To Pinpoint a Punchline

Abigail was walking down Seventh Avenue in New York City when something tripped her step, making her spill her artisanal latte. It was a little black book on the sidewalk. What’s this?, thought Abigail. She opened the book and in thumbing through the pages, she realized that it was a comedy notebook. No name was assigned to the book, but the inside cover of the book the owner had scribbled a note that promised a reward of $20,000 to return the book. Holy Moly!, Abigail thought to herself, Returning this book could pay for a lifetime of free lattes! The only problem was, there was no name or number listed in the book.

Did the owner forget? Was this a joke of its own? Abigail couldn’t help but wonder if the content in this book was even worth $20,000. In all honesty, most of the jokes weren’t that funny. Nonetheless, the idea of a lump sum of that amount sent Abigail spinning into how she was going to reunite this little black book with its rightful owner. As she continued reading the worn, scribbled pages of this book cover-to-cover, Abigail realized that she had learned this individual’s every thought on topics ranging from God to Twizzlers - yet she still didn’t have the author’s name. How is this even possible?!, she proclaimed to herself.

Then a light went off in Abigail’s head, I’ll tell the jokes on stage! Someone will recognize them! And with no previous experience, Abigail signed up for her first ever open mic. Much to her surprise, the jokes she selected bombed onstage and no one recognized any of the material. Night after night, Abigail told the crowd that she was seeking the rightful owner of these jokes, and if anyone could help her identify the owner, she would give them a cut of the reward. After a couple of months with no success and very few laughs, Abigail was ready to give up. At this point, her disdain for this elusive entertainer had grown as she felt the book was incredibly overvalued.

Then on a Tuesday night, while sitting at a dive bar in Queens waiting to perform, Abigail’s luck changed. A woman tapped her on the shoulder and said “Excuse me Miss”. Abigail turned around and to her utter surprise, Sarah Silverman was standing there. “I believe you have my comedy notebook.” Abigail was speechless, barely gurgling up a soft-spoken “yes” in response.

“I heard that you’ve been using my material in an effort to find me, that’s pretty funny”, Sarah laughed, “Did you take notes on what worked?” Bewildered, Abigail stood there wide-eyed before awkwardly stating that she hadn’t taken any notes. “Well that would’ve been helpful”, Sarah sneered in jest. “The jokes didn’t land”, Abigail blurted out, much to both of their surprise. “So you’re saying the book isn’t even worth $20,000? Great!”, exclaimed Sarah.

At this point, Abigail was red in the face with embarrassment and stammering to pull together a cohesive sentence. Sarah stopped her saying, “Relax, I’m kidding. Of course they didn’t work for you. As a brand new comedian, your delivery is terrible. More importantly, they aren’t your thoughts and an audience can always tell when you’re speaking from the heart. Plus, these are all the first iterations of these jokes, none are in their final format.” Sarah smiled, putting her hand on Abigail’s shoulder and continued, “The creative process is messy and that’s why you need a notebook. It's a place to dump all of the loosey goosey thoughts running around in your head so that you can work out what you really want to say.” Sarah paused, “In fact, none of these jokes are worth $20,000. The reward is for ensuring that my raw, unfiltered thoughts don’t end up in the wrong hands. My publicist would drop dead, she doesn’t even know the book is missing, so consider the $20,000 hush money.” Abigail let out an exasperated laugh and quipped “Well you didn’t have your name in the book so your identity was safe the whole time.”

“Whoops”, Sarah chuckled, “Well let’s settle up on this reward then, how about $20,000 and two tickets to my next big show?”, Sarah said, “We'll see just how bad these jokes really are.”