I live a life where I never know what’s coming soon to a theater near me. My wife and I are late to everything it’s a big problem in our relationship at some point now or to be if we have to be somewhere at six she tells me we have to be there at 5:30 in order to trick us into being on time. And it never works. And the reason why in her works is because I’m not the problem that’s why it doesn’t work all tricking me does is make me mad for an extra half hour every time we run in late for something we’re running late for the movies I want to check on my wife she was painting her fingernails my initial response is anger because it’s dark in a movie theater no one’s even gonna know. What you’ve done we could paint your face before we head out tonight no one would know bound saying things my wife it’s the woman I picked of all the women on the planet to spend my life with. I’m a little concerned how few of you laughed at that that was that was meant to be a joke that’s a ridiculous thing to say. Pics out of all the women on the planet? Most of the women didn’t even have a chance to interview for the position. Picked her out of a different group. I picked her are the women that lived near me and would say yes, if I asked them to marry me. It’s a much smaller group. It still means something to me, you know. I love my wife so when I see her paint her fingernails I keep my mouth shut. I just accept this is the life that I’ve chosen for myself. I live a life where I never know what’s coming soon to a theater near me.
And then I’d like to see what color she was painting her fingernails and she was painting them clear. And then my brain exploded. Are you even doing anything? Cuz it looks like you’re pretending to paint your fingernails! If you need me I’ll be in the front yard mowing it with the bubble maker. You let me know when you’re ready, I got so many bubbles to pop out here.
She told me she painted some clear cuz it makes her fingernail shiny and she likes them when to be shiny. And I support her in that decision. I want them to be shiny too I just feel like we could have achieved the same results by ordering popcorn at the movie theater. One large popcorn, extra butter, no napkins, we gotta the look we’re going for.
She’s late to everything one time my wife was late to watch Netflix in our own home. And that should be impossible because Netflix starts whenever you want. We picked on a movie and then she goes “don’t start it yet I have to go to the bathroom.” And then about a half hour later I’m just sitting there by myself wondering what’s happened to my wife, and go looking for her. I found her in the shower and I said why would you take a shower when you know I’m waiting in the other room by myself staring at a blank screen like a moron. And she said “I’m not taking a shower. I’m rinsing off.” And that’s how my wife beats me in arguments, she just denies that she’s doing the thing I said I was mad about and I don’t know how to fight back against that. I’m not smart enough. I have 37 years of life experience leading me to believe the one I’m seeing right now is called a shower you just told me that I wasn’t I don’t know where we go from here. You’re in a shower you’re naked there’s water how is this not a shower? If you were rinsing off you’d be in a colander I’d be holding you into the sink just like a bunch of grates trying to get the pesticides off. That’s how she always wins.
We were on a road trip one time and she fell asleep I said honey you got to wake up I’m sleepy too and we need to talk to me she said “I am not asleep. I am just resting my eyes……. Are you also airing out your throat?” Why is your mouth been open for the last 15 miles. You should start chewing because you have three gummy bears in your mouth that you don’t even know about. That’s how I’ve been staying away come over here shooting threes with the yellow gummy bears just trying to stay alert. I would have kept going but I’m only giving you the gross flavors. You think you’re gonna get a red one you’re not even awake you’re out of your mind.
I mention my girls already they’re my they’re my stepdaughters I’m a stepdad stepdad took over the lease on a couple of girls few years back. Thank you very much other other step parents here any other broken homes? Few? Go ahead you were able to come out where’s the where’s the step that out somebody raise your hand your stepdad right back there thing I said raise your hand you clap I mean yeah still appreciate. How many stuff kids you have sir one grand you are you and your wife gonna have more do you think got one on the way congratulations good for you is that amazing it’s amazing. I think that’s fun I would love to have more — I would love to have more enough I would probably love him more than the old ones do you think that that would be true I mean probably. Of course not on purpose, of course you would do your best to love them exactly the same. And they would never even know unless they watch this special. I would do my best to love them exactly the same we’re just admitting that I’m a human and there’s a small chance that I would love the new ones more and there’s nothing that I could do about it. And for those of you looking at me being judgmental right now, why don’t you pretend for a moment do you spent your whole life wanting to have a boat you wanted to grow up and be a boat owner and then one year you married someone the had a boat it was everything you thought it was gonna be when you loved that boat and you helped take care of it and then the next year you made your own boat using nothing by your genitals. Which one are you gonna be more excited about? It’s all I’m trying to say it’s not I don’t I don’t even think it makes you a bad person I think is just a pride of workmanship, I think.
