You're Doing Great!

by Tom Papa

  “That might explain it,” he said. As if that behavior explained not only my eye smudge but why I didn’t get accepted into an Ivy League school and become a doctor. At the same age when he was playing chess and dreaming of medical school, my friend and I were beating each other in the head with pillows.

  He put me at ease about my condition, which he explained wouldn’t get worse and while not perfect shouldn’t pose any future problems. While he spoke, my eyes reached maximum dilation, or in basic terms, I couldn’t see squat.

  We shook hands and he said goodbye to me a little too loudly, as if my ears were the problem. Carol led me to the desk. I was bumping into things and making jokes, but this was no laughing matter. I really couldn’t see. I just picked a random credit card out of my wallet and handed it to the woman at the desk, which may have explained the doorman and the fancy fish tank.

  Carol said I could wait in the office while my vision returned, but in that stubborn male way I assured her that I was more than capable of seeing my way out. I had to stop myself from telling her how good my eyes were in high school as I felt for the door.

  I guided myself out of the building by memory. As he opened the door, the doorman gave me a New Yorker “See ya later, buddy, unless you see me first.”

  I laughed, probably in the wrong direction, as the cool breeze told me where the outside of the building was. I headed out onto the street and there I stood. Alone. With no idea of where I was going or how I would get there. I needed my eyes. I needed help.

  I needed my wife.

  This is how life will be in the future. When my everyday vision, my best vision, will be like this dilated mess. And while my wife’s eyes may be better than mine, she’ll have her own problems, like a bum hip or weak hearing. But it will be all right. We’ll have each other to lean on as we spend the rest of the day making our way back home.

  Maybe we’ll stop off at the market and pick up an apple or a tuna sandwich that we can split for dinner before watching a show together and turning in early so we can get up at sunrise and head to our next appointment.

  Because that’s how it goes.

  HAVE YOU EVER GOTTEN SO DRUNK ON TEQUILA THAT YOU AND YOUR FRIENDS ATTACKED A TACO BELL AND TRIED TO FREE THE BURRITOS? I HAVE …

  IT’S BAD FOR YOU AND THAT’S OKAY

  I woke up this morning feeling like someone hit me in the head with a hammer and covered my eyes in fiberglass insulation. As I stumbled into the bathroom, confused, unsteady, and trying to remember what I had done to myself the night before and why my tongue tasted like a liver-and-tobacco sandwich, it all came back to me. Simply put, I drank too much.

  It’s at this moment when we all say to ourselves, “Never again.” And then you drag around all day, trying to hydrate and popping Advil, all the while feeling like crap but happy with your decision to take at least a night off. And then five o’clock comes around and without even thinking about it, you find yourself ordering a drink at the bar or mixing a martini in the kitchen.

  We love to do things that are bad for us.

  The reason for this lapse of judgment is that truthfully I didn’t really make the decision not to drink. That was a different guy. That was Morning Tom.

  You’d like Morning Tom. Morning Tom is a great guy who gets up early, returns emails, and gets things done. Morning Tom puts on workout clothes and exercises before the day begins. He takes a blender and fills it with fruit and protein powder and makes fruit smoothies for breakfast.

  But then five o’clock rolls around and a different guy shows up. This is Nighttime Tom. And he’s a very different guy. He does not work out. He does not care about getting things done. He’s concerned only with having a good time, and the fastest way to get that going is to start getting out the ice at 4:58 and the martini shaker at 4:59 so we are guaranteed to be drinking at 5:00. He’s an alcoholic, is what he is.

  You’d like Nighttime Tom, too. You might even like him more than Morning Tom. He’s a lot more fun. He’s nothing but fun. He doesn’t make smoothies. He takes that same blender and uses it to mix up a batch of margaritas.

  But as with all people who are a one-person party, there’s a good chance he’ll end up in jail. Morning Tom won’t call you from prison in the middle of the night, begging you to bring bail money. When the phone rings you can bet it’s Nighttime Tom.

