Story II, for your pleasure.

Last night as I drifted to sleep, I pictured a productive Wednesday where I would: clean out my closet (literally, not figuratively), buy a new bulb for my getting-dimmer-by-the-minute headlight, sign up for a bicycle permit so I can bike to class without worrying that I'll return from class with a ticket on my handlebars, go to the gym, and study for Thursday's mechanical quiz. However, my alarm - set for 9:30am - did not go off. Instead, I woke up at eleven-freaking-thirty-ante-meridiem. Nix the closet cleaning, bulb buying, and permit purchasing and maybe that will give me some time to blog and window-shop for Christmas.

Instead of relaxing with a cup of coffee this morning, I grabbed sub sandwiches with roommate J for lunch... and I haven't accomplished anything else today. Boo. Hiss.

Just to make sure I don't get anything done today, I'll tell a story from two years ago, when I was a sophomore in college, wide-eyed and bushy-tailed.

Once upon a time, roommate J, boyfriend M, and I all needed to take a nutrition class as a part of our separate major requirements. The class gods shone on us and granted us to all have theory together. For the nutrition there was theory and lab. Theory was held in a giant auditorium that could seat around 350 students. That's about how many were in our nutrition class. (Labs, though, were broken down into about 30 students per lab.)

On the first day of class, our professor asked us to write our name, major, and one thing about us on a note card. Back story: I have been called "funny", "humorous", "hysterical", etc. my whole life. It's how my parents describe me, it's what boyfriend M says partly made him fall for me, and it's how I'm sometimes introduced to people. Example: occasionally my friends will tell their friends that I am hilarious before we're introduced and they'll say: "This is M. The hilarious one I told you about?" Oh, thank you, now I am going to have to make this person laugh all evening. No pressure.

So I'm tapping the note card on the arm of the chair thinking of what I should write. "I love nutrition." No, that's a lie. "Nutrition intrigues me. I'm always striving to be healthy." Nah, I had a Red Bull, cheese fries, and sour gummy worms for dinner last night. The professor tells us to pass our cards to the center and the "about me" line is still blank. "I am funnier than Tina Fey," I scribble hurriedly, and passed my note card in.

Huge mistake. The next time our nutrition class met, the professor asked into her microphone for me to raise my hand. Just me. Timidly, I raised my hand. "You funnier than Tina Fey?" she asked in her adorable Chinese accent. Red face. "Er. I mean, I--", I started to respond but she cut me off. "Okay, then. I love laughing. You perform joke for us next class."

I spent the following two days researching jokes - literally researching - and planning an outfit to wear. I didn't want to look frumpy while making an idiot of myself in front of my 350-ish peers.

Friday came and I was called to the front of the auditorium. "They'll laugh," I thought. "Be cool. Stop blushing. Stop freaking blushing!" My heart was pounding. I told the joke. (I apologize to you all, but I don't remember the joke.) Maybe 40% of the class laughed.

1. That should of earned me an automatic A. It didn't. I got a C in the course.
2. I'm not funny on command. I had no idea a quick scribble would land me a stand-up gig in front of my 350 peers.

The best part? When I was hired for my job at the dessert shop, a girl I work with (the owner's niece, actually) smiled perkily and said "I know you from somewhere! Oh. Oh! You're the girl that told a joke in front of our nutrition class a couple years ago..."

Hi, I'm M. I am majoring in hospitality and planning to open a coffee shop. I'm not funnier than Tina Fey. In fact, as my nutrition class peers probably think, I am not funny at all.