Seriously... I'm Kidding

by Ellen DeGeneres

  I know having pets isn’t exactly the same as having babies. It’s not like I have to stay up all night nursing our cats. I mean, I do but I don’t have to. But our animals have taught us valuable lessons that could be applied to parenting human babies, should we ever change our minds. Things like when your baby wants to communicate something, it will moo loudly. And when your baby is hungry you will need to feed it some hay. Maybe that only applies to cows. But one thing we know for sure is that you should never sneak up on your baby, and when you’re feeding it, you should always hold your hand flat. Now I’m thinking of a horse. You know what, we mostly know about animals. We’re not gonna change our minds.

  My Bucket List

  Buy more buckets.

  Travel to distant lands to learn more about different people, cultures, societies. Watch more Discovery Channel.

  Wear more white.

  Learn to fly.

  Build a canoe.

  Tell everyone I know I built a canoe.

  Go see the philharmonic, concerts, operas. Watch more PBS.

  Call more people “rascal.”

  Watch someone run a marathon.

  Learn to speak a foreign language, like Australian or British.

  I Am Not Lazy

  I am not a lazy person. In fact, I’m a very busy, hardworking person. I host a daily talk show. I have my own production company. I have my own music label. On the weekends I manage a Kinko’s downtown. But every once in a while I do something very lazy, shockingly lazy.

  A few months ago, I got home from a long day of entertaining America and many other parts of the world and I sat on my sofa to watch some television. I realized my favorite cat, Charlie, wasn’t with me. She usually finds me as soon as I come home. My other cats are more independent. They spend summers backpacking through Europe and call when they need me to wire money.

  But Charlie and I have a very special relationship and I wanted to let her know I was home. Don’t worry, I’m not one of those crazy cat ladies. I just like my favorite cat to know I’m home so we can talk, have dinner together, and watch Hoarders.

  I assumed she was in our master bathroom because that’s where the cats like to hang out when we’re not home. They record most of their “cute kitty plays with loofah” YouTube videos in there.

  Now, in order to let her know I was home I could have walked to the bathroom or yelled for her, which is what I usually do. But for some reason on that day I did something else. We have an intercom where I can push a button and talk to someone in another room. Sometimes it’s fun to use when we have company. I’ll get on it from a different part of the house and whisper stuff like, “Is there anything you ever really wanted to tell God? I’m listening.” Oh, we have fun.

  Anyway, I got on the intercom and I said, “Charlie, I’m home! Charlie!” and I hung up and I waited for Charlie to come running. I didn’t think anything of it until I looked over and Portia was staring at me.

  She said, “Did you just intercom the cat?”

  And I looked at her and I had no choice but to say, “Yes. I did just intercom the cat.”

  In my defense, I was very tired and if I wanted to walk all the way to the bathroom to find Charlie I would have had to get on my Segway, ride it to the escalator, take the escalator to the third floor, cross the champagne fountain, get my retina scanned, and deactivate dozens of laser beams.

  Okay, that isn’t true. I would have had to walk down the hall.

  I’m not usually that lazy. Have I ever tried to take my pants off without taking my shoes off first? Yes. I also recently got in my car one morning, noticed a stain on my shirt, and then continued to drive to work instead of going all the way inside to change.

  I’m sure you have all done that at some point. You get dressed in the morning and you’re excited about your outfit. Right before you leave the house, you notice a coffee stain right in the middle on your shirt or a little hole right in the armpit. Of course that means you put it back in your closet like that after you wore it the last time. “Oh, that’s not too bad. I can wear that again.”

  Once you see it, instead of having to go back and find a new shirt to match the pants and shoes and neckerchief you already picked out, you shrug and say, “I’ll just tell people it happened on my way to work.”

  We’re getting lazier and lazier. There is so much technology that helps us be lazy. There are now cars that park themselves, which is great not only for lazy people but for people who also hate not having scratches on their bumpers. There are vacuums that vacuum for us. Thanks to Bud Light Lime, we don’t even need to squeeze the lime into our own beer anymore.

  Humans aren’t supposed to be so lazy. We’re not supposed to go from work where we sit for hours and hours in the same chair staring at the same computer screen to our homes where we spend hours and hours sitting on our sofas playing video games and watching reality TV.

  I’ll admit I’m guilty of watching a lot of reality TV. Nothing makes me feel lazier than complaining I can’t find the TV remote to change the channel—and then eventually finding it so I can watch an episode of I Shouldn’t Be Alive about a sailor who had to float on a twig in the middle of the ocean for two months after his boat capsized and sank.

  It wouldn’t be so bad to watch all these reality shows if they weren’t so time consuming. They’re each two hours long! There’s a dent in my couch the shape of my entire body and it got there after I watched a single episode of The Bachelor. I also like to watch American Idol, Survivor, The Celebrity Apprentice. That’s like ninety-seven hours of TV to watch every week. That barely leaves any time to focus on what’s truly important in life—Facebook and Twitter.