  It’s fascinating that we all have these two personalities inside us. This is the human condition at its most conflicted. One side is responsible and hardworking, plowing through the day, and the other is the bad student who knows just how to get you into trouble.

  We’re all deviants. We love to wander from the safe and healthy path, in little and big ways. We all have a wild side to us. We are beasts with desires and sometimes lose control, which is why they came up with police, paddy wagons, and the Bible.

  But we have to do things that are bad for us. Some of my most memorable moments have been out on the edge. I can’t remember a single vegan meal that I got at Whole Foods, but I sure as hell remember the night my nephew Sam and I spent way too much money at Il Mulino steakhouse eating medium-rare rib eyes after ice-cold martinis and a bottle of Châteauneuf-du-Pape.

  Did I remember any of the nights that I went home early and got a good night’s sleep? Not really. But I’ll never forget when my friends and I were so drunk that we woke up on a boat in the middle of a lake. We didn’t know what lake it was, and none of us owned a boat.

  I love cheese. I could do a whole book on my love of cheese. And I know without a doubt that cheese is bad for me. Not only because it makes me fat but because I have an allergy to dairy products that makes my sinuses explode.

  For years I thought I was allergic to cats, mold, trees, weeds, and old people. But after years and years of blowing my nose and sneezing like a crazy person, the culprit turned out to be dairy products.

  I discovered this by mistake, after TV’s Marilu Henner told me to cut it out of my diet along with meat, alcohol, and sugar. That’s a weird statement. She didn’t tell me directly, but we were on The View at the same time. That’s an even weirder statement. Actually she was a guest on the show and I had come in to do audience warm-up. It went horribly wrong.

  Allow me to explain.

  I was a young comedian and at the time never woke up before noon, but I got an offer to fill in for the warm-up comic on The View at 7:00 A.M. I had never done anything like this, but I was poor, my girlfriend wanted to go, and I took the job. I shouldn’t have.

  I was building a career in smoke- and curse-filled nightclubs and now I was thrust into a studio filled with morning-television enthusiasm. I didn’t belong there. I also had no idea what I was doing or how I should do it.

  They handed me a microphone and told me to “be funny” and “keep the audience energized” in between segments and during the commercial breaks. My way of being funny at the time was telling distasteful, somewhat dirty material about living in New York. No one at The View was asking for this.

  They cut to commercial and I came sauntering out, with sleepy eyes, a wrinkled shirt, and told an off-color joke. No one responded. I mocked someone’s shirt in the front row. Now I was just mean. The entire audience of nice suburban moms looked at me as if I had broken into their house and was peeing on the carpet.

  I started to sweat.

  The show came back from commercial again and I sat on the side, trying to think of what to do. My girlfriend smiled weakly and patted me on the back. That’s not something people do when things are going well. I was desperately trying to come up with some joke that would work as they threw to another break.

  “I know,” I thought to myself as I walked back out. “I’ll do the joke about long nipples.”

  I gave it my best. A woman gasped. The crowd shifted in their seats. A security guard put his hand on his gun, not sure if he should do something. I was going down in flames.

  That’s when I saw Barbara Walters, who was the main host at the time and a national treasure
, walking slowly toward me shaking her head. At eighty years old, this woman who had seen her share of national tragedies now had her sights set on me. I wasn’t sure what was happening. I thought that maybe she was going to support me and tell the crowd how funny I was. But as she got closer I heard her muttering under her breath, “No, no, no,” and she took the microphone out of my hand.

  “That’s enough,” she said. The crowd applauded.

  I sat back down. My girlfriend looked the other way. Any confusion and hurt that I felt was only made worse when Marilu Henner came out to promote her new diet book, to wild screams and applause. Order had been restored. Barbara had saved the show. The crowd really went berserk when they found out that everybody was getting a free copy of the book. Even the inappropriate comedian who seemed to be there only to sweat and annoy people got one, too.

  I swallowed my pride and read the book, or rather listened to my girlfriend talk about the book, and we followed her advice. For a month, we went off alcohol, sugar, dairy, and meat.

