A Day at the Improv

/ bensbitterblog
My first attempt at building a house.

My first attempt at building a house. There was never a second chance.

I’ll never build a house. Never fix a car, fly a jet,  be a CEO, run a country or become the president of something (even if I’m the only survivor of the apocalypse, I will still only get elected vice president) nor will I do the counting of the votes for the accounting firm for the Oscars, or launch the space shuttle. When they say to dream big, they forget to say that you have to work hard for it and be good at mechanical things. But even more importantly, you have to plan to do all those things.

My organizies going on a vacation.

My “organizies” going on a vacation.

I’m not a planner. I never will be. I tried it once. Didn’t really take. The guys in my head in charge of planning, decide to go a vacation to Hawaii when I was young. They meticulously planned and plotted. Used excel and some math, did some statistical analysis to figure out the right time, place and conditions to break out. Though they didn’t need to do any of that, because the rest of my brain was so unorganized that they didn’t even notice that they were missing for 8 months. And by that time, the “organizies” had already stole all my organization skills and ran off to Hawaii never to be seen again. Not that I can blame them, because the leftovers are just a bunch of miniature minions running around without a leader to guide them.

My remaining minions wondering what to do after the organizies left.

My remaining minions wondering what to do after the organizies left.

Oh, we got some creative ideas, running back and forth between the left and right brain highway, but there is no stop light or traffic cops, so four way stops are a mess. And the freeway has signs, but no one ever reads them. The bitternet highway is either packed with cars running in the wrong direction causing accidents, or as empty as my pizza box is 10 minutes after I get it.

Coming through. Have an idea, can't control where it goes.

Coming through. Have an idea, can’t control where it goes.

There is no stand up comedian telling his jokes on this stage. That would require someone to write jokes in advance. And someone that wanted to stand. There’s comedy in there somewhere, but it is of the sit down, or better yet, lay down variety. And there is only improv in there. One that plays off a straight person that doesn’t understand sarcasm.

I’ve made attempts to bring the organizies back. Tried to write down inspirationally bitter speeches to people about how to follow their bitterness to achieve their greatest nightmares. I’ve tried prepping lessons for occasions when people wanted me to teach them something.  I’ve planned short stand up routines for girls to impress them enough to want to go on a date with me. I’ve tried to plan what to say to a boss when they really pissed me off about something, or wanted to get a raise, but the problem is always the other people. They never respond like the robot version of them my head thinks they will. People are unpredictable, and every time I’ve pictured the universal praise, the standing ovations, and the declarations of “Why have you waited so long to ask me out’s?” have always failed. Planning just never works out. So I just learned to improvise.

For instance, the blog posts that I spend the most time with, plan in advance, make lists for, check twice, make sure they are naughty and not nice, always get a resounding meh. But the last minute, “I have to slap something together because my boss is coming and I need to get back to work ones” somehow are the ones that get, “Genius level bitterness, Bitter Ben. I can’t believe I didn’t think of that.” And this was about a post I did on socks, because they were bothering me that day.

Speaking of which, I just realized that today is St. Patrick’s Day. And that’s bad, because I don’t see any rainbows around, and really need one, because I forget my lunch money and a few pieces of gold should fetch me a sandwich. And today was supposed to be some cowboy day at work, because one of our VP’s is “riding off into the sunset” IE retiring but I forgot my cowboy hat. Guess I will just have to improvise and use a western cowboy accent. Cause that’s the way we disorganized fools run things.

Or better yet...just bring me the pizza directly.

Or better yet…just bring me the pizza directly.

Speaking of running things (into the ground) that’s my cue, to ramble on about other things that are not important. Does anyone have something green I can wear? Cause I forgot to wear green, but don’t worry, I will improvise and find something that is green and attach it to my head, or find some not so clever thing to tell people when they ask why I’m not wearing green. And scene. ACTING! Day at the Improv!

ARRRRGGGGHHHHH

Bitter Using a Pen to Poke open a hole because there is no knife nearby Ben

50 thoughts on “A Day at the Improv”

    • Mine are usually ones I spend a couple of days formulating and writing down ideas and lists etc, and then do it and it becomes a big dud. But like today, I started writing about one thing and just went with it instead of doing what I planned and I assume it will be a big hit.

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  3. I found something green in my fridge on St Patty’s Day, does that count? Maybe I’ll write my next blog at the last minute, with no planning at all, and see if this is really some kind of phenomenon.

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    • It is the worst. It’s almost always the opposite effect. The ones I’m almost positive are huge winners turn out to be duds and the crap that I just want to throw away is “pure genius”. I guess people are really bad at figuring things like that out.

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  10. Years ago I wore an orange T-shirt to college on March 17. I forgot what day it was in the morning. I had a Dublin raised Irish Catholic in my night class that day. 37 F-bombs later I was still trying to improvise around the ire of a true Irishman. I wouldn’t have been surprised if the IRA met us both after class that night. Jeez.

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  11. I didn’t wear green on purpose so someone would pinch me. No I’m not a perv….well I take that back. I sort of am but my point is I wanted to be pinched so I could retaliate. But, no one pinched me. WTF?

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  12. I’m pretty mediocre at planning. I often leave things out and end up having to wing it. Which is bad, because I’m mediocre at winging it, too. Luckily, I have a plan to get better at planning. Happy Green Day, Ben!

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  14. I know what you mean about the posts you work the hardest on. They are apparently Rodney Dangerfields. It’s a fickle system and we’re better off not trying to figure it out.

    May you have a Bitter St. Patrick’s Day, Ben.

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  16. The Green clothing thing is simple to dodge. Anytime someone asks you why you are not wearing the correct hue for the day, tell them “I’d show you, but they have rules against showing those articles of clothing in public…”

    If they persist, start unbuckling your pants, look down, and exclaim “DAMN! Forgot I went commando today!”

    More points if you can pull off a sheepish look while doing so…

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    • People know not to ask me about that stuff anymore, because they know they will get something sarcastic and rude if they ask. And I can’t really pull off the sheepish, so I’ll just lose the bonus points for that.

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  18. That is what happens to me with blog posts, too! And, it used to happen with papers in college. The ones planned for and meticulously went over and over always got “meh”…average at best. The ones I slapped together at the last minute got the best grades. Well, not if it was TOO TOO last minute. But, the point is, there must be something to this phenomenon 😀

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