is the ice cream (along with a variety of other things that I have detailed here time and again). As luck would have it, Rensselaer had a small ice cream shop called Busy Bee, which was a common congregation point in the late spring evenings for the population of the college. We'd walk into town, enjoy our frozen dairy comestibles, and then sometimes stroll through other parts of the town or simply walk back to campus. It was truly idyllic.

The comedienne saw Busy Bee on her way to the campus and was, appropriately, fired up. But, she was worried. Like me, she had a refined palate and had a few prerequisites as to whether it would be worth her time to enjoy this fine fare.

"Now, this Busy Bee place, it doesn't have just one flavor, does it?" she asked the crowd.

No, was the general response from the crowd.

"No? How many flavors does it have, then?"

At this point, I thought, in the blink of an eye, Hey, she's really funny. Perhaps I'll throw something up there for her, and she can hit it out of the ballpark. We'll all be rolling in the aisles, holding our sides, pissing our pants because she's that fucking funny!

The end result of this internal monologue was me, firing off: "Two!" This was met with a few chuckles from the crowd.

Oh goody, I thought, my internal voice rising in pitch as I pondered the looming possibilities, here comes the comedy gold!!!

"Two?" she asked, her eyes wide, an eyebrow cocked. I swelled up in eager anticipation. Here it comes...

This is where, I should point out, things made a turn for the worse.

"Two? Is that all that makes you happy, farmboy? Two? You and that little ear thing you've got going on. Two flavors for me and my ears, please." And then she turned, dismissively, and continued on with her routine.

I. Was. Crushed. She even, in the course of pointing out that my ears stick out a tad, grabbed the upper part of her ear and pulled it out some. It was like she had just stomped on my puppy, and then kicked its gasoline-soaked carcass into the middle of the street, where it was to burst aflame the moment it was run over by a speeding semi-truck, trailer in tow.

Where was the funny? Where was the comedic gold I had known was coming? Is this all I get? Being called a "farmboy" and my ears made fun of? Not that you needed the help, but I just fired off a slow pitch over the middle of the plate. You could do something with it, other than point out the shortcomings of my personal appearance.

I shed a single tear, much like the Native American standing at the side of the road, an empty 7-Up can rolling at his feet.

Perhaps she thought I was trying to heckle her. Perhaps she wanted to get her entire act finished within the allotted time. I don't know. What I do know is that, after that moment, no matter how lousy or how funny the comedian or how talented the performer, I vowed never to interact with the person on stage, lest my personal attributes are once again held up before the jeering gallery to be judged and mocked.

This does not, however, include the time that, during a screening of The Scorpion King in the theatre, when Lucy Liu straddled the Rock's chest shortly after he had been wounded, I shouted (for all to hear) "Lay here while I suck the poison from your chest with my vagina!"

See, you can bite a movie, and the movie doesn't bite back.