Yeah, I Said It

by Wanda Sykes

  When you’re out drinking and you know you gotta drive, you try to be responsible, right? You do. You have good intentions. You tell yourself, you say, Okay, I’m driving tonight. I’m gonna have two drinks. That’s it. That’s what you say. But when you get with your friends, that type of reasoning goes right out the window. Because your friends, they want you to act an ass, too. Everybody has to be drunk; those are the rules. You don’t want somebody sober, recalling the events the next day. You don’t want to hear, “Girl, you peed on yourself.” “What? I did not. You make me sick. I hate hanging out with your sober ass.”

  You want everybody drunk. That’s why no matter what you do—if you go, “No, no. Two drinks, man. I’m—I’m done,” you always get the one friend that’ll go, “No, no, no. Come on, man. Have another drink. You’ll be all right. I’ll follow you home.” And we all fall for that for some reason, right? I never understood the logic behind that, exactly. It’s like, okay, I’m gonna get my drunk ass in my car. And you’re gonna get your drunk ass in your car. And we’re gonna have this drunk caravan just flying down the highway.

  How does having a drunk behind you improve your driving? But we all do it. The only thing that’s good for is when you crash. Your drunk friend will be there to tell the cops what happened.

  Drunk: Ooh, Officer, I saw the whole thing. It was tragic. Okay, this is what happened, right? Can you get that light out of my eye, Officer? Oh, no you can’t? Well, okay. This is what happened. Now you see how the road goes this way? Well, she went that way. I was following her until she hit that tree. And then, I said, “Well, maybe she lives in the woods. Maybe she got a tree house. Maybe she bakes chocolate chip cookies with those little elves.” Hey, easy with the cuffs.

  They Take Your Car

  Several states have strict laws to crack down on drunk drivers. In New York, if the cops pull you over and they think that you’ve been drinking, they can take your car. They don’t even have to test you. If they think you’ve been drinking, you’re walking home. I live in New York. I sold my car, to hell with that bullshit. I had a nice car, too. I sold my car and bought ten shitty cars. Hey, they weren’t going to catch me out there. And with me, the cops wouldn’t even have to think about if I had been drinking. I probably would’ve had a glass on the dashboard.

  So now it’s like, “Okay, you got me. No, no, no, Officer. It’s fine. Take my car. I have nine more. That’s right. I have a fleet of shitty cars. I’m proud of them, too. I have personalized tags that say SHITTY 1, SHITTY 2, 2 SHITTY 4 U, SHTFLWBYU, IBSHITTY. I have a bumper sticker that says, My other car is just as shitty.

  Free Drinks

  When I was married, I didn’t go out with my single friends because I never had a good time. We’d go to a club and a guy would come over to me, “Hey, can I buy you a drink?” They’re like, “Oh, no. She’s married.” I was like, “Yeah, I’m married, but I’m thirsty. Why don’t you shut the hell up? Let me have a free drink.” Women love free drinks. We do. They taste better when you don’t pay for them. But I noticed something; guys don’t buy drinks like they used to. This feminist shit is starting to backfire. Remember the good old days when the bartender would come over and say, “Excuse me, the gentlemen over there in the corner would like to buy you a drink.” “Okay, beautiful.” You would get your drink and the kind gentleman would do the greatest thing of all. He would keep his ass way over there in the corner and leave you the hell alone. He would let you enjoy your vodka tonic in private. All you had to do was shake your drink at him and mouth, “Thank you.” Then smiling through clenched teeth, you’d say, “Stay over there. Don’t bring your ass over here.” Guys don’t do that now. A guy buys you a drink and it gives him the right to stalk you for the rest of the night. He’s in your face before the drink gets there. You know that guy.

  Guy: How you doin’, girl?

  Me: Fine. Thanks for the drink.

  Guy: Yeah, you can call me Drink Man. What’s your name?

  Me: Wanda.

  Guy: Wanda. Wanda, Wanda. I’m wanda-ring how you gonna pay me back for that drink later on.

  You go to the ladies’ room and he’s there leaning against the sink, like he’s the bathroom attendant.

  Jerk: Well, well, well, we meet again. Drink Man. Girl, you keep this up and I’m gonna think you following me.