  By the way, I’ve noticed that there is a show to find the “next” everything—the next model, the next chef, the next designer, singer, dancer, entrepreneur. Pretty soon there will be a reality show to pick the next president. We won’t even have to leave the house to vote. “Sorry, sir, during this debate you did not stuff enough marshmallows into your mouth. You will not be moving on to the primaries. Please bring me your torch.”

  What they should do to save us all some time is combine every show into one giant reality show. Who wouldn’t watch a show about the next tap-dancing celebrity bachelor apprentice who can survive in the wilderness while singing about losing weight? Ryan Seacrest would host and we would all watch.

  Let’s all challenge ourselves today to get up and move a little more. You know what we should be doing more of? Squatting. Let’s all squat more. For every YouTube video you watch, do a squat. For every video game you play, do a lunge—not at someone. Then squat again. And then thrust. And then lunge again. And then squat. And then thrust.

  And now work your arms by turning the page. You’re doing a great job.

  Note: This chapter was dictated but not read.

  Aspirations: A Short Short Story

  I want to be an astronaut when I grow up,” said young Delilah.

  “You live in a tiny village outside a small town next to a great big city,” said her mother. “You will stay here and work on our farm. You will never be an astronaut.”

  Indeed, Delilah worked on the farm for many years and grew old. On her final day, in the care of local villagers, she turned and asked, “Was I an astronaut?” And they said, “Yes. You were a great astronaut.” And she said, “Really? I was?” And they said, “Shhhh. No more talking.”

  Social Skills

  There has never been a time when people could communicate and express themselves as instantly and as much as they can now. It’s hard to believe, but there was a time when communicating meant we had to WRITE LETTERS! (If you’re reading this book to your kids as a bedtime story, and I highly suggest you do, now might be a good time to teach them about handwritten letters, record players, VCRs, and the first season of The Hills.)

  Nobody writes letters anymore, which means nobody has pen pals. I remember when I was probably about ten years old I had a pen pal, and writing letters back and fort
h with him was one of my favorite things to do. His name was Steve and he lived in one of those huge mansions that’s so big it has a name. It was called the Louisiana State Penitentiary, and he told me it was even bigger than the mayor’s mansion. We’d send letters back and forth and he’d ask me to send him my favorite books and small pieces of metal or wood that were lying around and all the money I could find in my house. And I’d gather them all up and put cute little stickers of cats on the packages and send them away. It was so fun. Eventually we stopped writing because I moved to another city and he moved out to live on his own. He called it “solitary confinement.” I was always so impressed by his vocabulary.

  I’ve always liked writing. I like the feeling of having a nice pen in my hand. It feels like I’m creating something when I put pen to paper, even if it is just a doodle of a flower or a note that says, “If you ever park in my spot again I will have your ass towed.” It’s a nice feeling.

  When you physically write something down you’re forced to take time to actually think about what you’re writing. We don’t really do that anymore. Now we just press buttons. We can delete things and change things at our leisure. We’re so spoiled. Think about what cavemen had to go through when they wanted to write something down. They had to chisel it into stone. It probably took hours just to write “Dear Krog. Going out for bread. Be back in twenty. Glok.” If they made a mistake they’d have to go out and find another flat stone and start all over. Who knows if they ever even made it out for bread. I do know they used to club each other over the head a lot, so I’m not saying we should do everything like the cavemen. I’m just saying nobody writes letters anymore.

  Now everything is electronic and instantaneous. We e-mail, we text, we Facebook, we Twitter, Skype, instant message, iChat, blog, dance interpretively on YouTube. Every person who has a passing thought, opinion, question, or answer can express it immediately on his or her computer, phone, laptop, tablet, or other portable electronic device that will be invented and revolutionize communication in the short window of time between my writing this book and it being published.

  Way, way back in the day, like in the 1990s, if you wanted to tell everyone you ate waffles for breakfast, you couldn’t just go on the Internet and tweet it out. There was only one way to do it. You had to go outside and scream at the top of your lungs, “I ate waffles for breakfast!” That’s why so many people ended up in institutions. They seemed crazy, but when you think about it, they were just ahead of their time.

  Right this second, someone is probably reading this book and thinking, “I’m thirsty for tequila.” I’m guessing that’s what they’re thinking because that’s what I’m thinking as I write it. So that reader is going to take to their Twitter account and tweet, “Reading Ellen’s hilarious new book. Thirsty for tequila.” And if that makes people want to buy the book, I think that’s great.

  What’s not so great is that all this technology is destroying our social skills. Not only have we given up on writing letters to each other, we barely even talk to each other. People have become so accustomed to texting that they’re actually startled when the phone rings. It’s like we suddenly all have Batphones. If it rings, there must be danger.

  Now we answer, “What happened? Is someone tied up in the old sawmill?”

  “No, it’s Becky. I just called to say hi.”

  “Well, you scared me half to death. You can’t just pick up the phone and try to talk to me like that. Don’t the tips of your fingers work?”

  It’s even more awkward when we’re face to face with people. It used to be exciting to make plans with friends because you could sit and catch up and talk about what’s been going on in your lives. Now when you see someone there’s nothing left to say. You’ve already seen the pictures from their trip to Rio on Facebook. You’ve read their tweets about the latest diet they’re on. And they already texted you about the pregnancy scare. So you end up just sitting and staring at each other until you both start texting other people.

