That’s it, I’ve finally reached full lame middle-aged dad status. Here’s how I know.
Do you have any little snippets of dialogue from a movie or TV show lodged in your brain but can’t remember what they’re from or who said them? A little expression or phrase that makes you chuckle even though you’ve long forgotten its origin?
I have a lot of those from standup comedians, because when I was young I was somehow exposed to lots of comedy specials on TV, even radio programs devoted to comedy and recorded by my brother so that we could sit in his room late at night and listen to Steve Martin sing King Tut.
Buried with a donkey (Funky Tut)
He’s my favorite honky!
I’m sure my nine-year-old self didn’t know what that meant, but still laughed.
Hey, it was small-town Alberta in the ’80s – there wasn’t much else to do. While my friends were at the rodeo, I was learning all I ever needed to know about being a cowboy from The Three Amigos. They weren’t just famous. They were infamous.
A lot of those funny names and faces have stuck. Flipping channels one day recently I said, out loud, “Oh, wow. Emo Philips!” And then I wondered, if I was ever accused of a serious crime, would admitting that I uttered the phrase, “Wow, Emo Philips!” in the year 2022 be enough evidence to have me declared mentally unfit to stand trial?
The result of this comedy brainwashing is that I now have no friends. Ha ha, just joking. I have tens of friends. I might even call one of them again before I die.
No, the result is that I have little snippets of comedy routines rolling around in my brain, popping in to amuse me and confuse everyone else around me as I blurt out, “What the hell is in this, tomato?” (A reference to an old George Lopez joke about white people eating Mexican food.) Oh, those honkies.
One of these expressions stuck in my brain is: “I joined a store.”
I have no idea now which comedian did this bit, but I remember loving it. The joke was about all the cool things you could become a member of (maybe a library? A gun club? A cult? The mile high club!), but the thing that so many people actually become a member of is a store.
You probably know the store I am talking about. It was a big deal back in small-town Alberta. It still is! I see my old high school classmates proudly announcing on Facebook that they are going on a run to The Store, and letting their friends and neighbours know that they could get in on the big order if they needed anything.
The Store is big over here in B.C. too among the parent set. The most notable thing about The Store is that, for some reason, you can’t just go there, pick out things you want, and then buy them. Nope. You need to first become a member of the store, before you can shop at the store.
If you fill up your cart, walk up to the cashier, pull out a big wad of cash and loudly declare, “I’d like to purchase these goods, please,” they’ll laugh in your face and throw your money in the paper shredder if they find out you aren’t a member. No chance, pal.
I can’t remember the exact comedy routine, but I do remember the comedian meticulously laying out the absolute lameness of needing to become a member of a store before shopping in it, then the big reveal that he’d finally done it too.
“I joined a store,” he said, oozing self-loathing.
Well, friends, that’s me now. My wife and I finally broke down and joined The Store.
We don’t go often, and we still do everything we can to shop local and support local businesses.
But dang, being a parent is expensive. I no longer have two children, I have two food-devouring machines. How can I spend $10.99 for 20 fruit bars at the local market when The Store will sell me 200 fruit bars for a nickel more?
Maybe one day when the kids have left home we won’t need The Store anymore and we can go back to buying two shiny apples, a small hunk of brie and a fresh baguette from the neighbourhood grocer and call it a day.
Can’t do it now, though. We’re buying brie by the barrel.
Andy Prest is the sports and features editor of the North Shore News. His lifestyle/humour column runs biweekly. [email protected]
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