  You’re on the dance floor having a good time. You turn around.

  Jackass: Remember me? Drink Man. Yeah, come on, girl, I paid for that drink. You owe me.

  Me: Look, you better get the hell away from me. You gave me a drink, not a kidney.

  Skeet Skeet

  I’ve been in quite a few strip clubs. Hey, I’m a comic on the road working with a bunch of men. It’s pretty much a given that I’m ending up in a strip club during my travels. Florida by far has more strip clubs than any other state I’ve been through. Florida got so many strip clubs, they need to change their state flag to just a brass pole. “Florida, the ass-showing state.”

  I went to this one strip club, and they actually tried to charge me a cover. Can you believe that? Wanted me to pay. I was like, “Pay? Are you out your damn mind?” I was like, “Come on, man. I brought my own titties. You really don’t expect me to pay to see titties. I can see titties for free all day if I want to. Hell, I can even play with them. Can you do that in there? I didn’t think so. Come on, BYOT, man.”

  I’m not gonna lie to y’all. Once I got inside and saw those triple-Gs and stuff, I went back and paid. I was like, “Oh, oh. I get it now. I see. Those are professional titties in there. My titties couldn’t do that.” I guess if your titties are bigger than your head, then yeah. You should be able to pay some bills with them.

  Go check out the strip clubs, ladies. I promise you, lots of laughs. Did you know that they actually put ATM machines in the strip clubs? Did you know that? I think it’s unfair. They are just taking advantage of the poor horny bastards. There should be some zoning law where these guys should not be able to have access to their money in the same room with naked women. Naked ass in the same area of an ATM machine spells overdrawn for these guys. You should see them, too. Just running to the ATM machine, the stripper is punching in his PIN code with her nipple. He’s just happy. “I think she likes me.” I’m like, “Get your dumb ass away from the machine.”

  I went to this one club in Florida. Man, that was the end of strip clubs for me. It was like the lowest, the nastiest, I mean, just raw, naked ass. I got a glimpse of what Sodom and Gomorrah must have been like. It was so gross. There’s no DJ, no liquor license. And the girls, they didn’t even bother dancing. They just stood up there, legs spread wide open. “Look at it! Is that what you want, huh? Look at it!” I was like, “Oh, my God. I gotta get up outta here.”

  But the guys, they were just in there looking at it. And it’s not like they were weird-lookin’, freaky guys. They were just your regular, average-looking guys. But they just needed to look at it.

  That’s when I had a whole new respect for men. It must be really hard being a man. You guys have that thing up in your head, messing with you all the time. How do you get any work done? How do you guys hold down jobs, man? You know, you at work, minding your business, and all of a sudden that thing just kicks in. “Let’s go look at it. Come on, man. When’s the last time we seen it? Let’s go look at it. Go to the ATM machine.”

  I was hoping to see some celebrities when I was hanging in the strip clubs. You gotta go to Atlanta to catch celebrities, especially athletes. At one time a club in Atlanta was under investigation for drugs and prostitution. They were questioning a lot of professional players. They said that Patrick Ewing and other pro players were in the strip club getting blow jobs and other sexual favors.

  I don’t think blowing Patrick Ewing should be considered a sexual favor. That is more like a sexual sacrifice. Patrick looks like Early Man; he probably has a prehistoric dick. It probably has a knot on it. And you thought his knees were bad!

  Vegas

  I love
Vegas. No wait, I love casinos. That’s the one place they don’t allow kids. You can see kids running around Vegas, but they don’t allow their little asses on the casino floor. If I could get a room with a king bed between the roulette wheel and the blackjack table, then that would be the perfect getaway. On the casino floor there’s just grown people drinking and throwing their money away. I never go to Vegas expecting to win money. I always go with a limit of how much I’m going to lose, including clothes and self-respect.

  I almost got kicked out the last time I was in Vegas. I know you’re thinking, What in the world did her crazy ass do to get kicked out of Vegas? It was some bullshit. First of all, like any other story about getting kicked out or getting shot, they all start with, “Okay, I had been drinking, maybe I was a little drunk.” Yep, that was my condition. When I’m drunk, that’s when I feel a lucky streak coming on. There’s no strategy behind gambling, so I like to do it when I’m drunk to remove all reasoning and thought. I’m the one yelling, “Hit me” at the blackjack table when I have eighteen. Hey, they don’t call the game Twenty-one for nothing. I want twenty-one, dammit.

