I was performing stand up recently at a library in Monterey, MA.
At the end of the evening, a woman approached and said, “I hope you don’t swear in front of your students like you swore tonight. Do you?”
My response:
“Congratulations. You just won the award for the dumbest question of the day.”
To her credit, she didn’t back down.
“Well, I heard you swearing tonight, and I thought, He’s a school teacher. I hope he doesn’t talk like that in front of his class.”
My response:
“I don’t. It’s called context switching. It’s why you’re not wearing pajamas right now, but you’ll probably be wearing them later on tonight at home. We do different things depending on the situation. This, for example, is a no-pajamas situation. Later on tonight, the context will change, and pajamas will be more acceptable.”
For some reason, this comment, more than my “dumbest question of the day” comment, annoyed her, and she stormed off.
Maybe it was the sarcastic, condescending way I was speaking.
Yeah, it was probably that.
I try to be a tiny bit less confrontational these days, but this exchange still took place in the context of a comedy show.
In those cases, all bets are off.
It was also an exceptionally stupid question. Passive-aggressive, too, which I can’t stand.
The show, despite being in a library in a town of about 900 people on a night when the temperature plunged below zero, and snow covered the landscape, turned out great, but that little moment at the end with that woman was my favorite part by far.
