What’s up, Los Angeles!
Okay, before I start, I just wanted to tell you that you don’t have to worry about hurting my feelings if you don’t want to clap for me. My parents will just hold you responsible for wounding my fragile psyche, and then they’ll hit you with my therapy bills when I develop severe social anxiety disorders as an adolescent, that’s all. Oh, and my manager’s career will go down the toilet, but that’s okay, because she’s a failed child-stand-up-comedian anyway, so she’s probably just trying to live vicariously through me, and maybe she wants me to fail in order to make herself feel better about her unfulfilling life!
But no pressure, right?
My name is Kimmy Johnson – that’s K, I, M, M, Y. I’m planning on dropping the “y” when I turn eight, because I think it’s kind of babyish, and I’m probably going to become a lawyer when I crash and burn as a child-stand-up-comedian, so I should get used to having a more serious name early on in life. I’m not going to win any cases with that “y” hanging around – “y” is like, the least serious letter! It doesn’t even know if it’s a vowel or not! That’s not the kind of image I want to portray when I’m a failed child-stand-up-comic-turned-lawyer who has to defend my manager when she’s sued for dealing pot in order to make the money that she’s not making off of me because I let her down all those years ago!
Speaking of lawyers, you know what’s criminal? Being a kid forced to do stand-up, am I right? It’s like, hey, I just stopped crawling, like, a year ago, and now you want me to go into a career that’s based on the notion that I can stand up? Cruel and unusual punishment, am I right? I should probably just quit while I’m ahead, especially because I already paid my manager for another year of her services, so she’ll be okay!
My favorite animal is the aardvark. I used to like cats and ponies, but my manager told me that I had to get a new favorite animal because a lot of little girls like cats and ponies and liking aardvarks makes me quirky and more marketable to today’s progressive audience. Sometimes I wish I could just say that I like cats or ponies, because they’re so much easier to spell than “aardvark,” and I don’t have a lot time to focus on spelling because of my career! I’m actually homeschooled!
But it’s not so bad! I still have friends!
Like Sam, who’s not really my friend, he’s this kid my manager hired to be my friend, and he got his hair cut the other day. And let me tell you, it looked awful, probably because Sam doesn’t have a manager to handle his appearance. So when he asked me, “Kimmy, what do you think of my hair?” I said, “It looks dumb.” And he said, “Hey, that’s not nice!” So I said, “Look, Sam, you’re not paying me to be nice.”And he said, “I’m not paying you at all!”
Which is when I realized that I’ve been doing this whole friendship thing completely wrong!
See, I knew you guys would like that one, because it’s funny when kids express sentiments normally expressed only by bitter adults, like my manager.
So I was reading Highlights Magazine the other day, and there was this article about the solar system. And I was like, “What’s up with that, Highlights? My manager isn’t paying you to educate me – that’s what the college fund my parents set up for me is for. Just give me my riddles and hidden-eye pictures, okay?” So I decided to send some letters to the Editor. But when I tried to mail the letters, they soaked right through the envelope. I guess I should have taken them out of the alphabet soup first!
My dad wrote that joke, which is why it wasn’t that funny, because he doesn’t have the flair for comedy that my manager has, even though you might think she doesn’t have a knack for it at all, considering that she failed at it.
My dad’s still pretty neat, I guess. He likes models. It’s funny, because whenever he tells people that, they always say, “Oh, models, what a nice hobby!” because they assume he’s talking about model boats or trains or cars or airplanes. No one ever says, “Models?! What would your wife say if she knew that?!” Because he’s old – he and my mom waited a really long time to have kids – so everyone just assumes that he’s talking about model boats and trains and cars and airplanes and not about hot young girls. For the record, he’s talking about model boats and trains and cars and airplanes, but still, wouldn’t it be funny if he was this sleazy old guy who liked hot young girls? He hit on my manager once, but that doesn’t count, because she’s not a hot young girl, she’s just this miserable forty-two year-old failed stand-up comedian who ate a whole pint of Ben & Jerry’s Phish Food last night after she finished all of those tiny bottles of liquor in the mini-fridge in our room at the Best Western, which is room 207, by the way, if any of you aren’t doing anything later and want to stop by, if you know what I mean!
Thanks guys, you’ve been a great audience!
More fiction at Used Furniture.
So disturbing, infuriating, wonderful.
“I used to like cats and ponies, but my manager told me that I had to get a new favorite animal because a lot of little girls like cats and ponies and liking aardvarks makes me quirky and more marketable …” Ugh!
This is some damn-good writing. I was totally invested from start to end. ~
Frighteningly hilarious! Well done!
I have to say, this is an awesome story. I love the quirkiness to it.