Cooper’s you love the old Bo you love the old bum forever cuz that’s the boat let you know that you enjoy being the captain of a ship but if there was a hurricane and you only had time to save one of your boats from the harbor… you know which one you would pick.
It’s a lot of pressure being a stepparent, it’s a lot of pressure, I love the responsibility but it’s a lot of responsibility. I walk around with the weight on my shoulders every day I’m responsibility just knowing that I’m the third person on an emergency contact list. That’s terrifying. Being one’s not a big deal number one’s not a big deal but number three– if they call me that means there’s been an emergency and it’s been going on for a long time. It’s probably multiple emergencies if they make it to my own name on the list. There’s not even a line on the form for stepdad, that’s a writing candidate on the back of the form. I’m third in line to be in charge of these kids. I’m like the Speaker of the House, if it’s me some big stuff is happening.
My girls are teenagers now, 14 and 16 got a couple teenagers at home and they’re really embracing it and every time I tell people I have teenage daughters at home they’re always like aha good luck with that it’s really tough. You just somebody said it just now no one can resist letting you know how difficult it is and it is difficult sure but I think I’m good at it cuz I know how to talk to teenagers I speak their language. Just the other day they asked me for a ride to the mall and I said “oh, do I have to?” And then later they’re like “are you gonna take us or not?” And I go “I was gonna do it!”
They have embraced all the teenage stereotypes. Laziness is the biggest one. I’m proud of how lazy my girls are. People tell me all the time that as a parent you should want your kids to achieve things you weren’t able to achieve. And I could have only dreamt of being that lazy when I was their age. We didn’t have the technology available for this level of laziness. This is gonna make me sound ridiculous to the young people in the audience but it took me ten years to watch every episode of Friends. [Applause] My girls knock that out in the weekend. We’re having dinner together one night and while my daughter says doing ranch dressing for the salad and I said yes we do it’s in the refrigerator and then she said oh and then ate her salad with no ranch dressing. Like she had to take a trip to the Hidden Valley to get her hands on salad dressing. We don’t live in a mansion. We live in a home where our refrigerator is in the room that we eat in. She even have to get up and she just sat there and angrily choke down a dry salad – she was too lazy to swivel to the fridge. And I respect that.
We took the kids to a corn maze last fall– those are any corn mazes in Utah? Hey you guys pretty pumped up about your karma is this. Do you think the mountains are pretty you should see these corn mazes we are going on. This lipstick is from Deer Creek and this one is from a corn maze. We’re at the corn maze together for some fall fun, ten minutes into the maze my stepdaughter call me on my cell phone and said “Andy, I’m lost.” Yeah well, you are in a maze right now. That’s kind of the exact experience that we paid for this afternoon. Did you think that we had brought you to a corn hallway? What did you think was gonna happen? You’re lost? That sounds like I’m getting my money’s worth right now. How do you even think I could help you I’m also in this maze. What are you near right now? Corn? Oh yeah, I remember that part. It’s tricky. I knew it couldn’t help her so try to motivate her. I said “listen, we’re leaving in 10 minutes no matter what good luck to you if you don’t make it you live here in the corn now this is your new home give my regards to Malachi he’ll be raising you from now on. It’s going to be a strict religious upbringing for you.”
There are my stepkids but a step parents know eventually you start to see your kids have some of your personality traits even though they don’t look like you and that’s really fun for me and terrible for my wife. This happened recently. My wife had to work at night so she prepared to dinner and she left a note for the kids it said put it in the oven at 350 for 20 minutes that’s all you have to do and then Evie nice home-cooked dinner my wife got home from work and my kids had to order a pizza. She asked them why they ordered a pizza and they said it seemed like too much work. Fair enough my wife was curious, she called me and she’s like “what do I do, how do I punish them? And I said did they use their own money and she goes yeah okay I don’t know I think they won this round, I don’t know how to fight.
