After years and years of painstaking research, utilizing various research tools such as placebos and double-blind phone surveys, I have come to 5 conclusions:

5 - Walking by a storefront in Chinatown that has skinned chickens hanging in the window, and saying “Aflac” in the same funny voice as #4, is truly one of the funniest things ever.

If anyone was wondering how many times today I heard the phrase “Don’t touch me, I have shingles”, I’ll give you a hint, it lies right smack between 0 and 2. That’s right, one time. Today I heard exactly one person proclaim their shingles.

I swatted him away and ended up getting bit on the nose by his parrot. I couldn’t hear too well in the bar but I think I heard the parrot call me a cracker. That hurt more than the bite. At least the parrot was kind enough to lick away my salty tears. That actually tickled a little, truth be told. It felt a little like cat-licks, but not exactly.

The nasty little bugger was nesting on the south side of my plate. I was initially oblivious to its existence, but the look of fear on Paul’s face let me know that something was amiss. Something that could scare a grown man. Something evil. He slowly pointed to the mozzarella stick and I cautiously…perhaps stupidly, squeezed it between my trembling fingers and picked it up. It had a big red eye on its tip and was eerily reminiscent of the creatures from both Tremors and Dune, but scarier, like Tom Arnold in Big Bully. I was frightened, but that didn’t stop me from holding it high to show all the other patrons around the restaurant in an effort to spread the fear. While doing so, I noticed a spooky lady in the corner staring at me with glassy, deathlike eyes. She was clearly the evil little spawn of Steve Perry and Liza Minnelli. I scowled and pointed the fried space mutant in her direction and she didn’t flinch even a little bit. She wasn’t scared at all. My new pet growled softly as I slowly turned away from her and waited until our waitress returned so that I could get a to-go container to house my creepy little buddy. When she returned I put the infected digit into the Styrofoam house and closed it tight. I poked a couple of holes so it could breathe, although I’m not certain that it doesn’t live on fear, or human blood, or even Sea Monkeys. Paul found a pen and wrote Dangerous Sea Creature Inside on the container and drew a dangerous sea creature as a warning to all who may want to peer inside. When the waitress came back again, I asked her if she wanted to see what was inside of the container. She wasn’t amused and just said no before rudely walking away from me and my evil Mozzarella stick of doom.

I did a show a little while back at a place just south of Boston called Vinnie Testas. Quantity over quality is their slogan, or it should be. When you drive up there’s a couple of valets who I wouldn’t trust to walk my dog, much less park my car. And that’s saying a lot considering that I don’t even have a dog. The first person you get to meet inside the building is a maitre d’ named Vinnie. He informed me that, yo, the comedy show is in da ballroom behind me, as he grabbed his nuts. The house special was more than likely fried ravioli. The portions were fantastically enormous. One of the comics ordered spaghetti that was served in a bowl large enough to bathe a small chinaman. The meatball was the size of Rubin Stoddard’s head.

It was made even more fun seeing how much enjoyment Sam got out of the evening. She wasn’t being laughed at, as everyone in the crowd knew her. It was, however, incredibly surreal and I hope my future children are just like her so that I can take them to shows with me for the crowd to laugh at them singing songs in their funny voices.

One day I woke up to find this ribbon stuck to the bumper of my car. Some thoughtless vandal tried to play a joke on me, but little do they know that I, in fact…do support pimpin.