  Of course I was losing, so I was cursing. “Thirty, aww, fuck, busted again.” After a few hands, the pit boss comes over and says, “You can’t use that type of language here.” I’m like, “What language? This is Vegas and it’s three o’clock in the morning.” I can’t think of anything that I could possibly say that would be a problem in Vegas. Seriously, I can’t. Maybe, “I have a bomb.” But then again, have you seen some of the high rollers? I think even if you say some shit like that, if you haven’t gone over your limit, they’ll still let you play. So I ask the pit boss, “What the fuck are you talking about?” And he says, “You said the F word.” I thought he was fucking with me, so I said, “Man, quit fucking with me.” He got pissed. He was serious. “If you continue to use that language, I will have security remove you from the casino.” Now I’m thinking this is some bullshit. “This is Vegas, anything goes! I can pay somebody to fuck me, but you’re saying I can’t say ‘fuck’? Man, fuck you!” So now he gets on the phone to security and the three black men who I was with scatter like roaches when you turn on the light.

  Everybody runs except for my friend Dino. Dino don’t give a fuck. Dino stayed right there, trying to get me to run, too. “Come on, Wanda, let’s get the fuck up outta here. This is your favorite casino, you don’t want to get kicked out of this mu’fucka.” I was so touched by my good friend Dino looking out for me that I turned to the pit boss and said, “Dino said ‘fuck,’ call security on him, too.” That’s when Dino turned to another friend who was hiding behind the slot machines and gave up his wallet, jewelry, and coat. Dino was like, “Wanda, you might joke your way out of this, but my black ass is going to jail.” I wasn’t going to let that happen.

  After ten minutes passed, no security, no nothing. So I mosey over to the pit boss and say, “Hey, man, where the fuck is security?” He gets irate. He’s like, “That’s it. You’re outta here.” So he picks up the phone. I didn’t move. When you’re in the right, don’t budge. I didn’t do shit, so I wasn’t going to run. This conservative asshole was trying to impose some personal standard that he had set as proper behavior for women. So what, he picks up the phone? I didn’t care. I’m thinking, Unless he’s calling my mother, I ain’t scared. As long as I don’t hear, “Is she out there showing her ass again?” I’m not moving.

  Eventually security shows up; yeah, I waited for them. These big dudes walk up to me smiling, like they were surprised that I was still there. I didn’t even let them ask me what was going on. I said, “Man, this muthafucka is trippin’ because I said ‘fuck.’” They laughed their asses off. Then they told me to take my drunk ass to bed. Dino stopped praying and we all went home. I love Vegas. That pit boss probably saved me a couple of hundred dollars.

  Smoke Up

  When President Reagan was in office, he said that marijuana was the most dangerous drug and threat to America. It causes memory loss…naw, too easy. Why was it the most dangerous threat? Because America wasn’t making any money off of it. Once you’ve had some Colombian, domestic just doesn’t cut it anymore.

  Like my man Jimmy Carter, I’m for decriminalizing marijuana. As long as tobacco is legal, marijuana should be legal, too. I’d rather be in a room full of weed smoke than cigarette smoke. With weed smoke I’m looking for a bag of chips, not for a lump in my breast.

  At least weed has medicinal uses. It clears up glaucoma, helps AIDS and cancer patients get an appetite, and it gives relief to chronic pain sufferers. No doctor has ever told a patient, “Smoke a half a pack of Newports, that should help clear that up.”

  Pain, who’s to say who can cope with pain? We all have different thresholds. If I get a headache, why can’t I smoke a joint? Advil upsets my stomach. I’m a chronic sinus sufferer. I get a sinus infection as often as Bobby Brown goes to jail. Why can’t I tell my ENT, “Doc, that antibiotic you gave me is not doing the job. I think I need a dime bag of hydro. The poor air quality doesn’t bother me when I’m high.”