And then the situation happened again where my wife is gonna be gone during dinner time. So she’s prepared a meal and all they had to do is put in the oven and she said to the kids do not order pizza she order pizza you’re in big trouble you didn’t in trouble last time because I couldn’t believe that you would have done that, so it was so far out of the things that I would expect you kids to do that I wasn’t smart enough to punish you in a timely manner. But this time you’ll be in trouble so don’t do it again she got home from work and my girls had ordered Chinese. I love those kids.
Sometimes my wife asked me to help teach the kids things I don’t believe in. Pick one that we’ve been struggling with is “don’t talk about people behind their back.” And I don’t like that because it’s been my life experience of that is the number one place that you should talk about people. I agree it’s bad to talk about people behind their back and let them find out about. It you should only talk about people behind their back with a trustworthy person. You guys aren’t laughing a lot but are you really telling me you’ve never talked about someone behind their back, they never found out about it and everyone just had a positive experience? It came up because one of my girls came home from school and she was sat cuz people have been talking about her behind her back. And I felt bad for her cause she was upset and I want to help and I have some skills that could be helpful in this situation. So I said if you want I’ll go to school with you and I’ll roast those girls that are talking about you. Come on I’m a professional stand up comedian I could destroy a couple of fifteen-year-old girls. Put these girls in therapy if you want me to, I’m on your side. And then my daughter said “Andy, no one knows who you are.” All right, I guess the roast has already begun. I felt so bad for her but at the same time I was scared because she was mad that people talked about her behind her back. I was scared that she might one day find out all this stuff my wife and I say about her, behind her back. Because the stuff we say is worse. The kid is at school and we’re just just making fun of her backpack. My wife and I are sometimes are like “yeah, we don’t we don’t know she’s gonna make it in life we… don’t know if she has the proper tools.” And we wanted to– I wanted to have nothing but happiness and success but at the same time– I once saw her put a tupperware in the dishwasher… with the lid on it, so… we got to talk about things when you’re not around sometimes.
They’re constantly debating with us, they think everything I say is wrong and that’s another teenage stereotype. We had a half-hour debate on whether cold pizza was better than hot pizza. That’s a stupid debate ’cause cold pizza wouldn’t even exist if it wasn’t for the hot pizzas… I don’t know why I participated in that debate for a half hour… I think I was just happy they wanted to talk to me. I saw them eating cold pizza and I said “you want me throw that in the oven?” And they said “no, we prefer cold pizza.” No, you don’t. You are too lazy to heat things up, we’ve already established that. Cold pizza is fine but no one prefers it, no it’s like “I’ll take one pepperoni for delivery and take your time getting over here. I want the cheese hard by the time it shows up. You know what? Forget the whole order, I’m just gonna get a frozen pizza and I’m gonna lick it till it’s soft enough for me to chew, ’cause I’m a teenager and I’m never wrong.
Teenagers are the size of real people and that will mess with your head sometimes. I walk into the living room and I saw my wife bending over to put a DVD into the DVD player. And I thought look at that I think that I’m gonna give her a little smack on the backside let her know I’m back there you know maybe maybe even forehand backhand if she leans into it you know. Not too hard though no harder than no harder than I begged her to do to me, every year on my birthday. So I got my hand caught back and ready to party and then out of the corner of my eye I see my wife in the other room. Is everyone following along? The horror show that almost took place in my living room thank God I saw my wife from 10 thank God I saw her so I don’t know what I would have done if I would have followed through on that snackaroo gotta ruin my life I’m gonna ruin seven years of trust built up between stepfather and stepdaughter if I did that I think I want to be like I told you no DVDs until you do your homework. We have rules in this house young lady.
