[Thump, thump, thump (rapping on tabletop)]

Now for some knocking.

[Knock, knock, knock]

Stop me if you’ve heard this.

Don’t open the door if you don’t feel like it. Either way is perfectly fine. If you don’t want to listen anymore, please stop the tape and throw it away. I just wanted to sit down awhile by your front door talking to myself, that’s all. I have no idea whatsoever if you’re listening or not, but since I don’t know, it’s really all the same whether you do or you don’t, isn’t it? Ha, ha, ha.

OKAY, WHAT THE HELL, let’s give it a go.

• • •

STILL AND ALL, this imperfection business is pretty tough going. Who’d have thought talking into a microphone without any script or plan would be so hard? It’s like standing in the middle of the desert sprinkling water around with a cup. No visible sign of anything, not one thing to cling to.

That’s why all this time I’ve been talking to the VU meters. You know, the VU meters? Those gizmos with the needles that twitch to the volume? I don’t know what the V or the U stand for, but whatever, they’re the only things showing any reaction to my ranting.

Hey, hey.

All the same, their criteria are really quite simple.

V and U, well, they’re like a vaudeville duo. There’s no V without U and no U without V—a nice little setup. As far as they’re concerned, it really doesn’t matter what I babble on about. The only thing they’re interested in is how much my voice makes the air vibrate. To them, the air vibrates, therefore I am.

Pretty swift, don’t you think?

Watching them, I get to thinking it doesn’t matter what I say so long as I keep talking.

Whoa!

Come to think of it, not too long ago I saw a movie. It was about a comedian who just couldn’t make anyone laugh no matter what jokes he told. Got the picture? Not one soul would laugh.

Well, talking into this microphone, I’m reminded of that movie over and over again.

It’s all very odd.

The very same lines when spoken by one person will have you dying with laughter but when spoken by another won’t seem funny in the least. Curious, don’t you think? And the more I think about it, that difference just seems to be one of these things you’re born with. See, it’s like the curvature of the semicircular canals of your ears having the edge over somebody else’s, or … you know.

Sometimes I find myself thinking, If only I had such gifts, how happy I’d be. I’m always doubling over laughing to myself when something strikes me as funny, but try to tell someone else and it falls flat, a dud. It makes me feel like the Egyptian Sandman. Even more, it’s …

You know about the Egyptian Sandman?

Hmm, well, you see, the Egyptian Sandman was Prince of Egypt by birth. A long time ago, back in the days of pyramids and sphinxes and all that. But because he was so ugly—I mean, truly ugly—the king had him sent off into the deepest jungle to get rid of him. Well, it so happens that the kid ends up getting raised by wolves, or monkeys, maybe. One of those stories, you know. And somehow or other, he becomes a Sandman. Now, this Sandman, everything he touches turns to sand. Breezes turn into sandstorms, babbling brooks turn into dunes, grassy plains turn into deserts. So goes the tale of the Sandman. Ever hear it before? Probably not, eh? That’s because I just made it up. Ha, ha, ha.