I’m Telling You For The Last Time

Do you remember that Jerry Seinfeld tour and video of the above title? It was his effort, after constantly being asked to do this or that “bit”, to tell his old jokes one last time and then never have to tell them again.

I have made a vow that I am going to do the same with all of my old stories. Not because the public has been clamoring for them, but rather quite the opposite: because I am now able to detect that look of polite familiarity on my friends’ faces that tells me I’ve told it to them before—and maybe even more than twice.

When did I get to be so lame?

So I decided the other day that the only way to avoid becoming the most boring, annoying, excruciating-to-be-around human alive is to retire all of my old stories. Yep. From here on out, I’m just going to assume that everyone knows about:

The fact that my dad now wears multiple pairs of my aunt's deceased husband's pants "because they fit nicely and he doesn't need them anymore." Ditto that for his lazyboy recliner.

The fact that my wedding video is commercially unviewable because my dad was a "wee bit tipsy" and kept subtly moving the camera to my girl friends' boobs while interviewing them about their thoughts on my joy and happiness.

The time I met Rebecca Romijn-Stamos at my gym and was stunned into silence by her "man hands" and the gargantuan size of her teeth

My propensity for singing karaoke "You Don't Bring Me Flowers" with my male friend, who always does Barbra while I do Neil.

How surprisingly good-looking, charming and weird crush-inducing Bob Dole is when you meet him in person, perma-tan and all.

My dad's habit when I was an overly-vain and image-conscious adolescent of farting very loudly in public and then saying loudly, "E! That's terrible!" He was thinking he was the funniest guy alive, and I was thinking I wanted to die. My mother was right there along with me in the "please let the earth open up now and swallow me" department.

The time I was on a conference call via my cell and said to my colleague, "Thank god he's gone!" when I thought my VP had hung up...when he said, "What?!" I completely managed to invoke my "hee hee jolly japes!" persona to pretend I knew he was there all along, but I did have to change my shorts when the call was indeed over.

Blah blah blah. You are angels of mercy for sitting through all of my nonstop stories, and from here on out you can do your part to prevent me from becoming absolutely unbearable, and just say, "Yeah--you already told me."

Please. Do your part. I'm begging you. Or else the next time we're out for drinks, I'm gonna have to let one rip and blame it on you.