Tig Notaro Happy To Be Here

---

1

[rock music playing]

[audience cheering]

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

-Hello, Houston!

-[cheering]

[imitates cheering]

Hello, spring.

[scattered cheering]

Wait, why'd you quiet down?

Oh, boy. I'm happy to be here.

I have not performed in Houston

in over a decade.

So thanks for showing up.

Unless I've forgotten and I was here...

then it's good to see you again

so soon after.

What a surprise.

I did a comedy special...

years ago, at a time when...

nobody knew who I was.

And they packed the venue,

put cameras on me

and then put that out on television.

And I was backstage,

and there's a guy doing warm-up

for my show.

We didn't meet in person.

The only think he knew about me

was that my name was Tig.

So he was out on stage,

just saying, you know,

"What's up? What's up?!"

Just really getting people ready

for my kind of comedy. And...

And he said,

"Are y'all ready for your comedian?"

And they said, "Yeah!"

[imitating crowd cheering]

Just whisper-screaming like crazy.

And he said, "All right, well,

this comedian coming to the stage,

"he's one of my best friends.

"We've traveled

all around the world together."

I turned to the producer backstage

and just said, "What is happening?"

And then she radioed the director

who came over...

the intercom of the entire theater

and said,

"Tig's a girl..."

Awesome.

Then he said, "I didn't know.

I didn't know."

So then it appeared

as though my...

very best friend...

had never even noticed

my sweet, sweet rack.

Boy, and I tell you we have missed...

that boat.

That poor guy will never see that.

For the majority of my adult life,

I have been mistaken for a man...

at least once a week.

It's more than that ,

but I don't want

to seem like I'm exaggerating.

But I also feel confident

that probably nobody here is like,

"Yeah, we're gonna need some examples."

And it doesn't bother me.

I feel comfortable with who I am,

I know who I am. I know what I am.

You can call me a choo-choo train.

Doesn't matter.

I know who I am.

Now, I can't believe it took me 46 years

to come up with this response.

And if this happens to you,

please feel free to use it.

Give me credit...

'cause it's good.

I went into a shop

and walked up to the counter,

and the man behind the cash register said,

"How can I help you, sir?"

And I said,

"Just the gum, ma'am."

And...

We were just in this lockdown moment...

of utter confusion.

Just like, "Yeah, I don't know

what I'm looking at either."

I don't know how he felt

about that exchange,

but I know for myself,

I did leprechaun kicks

the entire way home.

[sighs]

Before I started doing stand-up

professionally full-time ,

I did temp work.

And I had this one job

that went really, really well

and they highly recommended me

to another temp job.

And-- Listen, laugh all you want.

I'm not trying to be braggadocious.

I'm just presenting facts at this point.

Okay?

But...

I don't know if that's the best thing

to say in a special is,

"Oh, yeah... Laugh all you want."

[chuckles]

Then it's like, "Oh, I guess that's

all you wanted to laugh, all right."

But...

So it went really, really well.

They highly recommend me to the other one,

and I show up to that next job

just like, "Hey...

I'm Tig.

You've probably heard a lot about me."

And I was greeted

by the owner of the company,

immediately down to business,

"Bathroom's here.

Mail goes out every day at 4:00.

This is your desk."

And I was immediately realizing,

this was not gonna be a good time.

And that entire week...

-that I worked there--

-[audience laughing]

It was a temp job!

Temp is short for temporary.

They asked five days of me,

and I delivered.

But that enti-- Thank you!

Thank you. Good night.

[sighs]

You guys would have been fine with that

if I just left.

All that build up,

then I'm like, "Hey, I was great

at my temp job. Good night."

Now you've lost your sense of humor

and you're sitting there going, "No,

we wouldn't! Don't leave the stage, Tig!"

[sighs] Okay.

You've convinced me to stick around.

I'll go ahead...

and finish my story. So...

that entire week that I worked there,

the owner of that company was so rude.

She was so mean,

just beat down every ounce of joy...

in my soul.

So that was a hard time.

Now listen,

I know you came for punch lines.

I've been doing stand-up for 20 years

and in order to make you happy,

I have to make myself happy first.

And it truly tickles me

to tell you a long, boring story...

that ends with...

"So that was a hard time."

Because I can feel the energy

in the room, like...

"Oh, maybe is that the joke?

"Is that...Oh, that was a punch line.

I know she has a weird delivery, but...

A lot of pauses with this one.

No, I bet that's it."

No, there hasn't been one punch line

in that story.

Just a long, boring story.

Lucky for you, there's more to the story.

The final day that I was working,

that Friday,

I was sitting at my desk

and the owner of the company

was crouched down doing something--

I couldn't see. She was...

She was maybe...

stacking or filing papers,

just using little kitty paws, just...

I'm known for my physical humor, so...

this is actually a highlight of the show.

Again, no clue what she was doing,

but she finally took an interest

in who I was

as a human being on this planet.

And she turned to me and she said...

"So when you're not temping,

what do you do?"

And I could not wait...

to turn to her

with every part of me destroyed...

and say...

"I'm a comedian."

I might as well have said...

"I'm training

to be a motivational speaker.

And on the weekends,

I play in a funk band."

I'm happily married

forever and ever, amen.

I take offense.

The applause makes it seem

like you're thrilled

that I'm finally off the market.

But it's true.

I can't believe that Stephanie exists.

I can't believe that I found her.

I can't believe that she loved me back.

This is all true.

And at least once a day...

she says something

where I'm left utterly confused.

Just unprompted yells across the house.

For instance, "Do you know what time

Yum-Yum Donuts opens?"

"Yum-Yum...

No... No. Have you ever heard me say,

'I got to head down to Yum-Yum Donuts,

beat the rush?'

I don't even know what that is.

Sounds delicious,

but I don't know anything about it."

We were going on vacation,

driving to the airport,

and in the car, she turned and asked,

"Do you know what they're serving

for breakfast on this flight?"

"Hmm...

Mnh-mnh.

No, I don't.

Do you?"

"Probably nothing surprising,

maybe eggs. I don't know."

"Can a bee sting another bee?"

"That I do not have the answer to.

What I do know

is it all of these questions

feel very Googleable."

Stephanie and I adopted

a precious little kitten...

named "Fluff."

And that's her given name.

We kept it out of respect

for her birth parents.

And a couple years into having Fluff,

I realized that I had never meowed at her.

Rate this script:4.0 / 1 vote