  It became clear that dairy was a huge part of my diet, and it was killing me not to eat it. But as I tried to abstain, I discovered an amazing thing. I stopped sneezing.

  It was over. After decades of blowing my nose, taking pills, and going to doctors, I was actually cured. I could pet my cat in a moldy cellar at the height of allergy season and I was fine. As long as I didn’t eat cheese. Cheese is really bad for me.

  Thank you, Barbara Walters.

  * * *

  But there was no staying away. Not a chance. I love cheese. Chips, omelets, sandwiches, what good are any of these things without cheese?

  Wine and cheese. Cheese and crackers. Burger and cheese. There’s no way I was stopping. I’d rather blow my nose every day.

  This is a perfect example of something I know is bad for me. It makes me sneeze, it makes me fat, and it probably clogs my arteries and slows my heart. But when I’m holding a slice of Mimolette or spreading blue cheese on a cracker or all over my face, I couldn’t care less.

  You have to enjoy your life! Too much of a good time and you end up in pain. Too little of a good time and you end up miserable. I don’t know anyone who follows all the rules who’s fun to hang out with. They might be okay for a while, but soon you’ll get bored, and when you do it’s time to call that friend who keeps a beer funnel in his car and some cheese in his pocket.

  Sorry, Morning Tom.

  HAVE YOU EVER GOTTEN BUTT DIALED BY YOUR PARENTS AND FOUND OUT THAT EVEN THOUGH YOU WERE AN ADULT THEY WERE THINKING ABOUT PUTTING YOU UP FOR ADOPTION? I HAVE …

  HERE COMES SOME BAD NEWS

  While you’re trying to maintain a positive attitude and navigate through this stress-filled life, you need to avoid anything that can bring you down. Like phone calls from my mother.

  When my mother calls I brace myself for the news that someone has died. And while that might not be why she called this time, that won’t stop her from launching through a list of really horrible news. She’s scarier than Wolf Blitzer and Fox News combined.

  “Did you hear? Uncle Dave fell again. This time he landed on the other wrist, so now he’s walking around with casts on both hands.… Don’t you remember? He fell off the toilet trying to get the bugs out of the light.… It’s true. I don’t even want to know how he’s wiping his butt, but you can bet it’s Aunt Carol’s job now.…

  “Did you hear about Chris? Her dog has post-traumatic stress disorder. Seems that he was playing in the yard and he sat on a hornet’s nest. She saw him through the window running around like crazy and thought he was playing, but he was getting the bejesus stung out of him. Well, she took him to the vet and everything was fine, but now he won’t go in the yard. You know Chris and how she is with that dog. She treats the thing better than I treat your father. Well, now she’s taking the dog to a therapist. Can you believe that? Therapy for a dog? How the hell does that work? Does the dog lie on a couch and tell secrets about his mother? It’s all too much.”

  At this point I’m starting to look through my liquor cabinet.

  “Remember when I told you that Carrie was acting funny at Easter?… You don’t? Oh yes, you do, don’t you remember everyone thought she was cheating on Kevin because she got a new haircut and joined a gym?… Well, yes, it does, why else would someone do something like that after they’ve been married for twelve years? You don’t all of a sudden decide to look good for no reason.… Oh, really, Mr. Wiseguy, well, guess what? Turns out she’s been having an affair with her personal trainer for a year and a half. That’s right. I’m always telling your father, those personal trainers are nothing but gigolos. What middle-aged woman needs a personal trainer? What sporting event is she preparing for? I’ll tell you what. The ‘roll in the sack when your husband is out of town’ event. You don’t get all sweaty in your yoga pants with a man who isn’t your husband unless you’re looking for trouble. So anyway, now they’re getting the divorce I always thought they’d get.…

  “Speaking of divorce, did I tell you about your father? He’s still with me and refuses to leave. Can you believe the nerve of that man? I’ve tried everything to get him to go. I stopped doing his laundry, I’ve stopped feeding him, and he’s still sitting over there on the couch like he’s the king of Siam. He won’t take his medications anymore, not that they ever made a difference. Who cares how high his cholesterol is anyway?