  Whatever we do say has to be short because our attention spans are now about nine seconds long. We talk in short bursts. We can only read up to 140 characters at any given time before we’re on to the next thing. We don’t even have the patience to wait for Minute Rice. We’ve moved on to instant rice. Because really, who has time to wait a full sixty seconds for rice? I’ll tell you who. Nobody.

  We have TiVo because we don’t have the time or patience to sit through commercials. And we have on demand because we don’t just want movies and TV shows available to us at any given moment, we downright demand it.

  Just to give you a little example of how patient people used to be, did you know that the opening credit sequence to Mister Ed back in the early sixties was a solid minute long? (I’ll give you thirty seconds to pull it up on your phone so you can see it for yourself.) People had no choice but to sit through the whole thing, and they loved it. They paid attention to it. “A horse is a horse, of course of course. And no one can talk to a horse of course. That is of course unless the horse is the famous Mister Ed!” And it keeps going, for almost a minute more. Now the opening theme song to a TV show is a guitar sting. “Ba-bow!” And we’re inside someone’s kitchen.

  Now granted there wasn’t anything else for people to watch on TV at that time so they didn’t have much of a choice. It was either sit through the theme song or play with a yo-yo.

  I bet a lot more people read back then. I have to say it’s impressive that you’re taking the time right now to read this book. It’s so rare for people to actually set aside time to curl up with a book and read. By the way, I don’t know why you have to curl up to read a book, but that’s what people say. You can’t just say you’re going to read a book because then someone will ask, “Well how are you gonna read it? What position will you be in?”

  “I’m gonna curl up.”

  “Oh, good. So you’re not gonna stand?”

  “No, no. I’m gonna curl up.”

  “Okay, good. Hey, you’re not gonna lay on your side, are you?”

  “No. I promise. I’m just gonna curl up.”

  It’s an awkward position to be curled up. I like to lie flat or try out a lot of different positions—I’m still talking about reading. We don’t curl up to do other things. We never say we’re gonna curl up and surf the Internet or curl up and knit. In fact, if you’re curling up while you’re doing anything besides reading you might want to look into Boniva.

  Anyway, what was I saying? Oh yeah, we lose focus, have no attention span, yada, yada, blah, blah, blah. You know what—you can check out my Twitter page or go to my website for more information on this.

  Dinner with a Psychic

  A friend of mine recently told me she went to a dinner party with a psychic. It really struck me as a fascinating concept. It’s one thing to go to a psychic and have a consultation, but it seems like a whole other thing to socialize with one. Could he read her mind the whole time? Did he know when the party was going to get boring? Did he know when they were going to run out of bean dip?

  Here is how I imagine the conversation went at dinner between my friend and the psychic. In this dramatic interpretation I will refer to my friend as “Susie” and the psychic as “Psychic.”

  SUSIE: Hi, I’m Susie.

  PSYCHIC: I know.

  SUSIE: How do you know Janet?

  PSYCHIC: I knew you were gonna ask me that. We met through mutual friends. How do you know Janet?

  SUSIE: We went—

  PSYCHIC: Just kidding. I already know. Do you want me to pass you the salad?

  SUSIE: Yes, please.

  PSYCHIC: I knew you did. Would you like more water?

  SUSIE: No thanks.

  PSYCHIC: I knew you didn’t.

  SUSIE: Okay, well it was really nice talking to you.

  PSYCHIC: You’re going to have spinach in your teeth later.

  SUSIE: Thanks.

  PSYCHIC: I knew you were gonna say that.

  Ideas

>   There’s a famous quote—“When genius strikes one must be ready to play, or they shall be at the mercy of the taskmaster.” I don’t know if you’re familiar with it or not. Okay, I just made it up.

  But while I was writing this book, a lot of my ideas came to me at all sorts of crazy times—out at dinner, in the middle of the night, even while hanging upside down on a Pilates machine. I never knew when a brilliant idea was going to hit me because my brain is working 26/7. Since I wanted to be prepared at all times, for the past year I kept a pen and paper on my person—don’t worry about the specifics of where or how. And every time I had a great idea, I would write it down so I wouldn’t forget it.

  Here’s an idea that came to me while I was hanging upside down on my Pilates machine eating dinner in the middle of the night. I think it will prove to you that genius can strike at any moment of any day.

  Do you ever notice how people—Hang on, I can’t make out that word. I think it says “smile.” Does that say “smile”? No. Maybe it says “simile.” Why would I write down the word “simile”? I don’t even use that word in my daily life. Why would I write it down? Is that a “Q”? Or a “G”? I don’t know what that says. Does it say “monkey”? I don’t remember thinking about monkeys. I remember thinking about pineapple, but that does not look like pineapple. Actually, it kind of looks like a pineapple. It just doesn’t look like the word “pineapple.” Maybe it says “Greenland.” I was just thinking about Greenland. Or was it Iceland? Where does Björk not live? Is this even my handwriting? Who wrote this? Is that blood? No, blood isn’t light blue. It’s definitely ink. What is that word? Astronaut milkshake?