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Comedian remembers her dad’s dirty jokes

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My shrink says it’s important not to deify someone when they die, but he’s a killjoy who has to open his big fat trap about everything. But lest I get too sentimental, my father could also, at times, be a really insensitive know-it-all. I once played the Westbury Music Fair opening for Jay Leno, and it was quite a big deal. This was my “hometown” theater, and I can’t tell you how thrilling it is playing the place where, growing up, I’d seen the Carpenters, Gladys Knight and the Pips, and six different versions of the Beach Boys, among others. My father came along to the gig with me, and it was really cool. They had a sign backstage welcoming us and generally made a big fuss over him. I went on and had a great set, and I was ecstatic.

Now, at the time, I was doing this joke about how I had been married for four years, and how the gift for that anniversary is wood. The joke being “Honey, I know you had your eye on that antique necklace, but, heck, you’re so special, I got you twenty yards of one-by- eight.” So when my father saw me after I came offstage, the first thing he said to me was, “Carol, lumber is sold in feet, not in yards.” Not “Congratulations.” Not “You killed!” It was one of those things where he just couldn’t help himself, unfortunately. (Little footnote to this story — the next day, our local newspaper, Newsday, did a review of the show and favorably reviewed Jay and panned me. My father read the review and said, as any good Jew would, “The reviewer is clearly anti-Semitic!”)

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My father was an optometrist for sixty years, and he enjoyed his professional life. He never lived his dream of becoming a comedian or a comedy writer. But he was really happy for me that I did, and I never felt one pang of resentment or jealousy from him (the lumber joke notwithstanding). The first time I did the Letterman show, he said he “cried like a baby” when he saw my name listed in the TV section of The New York Times. But whenever I feel bad that he never got to make it professionally, I think about what everyone says to me when they find out that he died. They always say, “He was so funny.” And I think if my father could know that being funny is the first thing people say about him, that would be enough and make him really happy. I know it makes me happy.

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Obviously, at this age, I’ve lost people in my life. But with a parent, it’s just different. I was very attached to my father and had this naïve little-girl notion that he’d always be around. So I’m finding acceptance of my father’s death is the hardest thing to accept.

See, I’m one of those people who don’t take no for an answer well. A big kicker and screamer from way back. You want your money back for something? You want some kind of compensation for some bad treatment somewhere? I’m your girl! But that’s what stinks about this whole experience. There’s no manager to ask for. Well, I guess that technically would be God, but come on, he’s got more important stuff on his “to do” list than coming down to customer service for this.

I do wonder whether I’ll get to see my father again. I’m sure most people wonder about this when someone they really love dies. But my father was very matter-of-fact about death. I know he believed that when you go, you go. Heaven was for gentiles. But if he’s wrong, then I think he’ll be sorry that he didn’t make a plan with me. ’Cause a plan would have been right up his alley. “Carol. When you get here, there’s got to be an information booth of some type. So meet me to the left of it. Not right in front of it. That’s where everybody will go. Left. No, facing-the-booth left! And when I see you and kiss that punim of yours, I’ll give you the rest of the particulars.”

Excerpted from “When You Lie About Your Age, the Terrorists Win” by Carol Leifer. Copyright © 2009. Excerpted by permission of Villard, a division of Random House, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.

© 2009 MSNBC Interactive

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