Страница 37 из 39
To this day Chunk has still not taken a dump in front of me, and I respect him for it. I always said I would never get a dog until they came out with one that either doesn't take a dump or knows how to bartend. The fact that Chunk has no problem taking a dump in front of Ted makes me respect him more. I hope that one day soon the two of them can take dumps together.
My dog, Chunk
Chapter Eleven.Deep Thoughts by Chelsea Handy
My tendency to make up stories and lie compulsively for the sake of my own amusement takes up a good portion of my day and provides me with a peace of mind not easily attainable in this economic climate. The following is a catalog of lies that have been left open-ended, and in all these instances, the victims have not been made aware that they have fallen prey to complete and utter nonsense. "Dumbassness" is the word I would use to describe the condition they suffer from.
SILLY SULLY
My friend Stephanie believes that Sully, the pilot who landed the US Airways flight in the Hudson River, is currently Ted's and my personal pilot. We had arrived in Turks and Caicos a day after Stephanie, on a regular plane like everyone else. That night at di
"Did I hear you say Sully, the guy who landed that plane, was your pilot?"
"He's an American hero is what he is," I told her.
"I know he is!" she exclaimed. "How did that happen?"
"Ted called and offered him a bunch of money," I told her. "Apparently he's a huge fan of the E! network and Keeping Up with the Kardashians. He now provides this service for a lot of people. We're third on his list. So if no one else is flying that day, we get him. He's a pretty interesting guy."
"That is so cool!" Stephanie exclaimed, while everyone else at the table was rolling their eyes except for my brother Ray, who has always been a little slow on the uptake.
Ted got up from his seat and moved down to the other side of the table while I explained to Stephanie that Ted isn't the best flier and Sully has basically become a member of our family. "He and Ted go golfing together all the time. He was supposed to come on this trip, but Beyonce needed him tomorrow. He says she uses the ThighMaster the entire flight. She just sits there working out her thighs for hours straight while Jay-Z raps."
"Oh, my God!" Steph cried. "She is such a mess!"
My friend Paul was sitting across from me, shaking his head and pretending to be texting on his BlackBerry. Eva piped up. "Sometimes he lets Ted sit in the cockpit."
"That is so cool. Ted must feel like one of the Beatles! Who else is on the list before you?" Steph asked.
"That's so fu
Stephanie stopped chewing her food. "Shut up."
I never told Stephanie I was kidding, and sometime later, when I was flying out for a stand-up show in Atlantic City, she texted me on the way to the airport and asked if I was flying with Sully.
"Yup. He just texted me that he got Marley & Me for the flight. How cute is that?"
"I want to meet him! Also, see if you can get any more dish on Beyonce and Jay-Z," she wrote.
"I already did. Apparently, Beyonce has to load up an entire separate plane for her wardrobe because Sully hates the House of Dereon and thinks Beyonce's mother is trying to exploit her own daughter with her tacky designs. Sully refuses to do it. He's way in on the drama."
"Who knew a pilot from Pe
"I'm on it," I typed back. As for my brother, I'm unclear if he even knew who we were talking about, since there's a chance he entirely missed the news story about Sully landing on the Hudson in the first place.
THE CHALLENGER
A year ago I told one of the writers on my staff, Heather McDonald, that I was being offered the main role in a movie about Christa McCauliffe and the Challenger space shuttle blowing up. Heather is by far the most gullible person on my staff, and all the writers on the show are constantly making up ridiculous stories to tell her just for the sake of our own amusement. She's not stupid; she just seems to love anything involving free items, money, or drama.
"The weird part," I told her, "is that it's a comedy, and they're allowing me to hire my own writer to write my part." This was enough to pique Heather's interest and motivate her to put some ideas together and get a head start before some of the other writers came up with anything substantial. "Meryl Streep is playing Christa McCauliffe," I added, "but she's dead and only comes down from heaven to talk to me in the movie."
My partner Tom walked into my office halfway through this debacle and took no time to jump in and add his own spin. "Chelsea plays her daughter, who grew up never knowing her mother and is now married and in the process of becoming an astronaut. But every time she gets into a space shuttle, she has terrible flashbacks about the day."
"Are you going to do it?" Heather asked me.
"Yes, obviously, I want to! Meryl Streep? I can't pass that up. And they have an offer out to Hank Azaria to play my husband."
"That's so weird." She sat on the sofa in my office looking at me. "How can they make this a comedy?"
"That's where you come in, Heather," Tom told her. "We're going to have all the writers submit ideas for the story line, since the studio is willing to hire a personal writer from Chelsea's staff to outline the story. They definitely want it to have a comedic twist."
"It's so weird that they would make it a comedy," she said. "That was a really horrible event."
"It is weird," I agreed. "It's downright creepy, but who am I to take a moral stand on someone else's vision? That's why I need help. I'm going to ask all the writers to come up with an outline for the movie and some really fu
"She does?"
"Yes," Tom assured her. "I've seen her talk about it on Inside the Actors Studio. She feels robbed."
"Well, it is a good subject for a movie. I mean, everyone remembers where they were that day. I remember when they a
"Yeah, I remember, too. Although I was younger, of course."
"So basically," Tom interjected, "you need to write a few pages of dialogue and/or plotlines and submit them along with the other writers, and then we're going to decide who will make the seventy-five-thousand-dollar writing fee."
"Seventy-five thousand dollars?" Heather asked.
"At least," he told her. "Could even turn out to be more. How soon can you get something to us?"
"I'll start working on it this weekend," she said. "Is there any other information you can give me?"
"Well," I told her, "my husband in the movie hates for me to be in space. He just wants me to do something where I spend the majority of time on earth. There's actually a scene where I shit my pants in a space-shuttle simulator." I looked at Tom, who had turned around and was going through my belts. "I already told her they have an offer out to Hank Azaria to play my husband."
"No," Tom corrected me. "Actually, the last I heard was that he passed and they were going in a different direction. They were going to make an offer to Justin Timberlake, who they say is interested."