  I get so angry when on the news they show DEA agents out in a field with flame shooters, destroying a perfectly good crop of marijuana. I’m like, “What the hell? They are setting it on fire. We were going to do the same thing. It may have taken me a little longer to get rid of all of it, but basically we’re on the same team, man. What’s the difference? Just because you have on a jacket with some letters on the back of it makes it okay for you to light it up? What if I wore my old high school letterman jacket while I smoke? Is that okay?”

  It’s ridiculous watching them destroy something that naturally grows out of the ground. Why? Just because our government says it’s illegal. The government says they’re looking out for our safety. They are trying to protect the public. Well, I hate lilies. The big ones, they stink and make me sneeze. I want to see some DEA agents out there setting a greenhouse of lilies on fire. If anybody is caught buying or selling them, throw their lily-loving ass in jail. These people are useless. All they want to do is sit around and smell their lilies all day. Lock ’em up!

  I’m sick of the government lying to us about how they are trying to protect the public. That’s bullshit. The government is trying to protect their pockets. The government doesn’t give a damn about our health. They say they don’t know enough about marijuana and the mental effects. So? They know everything about alcohol. People die every day from alcohol. Alcohol and the effects of alcohol will kill you. And not only is it legal, you go out to a club and there’s a two-drink minimum. How can our government, which claims it wants to protect us, allow establishments to make us drink? What a bunch of hypocrisy. If you need a liver transplant, don’t come see me at the comedy club, because they’re gonna make you drink.

  Now don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying that alcohol should be illegal. Lord knows, I wouldn’t want to live in a world where ya can’t get a good margarita. I’m just saying that we should be able to enjoy a fat joint along with it. Stop “protecting” us, and dictating what drug we use to destroy ourselves. However, there should be zero tolerance for those freakin’ lily-heads.

  Actually, I don’t smoke weed…that often, because I have things to do. Like most weed smokers, I don’t get much done when I’m high. I giggle and point, that’s about the most that I can handle. I have to schedule my weed. “Let’s see. Tuesday is wide open. I don’t have any meetings. Let’s pencil this in, Weed Day. Tuesday is now Weedsday.”

  Alcohol and the occasional weed is it for me. I haven’t tried and don’t plan on trying any other drug. I’m too scared…or for the kids, I’ll say I’m too smart. I can be a loud asshole when I’m drunk, so I know me coked up? Somebody’s gonna shoot me. Plus, I don’t like the whole drug culture. I see somebody snortin’ coke, I leave the room. It amazes me how they keep talking like they didn’t do anything. That’s scary. I need a noise or something. When you do a shot, you groan or do a “whoo-hoo, yeah!” When you take a hit off a joint
you cough or say, “Yeah, that’s good shit.” But I’ve seen people snort coke and never miss a beat of conversation. I’m like, “Damn, acknowledge that you just had a rolled-up ten-dollar bill up your nose or something.” Cocaine is all denial. Shit, even when you take a vitamin you say something like, “I feel a cold coming, trying to kick it with some vitamin C.”

  When you get past weed, that whole drug culture is shady. It becomes very dark. Your life is in danger. At least if you drink too much and get alcohol poisoning, somebody is gonna try to help you. They might kill you in a car crash on the way to the hospital, but they tried to help you. If you have a bad weed experience, somebody is gonna try to help you. You might die while they are trying to call 911. “Man, we gotta call nine-one-one. What’s the number?” But somebody is gonna try to help you. You OD around some real drug addicts, that’s your ass. Drug people get the fuck out and take your wallet with them. Nobody is trying to go to jail for your dead ass. You might as well get in the position of how you want your chalk outline portrait to be.

  Man, as soon as I finish writing this book, I’m getting fucked up!

  Part Twelve

  Purple Pain

  School is in and Prince is the teacher, baby. I love Prince. I stayed with him through the name changes and everything. I love that little sexy bastard. He’s a genius. I’m so excited he’s back. I have something to look forward to musically. When Prince opened the Grammys with Beyoncé, I was right there in front of my TV with the Tivo rollin’. That was just a preview to what was to come, because I had tickets to go see him live at the House of Blues later that night. I was downright giddy.