Remember when drinking used to be fun? I mean really happy fun. Not the nasty pre-legal teenage experimental years when you’d dread the next conversation that started ?you were crazy last night margaret?. But before the sensible drinking years where conversations included the words ?leathery edge, vanilla hints and buttery finish?, without any sense of irony.

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As a stand-up comic it’s always great when someone from the audience comes up afterwards to compliment you. Except when the compliment is:

“hey, nice legs”

Is that really the best you can say to me when I’ve been busting my balls all night trying to make you laugh. And not even great legs, just ‘nice’ legs. What really bugs me is that I know my legs aren’t even that nice. They’re pale, they’re bruised and they flare out at the thigh. Good god, my boobs are better than my legs, but they don’t even get a mention?

Same show, second set, new guy:

“hey nice sandals”

Ok, first of all they’re not sandals. Sandals are something I used to wear when I was six. Sandals are something ugly guys wear with black socks. I wear shoes. You could have really made my day and told me they looked comfortable. They’re not, they make my feet ache, they give me blisters and they make me walk like I’ve got a stick up my bum. But I will never trade style for comfort. The day I wear anything on my feet with orthapedic support or a cushioned heeel is my last day on earth. And anyway what is a guy doing commenting on my shoes. If he’d said ‘great pants’, I’d think he wanted to get inside them. But what kind of perv wants to get inside my shoes?

And topping off a splendid evening:

“I really love your accent”

I know you probably mean this as a compliment, and god knows I hear this enough times, but it’s a real bummer. I work on my stand-up material, I invest time and energy on it, I strive to get better. The accent? Guess what, I was born with it. I don’t stand in front of the mirror practising the English way to pronounce tomato and wondering if I’ve sufficiently emphasized the ‘r’ sound at the end of my words. When you comment on my accent, you make me wonder if I’d get the same crowd reaction from standing up there with my legs and my sandals, reading this week’s HEB specials.

To be honest, you really don’t need to say anything to me after my set. All you need to do is clap loudly when I finish. I don’t care what you clap for, hell the back of my head is pretty decent, just help me keep my illusions of a comedy career alive for another night.

Thank you

You were my first ever briefcase. In fact you were my last ever briefcase, which means we have a special bond. You were given to me just before the start of a new school year, in a new school. Moving from Lenham County primary school to Swadelands, the large secondary modern was an intimidating event, even though the two schools were side by side. Perhaps they thought you would at least make me appear confident and self-assured. In the way that only a 12 year girl carrying a briefcase could appear.

Over the summer holidays, my school uniform started coming together. The new white shirts in the cellophane packaging, the folds kept in place with long pins, the stiff plastic holding the shape of the collar. The regulation Swadelands red and black school tie, the grey skirt, the knee high wihite socks and the chunky lace-up shoes. And you. You were the largest of all the briefcases we saw in the store. Perhaps not the most attractive or trim but your roomy capacity outclassed them all. I can?t pretend that you were my first choice. I wanted an executive briefcase, one with the snappy gold colored locks that you could flip up, just like on TV when the bad guy would try to tempt the good guy by revealing a briefcase full of neatly stacked 50 pound notes.

But you won me over with your hinged wide opening, and your generous three-sectioned gusseted construction. Most important though was your three digit combination lock flap. I always kept your number safe in my head and was happy to take those few seconds to lock and unlock you at the start and finish of each class.

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