It's no one's fault but my own

On my infinitely long list of careers/projects that I would like to try, comedy writer has made appearances in a number of variations.

For example, there was a time when I thought being a writer for "Saturday Night Live" would be the coolest job I could ever have. I have known, of course, for several years that I stood less than zero chance (something like negative 25% chance, I calculated) of ever getting this job. More importantly, I've known for several years that the quality of the show has deteriorated to the point that I couldn't take pride in my work there, if by some freak accident I ended up there.

(I imagine it would be similar to the deflated feeling suffered by President Bush's speech writers each time he butchers one of their carefully crafted works -- guys and gals who probably grew up dreaming of one day being a presidential speech writer, only to realize that precise dream at the worst possible moment in American history. Fate, these writers learned, has a demented sense of humor.)

But my dreams of legendary late-night sketch comedy aside, a career in humor writing has escaped me even in its less grandiose forms (e.g. self-publishing collections of comedic essays that I could sell at lightly attended book signings at the local library; I'd give away a free funny-looking bookmark with each book sold to drum up business).

My unachieved dream, however, cannot be blamed on a lack of material, as I was reminded yesterday.

I had one of those surreal moments while mowing the lawn -- the kind of moment that makes you think, "If I ever produce a plotless independent film, I will include this exact same scene somewhere in the middle third of it." I have accumulated a number of those scenes in my head, if only I could find some connective theme to loosely yet artistically string them together, plus figure out what to do in the first and last thirds of the flick.

So the scene was this: A woman, who I estimated to be 4' 6" tall and about 175 pounds, rides past me on a small electric scooter wearing a blue and red one-piece bathing suit, traveling at about 12 mph. She reaches the stop sign at the corner by my house, turns around and rides back up the street. Running along beside her is a boy, who I estimated to be 6' 0" and about 225 pounds, wearing khaki shorts, flip-flops and no shirt.

This is the part of the post where I really should be including a video, or at least a photograph. Unfortunately, I was not quick enough nor daring enough to capture either one. I have no good excuse, because the lady made at least three trips last night, sometimes with and sometimes without the boy. And it wasn't the first time I've seen her.

In fact, Mickey and Courtney were lucky enough to be present for our very first sighting a couple of weekends ago. Meaghan, of course, has seen this as well.

But let's keep moving: Immediately following this scene, I witness the neighbors' 3-year-old Mexican boy standing on the front step of his house, peeing through the railing into the bushes. Also, not the first time I've seen this.

I couldn't shake the sense that I was watching some kind of avant-garde Vaudeville show. Like maybe next I was going to see a bear riding a tricycle, and he would turn out to be the neighborhood ice cream vendor, pulling a wheeled ice box behind him. And the neighborhood kids would come running out and buy ice cream from him, as if nothing were out of the ordinary (i.e. as if he were not a bear on a tricycle).

Even without the bear, the scene gave me a good laugh. I am no closer to a comedy writing career, however. I'll probably become a firefighter or termite inspector or something.