Middle-Aged Lady Comedy

In my Second City comedy class I was old enough to be everyone’s mother. Except that I’m not a mother. I’m barren, which is one of my favourite openers. My classmates were lovely and they embraced me and it was much better than the Improv class I took, where I literally ended up playing everyone’s mother, but I definitely felt different. I had a career, a car and I had seen some things. When we were supposed to come up with a story in class to work out some jokes, I felt like I was an old oracle, telling tales to the youngin’s. “Did I tell you about the time I had cancer? Did I tell you about the time I was held up at gunpoint in Florida? Did I tell you about the time I wrote an autobiography and went on a book tour? Did I tell you about the time I had Shingles in Portugal?”

I took comedy classes because I am a nerd and I will always try to learn and then win comedy. With a few comedy classes under my belt, it was time to hit some mics for some real-world experience. Some of this was great and some of this was a shocker. My husband commented that some of the bars that I would drag him to to do comedy are places that I would never have gone a year before. Sometimes I go on my own. Sometimes I am scared. Not the getting up on stage part, the walking to my car part. There is a vulnerability to busting out some personal jokes about womanhood to a room full of drunk men. It’s hard and it’s weird, but I keep…