[Walking onstage, waving awkwardly]
Hey! Thank you, thank you. Give it up for yourselves for finding parking... in this economy.
So I'm at that age where I go to the doctor and they don't fix anything. They just give me a pamphlet. They don't even print it. They send me a link. I'm like, "Doc, my knee hurts." And he's like, "Have you tried subscribing to my newsletter?" And the link is broken. My body is glitching and my doctor is in beta.
Everything is a subscription now. I feel like my life is a free trial that’s about to renew. I got an email last week: "Your soul will auto-renew for $14.99 unless you cancel." I'm not even mad. I'm like, "At least they're transparent."
And I love when the self-checkout machine tells me, "Please place item in the bagging area." It's the most polite voice that will literally shut down your entire purchase if it thinks you have an extra avocado. I didn't know I was going to feel judged by a laser beam tonight. There's a person whose whole job is to stand there and watch me become an employee. They don't trust me with the bananas, but they trust me with the software.
Dating now is wild because you are meeting people through screens. My grandma met my grandpa when he fixed her car. She had a broken carburetor. I have a broken algorithm. My grandma's like, "He made sure I got home safe." I'm like, "She sent me a GIF." We swipe left on actual human beings like we're sorting socks. If you're single, your thumb has six-pack abs.
And then you match with someone and you have to have a conversation. How many times can we ask, "So what do you do?" And they answer with, "Oh, it's kind of hard to explain." I'm like, "Great. This is going to be a terrible TED Talk." I'm on a date like, "Are you saving lives or selling essential oils?" Either way, I'm impressed.
Speaking of saving lives, I got a smart speaker in my house. Remember when you had to lose your mind alone? Now you have witnesses. I had a full argument with myself over which way the toilet paper goes — don't even — and in the corner there's a little hockey puck listening. "I'm sorry, I didn't catch that." I'm like, "Stay out of this, Alexa." Nothing like having AI in the corner judging your cholesterol choices at 2 a.m. I'm yelling, "Play sad music," and it's like, "Playing Lizzo."
I called my mom the other day. Because I'm a good son and also she FaceTimes me when I'm on the toilet. Moms don't understand boundaries. She'll call and be like, "Where are you? At a bank? Let me show you this rash." No, Mom. She's proud of me in a way that concerns me. I'll be like, "Mom, I got promoted." She's like, "That's nice, but did you get the mail I forwarded about angels?" She's always forwarding something that started as a chain letter in 1997, survived Y2K, and now it's a Facebook meme. I'm like, "Who is Uncle Ray and why does he think 5G is causing allergies?"
Being an adult is just Googling "how to" followed by something you should've learned at 13. Like, "How to boil an egg" or "How to fold a fitted sheet." I have a degree and no idea where my birth certificate is. People tell you, "You'll have it all figured out by 30." I'm 34 and the other day my smoke alarm went off because I was making ice. Not even kidding. It was my fridge melting down with me.
And let's talk about sleep. Remember when we were kids and sleep was a punishment? "You go to bed!" Now I'm like, "Please, lock me in a room at 8 p.m., I did nothing wrong." I'll go to bed early and my body wakes me up at 2 a.m. like, "Hey, you remember that embarrassing thing you said in 2009?" Yeah? "Yeah, let's think about that."
We have all these apps to calm us down. Meditation apps. My friend was like, "Bro, you gotta try this app. It has nature sounds." I'm like, "Why do I need an app to listen to rain? It is raining outside." He's like, "Yeah, but this rain is curated."
Anyway, you all have been amazing. Remember, life is short. Cancel the subscriptions you don't need, call your mom from a safe distance, and place your item in the bagging area. Thank you!
