“Sixty dollars” the man at the motel desk said in a thick accent as he entered it into the credit/debit pad. I looked at the pad and saw the amount $0.60. “You hit enter” he said, urging me to complete the transaction. I thought about taking the $59.40 discount but then decided to do the right thing and I pressed the zero button two more times to make it read “$60.00”. The man at the desk looked at it somewhat confused and said “Sixty dollars?”, and I gave him a big thumbs up. Finally, I hit enter and then the PIN and I had paid full price for the room. When the transaction was complete he handed me a room key (not a card but a key) and said “thank you” a dozen times. Phoebe and I went to the room and found a bed that was about 5 feet long and a TV that didn’t work and a room that hadn’t been updated in 60 years. But there was 4 walls and a door so we had a place to stay for the night and that’s all I cared about, we were on our way to a wedding so I figured by the time we got back to the motel we probably wouldn’t even notice if the bed was made of quartz. The last thing I remember hearing Phoebe say before I fell asleep that night was “we’re gonna get murdered in this room.”.
But that’s the end of the week…. what about comedy? Well, I’ll tell you.
Monday – Hosted another open mic at Sally O’Briens in Somerville.
Tuesday – I hosted a terrific comedy show at Stadium in Quincy. I started setting up the room at 3 pm because I didn’t want to be rushing to get it done. At 6:30 Rick Canavan headed up a writer’s workshop as he does every week, at 8pm I started the stand up comedy show and at 10pm we once again had our famous debate show. A healthy turnout of 63 people in the bar for the show. I can’t wait to do it again!
Ice cream with a little bit of comedy on top.
Wednesday – I tried out some new stuff at the open mic at the Tavern at the End of the World.
Thursday – I worked landscaping. Getting back to my roots and the roots of these weeds and pulling them out of the ground so that wealthy people don’t have to see plants that aren’t aesthetically pleasing.
Friday – I started the day by meeting up with Jim Akiba to go get a pig. Oh yeah, we drove an hour and a half to a pig farm/slaughterhouse with a giant cooler in the back of Jim’s car. He told me it was the biggest cooler he could find. When we got to the slaughterhouse an older woman carried a pig out in a bag with the help of another fellow that worked there. Pig in one hand, cigarette in the other she grunted some words at Jim and he did his best to get the pig into the cooler. This woman looked to be about 55 years old but by her demeanor I would say she had been working in a slaughterhouse for at least a hundred years. Although most of the pig was in a bag the hind legs were sticking out a bit, when Jim asked for a smaller bag to cover the feet, the woman laughed and with a low raspy voice said “I don’t think it’s gonna runaway on ya.”. Then she found a small bag and handed it to Jim and in a voice that I didn’t think existed in Massachusetts grumbled “now you make sure to call us up if that thing gets up and runs away.” and then she laughed and laughed.
The pig wouldn’t quite fit in the cooler, we had to let part of it’s legs poke out of the top during the ride back. So there were just pig’s feet sticking up in the back window of Jim’s car, which Jim observed “must look weird to anyone driving behind us.”. True.
Anyway, we got that thing back to his place and he washed it down and then I was off to the second part of my day.