  “What he really needs is a pill to make him more handsome. Something that will tighten up some of those chins of his.”

  Now I’m reaching for a bigger glass.

  “Are you coming for Thanksgiving?… I don’t care that it’s summer, we have to plan these things or they don’t happen. I’m thinking of having Thanksgiving this year, but I have to be honest, I don’t think I can do any of the cooking.… Well, who else is going to have it? We can’t go to your sister’s house, they’re under construction again. And you know Mark; he’s the champ of starting a project and never finishing it. The poor girl hasn’t had a proper roof over her bedroom in two years. He ripped the thing off so he could put in a sunlight. Well, they have real sunlight now, boy. No, we can’t have Thanksgiving there or the crows will be coming through the hole in the roof and flying off with the turkey.… What do you mean? Why wouldn’t a crow eat a turkey? Because it’s a bird? That’s ridiculous. Everybody loves turkey.

  “No, we’ll have it at my house and that’s that. Everyone can bring something, but not you, of course, Mr. Bigshot who will probably be staying in a hotel because he doesn’t love his mother enough to sleep in a twin bed in the guest room.… It is not an attic, it’s the top floor.”

  Now I’ve laid the phone on the counter, started to make a margarita in a blender, and can still hear her from across the room.

  “Did you hear what happened to Uncle Bill? He stayed in a roadside motel so he could save an extra five dollars and he was attacked by bedbugs. They ate the skin off both of his legs from the knee down and now he has to walk around with pantyhose on like a drag queen. Aunt Laurie wouldn’t let him back in the house because she didn’t want to be infested, so he’s sleeping in the garage on an old army cot with baseball gloves on his hands like a baby with fingernails so he won’t scratch himself all up. Can you picture that? That’s got to be some sight. Anyway, you’ll see them at Thanksgiving.…

  “So, everyone will bring something. We’ll have a nice time. And if your father is still living here, maybe he can pick up a turkey at the Stop and Shop.… Are you there?…

  “Hello? I can hear you breathing. Why don’t you call me more often?”

  HAVE YOU EVER CHECKED YOUR BALANCE AT AN ATM AND IT WAS SO LOW THAT YOU HAD TO PRETEND THAT YOU WEREN’T THERE TO TAKE MONEY OUT? I HAVE …

  YOU’RE RICH!

  Money. We’re all obsessed with money, stressed about money, and trying to get more money. Money makes the world go round, keeps you above water, and helps you get a new shirt from time to time. But the amount you really need is all about perspective and I bet you don�
��t need as much as you think you do.

  Look, we all want money. You want enough to take care of your family, get yourself out of trouble, and save for the inevitable rainy days. You should be able to meet your obligations and have enough left over to eat in a nice restaurant, give to charity, or buy a miniature pony to cut the lawn. You should also have enough to buy something stupid from time to time, without your spouse worrying and calling you an idiot. If you’re a forty-year-old man and you want to buy an Xbox, you should buy an Xbox. You don’t need your wife calling you a moron. You’ll find that out in two weeks’ time, when you realize you don’t have any time for an Xbox because you’re a forty-year-old man.

  As the old saying goes, “Money can’t buy you happiness,” but it actually does for a while. It’s true that the joy money affords you levels off at some point, but there’s a lot of happiness to be had in the space between worrying if you can afford to get your teeth fixed and deciding whether you should buy a limo with a hot tub in it.

  There are times in your life when money is truly not important at all. When you’re young and poor you don’t need much money because you’re already rich. You have freedom and you’ll never have it again. There were times when I was young that I lived on five dollars a day. That’s what I made at the comedy club each night and it was enough. Who needs to worry about getting only five dollars when my favorite bagel with cream cheese cost three dollars?

  I loved being young and poor. No possessions, no worries, driving around in an awful car. Remember your glorious first car? I had a Toyota Corolla and it was all kinds of bad. For starters it was baby-shit orange; that’s what it said in the brochure. It didn’t start half the time but it was light, so I could get a friend to push it, pop the clutch, jump-start it, and away we’d go.