And now for something completely different! ;-) For today’s #FreeFictionFriday story I’d like to share a 5 minute stand up routine (850 words) that I gave at my first open mic night a few months back. It’s called, Not From Around Here!
Image by Tumisu via Pixabay, free to use.
...Next up, Lyn Perry!
Thank you, I’m Lyn Perry, glad to be here tonight. Thanks to Vorshay’s for hosting; and to Eric, our emcee.
And thanks to Kayla who served me my beer. Great service. I ordered the beer, she gave it to me. I gave her a tip, she gave me her name.
Didn’t give me her phone number. But that’s okay... it was only a two dollar tip.
...Plus, I’m a pastor.
That’s right. A pastor of a local Baptist church. So you know for the next few minutes, at least, the jokes will be fairly clean. Give your ears a break.
But yeah, I’ve been a pastor for thirty years, can you believe it? Started out in Western PA in a small town north of Pittsburgh. You know, they say things funny in Western PA, different accents, different words, different use of words.
First few weeks there I was being introduced around town. The head deacon took me to the Rotary Club, the Lion’s Club. And after one meeting, a guy comes up to me and I thought he said, “So, you’re the bastard at the Baptist church.” I said, “Excuse me?” “You’re the new bastard at the Baptist church.”
Pastor?
I couldn’t tell if he was pulling my leg or if that’s just how they said that word in Western PA. Like I said, they speak funny. Exploring the small town, we’d bump into people and they’d say, “Are you’ns from around here?”
You’ns?
I mean, I’ve heard of y’all, common in the south; and ‘yoose guys’ if you’re from Philly. But You’ns? That was new to me. So I said, “No, we’ns ain’t from around here.”
Found out we’ns ain’t a word. So they’d just stare at me.
Nevertheless, most people were friendly. Families in the church would come up after the service and introduce themselves. One mom told her son, Little Johnny, to shake the pastor’s hand. I put out my hand but Little Johnny immediately turned his back to me and buried his face in his mother’s arms.
She apologized and said, “He’s a little backward.”
Backward? Like he turned his back on me? “Oh, you mean he’s shy! He’ns is shy!”
Well, he’ns is not a word. She’ns is not a word. She just stared at me.
We’ns ain’t from around here.
Which is too bad, because the folks in Western PA want to be friendly. The thing is, the only way to be accepted into a small, parochial community is to have been born there ... or be related to someone in the area.
Well, our last name is Perry and there happened to be a number of Perrys in the area.
“Oh, are you related to the Perrys down Wampum way?”
No.
“We know some Perrys in Zeli. You happen to be kin?”
No.
They’d just stare at us after that.
Because of my position, though, we were made to feel welcome anyway. We were invited to a wedding reception. Didn’t have to attend the wedding, which was a pretty nice feature back in PA. Just bring a gift and show up for the party.
And you know wedding receptions have lots of food, so we were pretty excited.
Our name was even on the guest list. Perry. “Oh,” the guy at the door said, “I know some Perrys up in New Castle. You’ns related to them?”
I looked at all the food on the tables in the reception hall, and I was pretty hungry, so I said, “We’ns are tonight!” Well, come on in!
Of course, Baptists can eat pretty well and I was looking forward to our first after-church potluck supper. My dream came true when a little old lady told me one Sunday, “Tell your wife next week is our monthly Tureen Supper.”
Tureen Supper? I tell you, they use different words in Western PA.
So I told Julie, “Next Sunday we’re having a tureen supper.” What is a tureen, she asked. Isn’t that like a big soup bowl? Are they going to have a table full of different kinds of soups for lunch? Is it a contest? Do we vote on our favorite?
We didn’t have a tureen, of course, so we went to the second hand store, bought this huge ceramic tureen with a fancy ladle and soup cups hanging from the side. Filled it up with Campbell’s Tomato Soup, right? Brought it to church after the service.
We were the only ones who brought soup. It was just a regular old potluck supper!
But heh, they meant well. Beautiful people, wonderful experience. Eventually, though, we left for the big city! Came to Wichita, KS. Cosmopolitan, right? Ethnically diverse. Not insular - no funny words, no insider ways of saying things.
Met our neighbors right away. Guy from India down the street. He greeted us and said in his sing-song accent, “You must be a liar.” “I’m sorry?” “Aren’t you a liar in town?”
“Oooh! You mean lawyer! No, no. I’m Lyn Perry, the new bastard at the Baptist church.”
Thanks for having me out tonight!
Not From Around Here © 2021 by Lyndon Perry
Okay, so I may not have a career in stand up, but it was fun to try. I’m always experimenting, exploring new ways to tell a story.
With that in mind, I have a question for you...
If I were to commit to writing a new story each week for a year, would you pay to read them? And by story, I mean 2500 to 5000 words of brand new fiction, so not like these older flash fictions I’ve been sharing since we started this thing.
I’m thinking $5 a month or $50 for the year and you’d be the exclusive “first reader” of my weekly story. That’s basically a buck a story. Cheaper than a cup of coffee!
You’d also receive - before anyone else - a collection of 10 of those stories each quarter in e-book form. So what do you think? Should I do this on Substack and create a paid subscription option, or should I re-open my Patreon account and use that platform?
Open to ideas. Thanks for reading each week. I appreciate your likes and comments and emails. Have a great weekend and chat with you soon. - Lyn Perry
For more free content, visit: www.lyndonperrywriter.com