Comics can’t resist coming back on anything that happens with a gag, hoping to get a laugh and I’m no different. As for me, some things that happen in my life aren’t real until I can talk about it on stage. I guess this is what happens after doing stand-up for 30 years. You’re always looking for the source of your next routine. Consequently adopting a black kid born in London I couldn’t resist. Mostly self-deprecating and an observation about how drastically my life has changed and I think for the better by the way but I guess time will tell. Unfortunately when you’re not on stage and you think of something and say it out loud those in earshot don’t always understand where you might be coming from. Recently when I volunteered to help escort his class to a church for some sort of Easter appreciation event I was in charge of my son and his mate who is also black. They both wanted to hold my hand so I had one on either side. Their teacher then told me for the walk over I would need to be on the street side with the two boys on just the one side away from traffic. Seemed like a good plan but before I rearranged them I said “You know like this it’s kind of like an Oreo cookie.” The teacher stared. “You know, two hard cookies with a soft white bit in-between.” She smiled, stifled a giggle then did a reflex check to make sure no one saw or heard any of that in case someone might’ve mistaken it as inappropriate. My favorite moment that actually happen and I tell on stage was a little while back we were in town and he was being less than cooperative. He wanted chips and I was being the dad to tell him you can’t have any as you had some the day before. This did not go over well so like any 5 year old boy he kept on insisting with the goal of getting his way if he kept at it long enough. My job of course is not give in so when he went the tears route and started crying for mommy with me holding his hand while he was pulling away suddenly I realize from all outward appearances it now looks like an older white guy dragging a back kid crying for his mommy somewhere he doesn’t want to go. Suddenly a stranger came up to us and said ‘I’m a father is there something I can do?’ I told the stranger we we’re fine and my son stopped with the tears and chirped in with ‘daddy, do you know this man?’ The look on the guy’s face was great when he suddenly realized he assumed the wrong thing. He nodded and without saying another word made a hasty exit. He meant well but some scenarios don’t result in you being the hero and he just realized that. Fortunately it was a nice diversion for me as all the way questions came up about why that man felt he needed to tell us he was someone else’s daddy. Questions like “Did he lose his little boy?” and “Will we see him later?” and my favorite “Should we help him find his own family?” Fantastic. There’s more material from all this but that’s for a later posting.