I’m married for four years now we had a beautiful wedding we did this Japanese tradition in our wedding where as a couple you fold 1,000 paper cranes and then if you’re able to finish by your wedding day you’re supposed to have good luck throughout your marriage. We did an Americanized version of the Japanese tradition where the man folds 995 paper cranes. And then the woman folds five unrecognizable paper cranes and then for the rest of our lives we’re just gonna tell everyone that we folded in 1,000 paper cranes. I hope did the luck the amount of luck that we have in our marriage is proportionate to the amount of cranes that we folded for that afternoon. I don’t know why these feelings only leaking on your half of the bed maybe you should have folded more cranes.
4 years of marriage. It’s good and the biggest fight we ever gotten happened the day we moved in together. Here’s what happened. I was unpacking my boxes oh I saw me and she said what are you doing with those dishes you bought those dishes when you were living with another woman and I don’t want another woman’s dishes in my home. And I understand that point of view but before you decide that she’s right and I’m wrong I like to remind you that my wife has two daughters. I don’t think I’m being unreasonable about these dishes. I’m just trying to point out that you didn’t show up for the picnic empty-handed, that’s all I’m trying to say. If you want to get into specifics, I like to point out how my dishes don’t kind of look like my ex-girlfriend.
When I met them they were much younger when I met him they were just learning how to live for the first time and that’s a cute age when they’re just trying out lying for the first because little kids don’t know how lie they suck at it they don’t know about alibis or alternative facts or anything like that. And it’s cute to watch them grow into the liars they will be one day as adults. One of them took some candy from her kitchen one night and she ate it during the night and the way that we caught her was she left candy wrappers laying on the floor of her bedroom. When we asked her where the candy wrappers came from she said “I don’t know.” As if there was a chance that we were gonna say “oh, we don’t know either, this is a real mystery we have on our hands. We may never know who ate those Twix bars.” My wife was upset and she said “we need to punish her, she has lied to us, that’s very serious.” I don’t think we should. I don’t think punishing her solves anything. That’s not smart parenting. If we punish her we have to let her know that we figured it out because of all the evidence that she left behind. That doesn’t teach her not to lie. That teacher star to hide evidence the next time that she wants to lie. I think we need to be smarter about this. Here’s what I want to do. I want to tell her that it was a monster that ate that candy. I’ll say “well, if he wasn’t you then wants to that monster that comes to our house sometimes. Thank God the candy was there or he may have eaten you. Sweet dreams.” We should just started throwing tootsie rolls on the floor her room every night just in case. You know what I did? I stayed up every night, snuck into her bedroom, I ate those tootsie rolls… and I left the wrappers behind. And that’s smart parenting. Let me keep these kids on their toes! Plus it’s a good life lesson for her. Lying is a necessary life skill and she needs to get better at it. And this way maybe she learned something, because the first time I said it was a monster maybe she thought I was telling a lie. But after waking up to evidence that monsters are real four weeks in a row, she’s gonna have to accept monsters there’s a real-world possibility. And that is how you tell a lie young lady.
They’re much better at lying now that they’re teenagers. Teenagers just have confidence in everything they say it will mess with your mind um one night they’re getting ready for bed and I said hey did you brush and floss your teeth and one of my girls goes yeah I did and I said well that’s weird cuz I just watched you not do it that’s why I brought it out in the first place it’s my fault for phrasing it as a question. And then she said “I told you I did it and that’s all you need to know,” coming at me with the attitude so I don’t have to be a parent right now so I said alright that’s the way you want to play it I’m just gonna check the garbage in the bathroom for dental floss to see if you’re telling me the truth do and change your answer and she said “I dare you check the garbage you’re gonna feel stupid.” At this point I’m like maybe she did crushin philosophy and I blacked out for a minute I’ve never been that sure of myself. Even now I think I got khaki pants on but if someone came up and was like nice dress I’d be like am i wearing a dress oh. But the one rule that I know about parenting to be true is that if you make a threat to the kids if you threaten them to follow through on it or else the kids are gonna walk all over you so we walk together to the bathroom to check the garbage for dental floss. She’s talking trash the whole way there but how gross it’s gonna be and how dumb I’m gonna feel I get there and I look in the garbage and there’s no dental floss. And I turn around triumphant, stepdad has won this round. My daughter’s crying and the next thing you know I’m giving her a hug and apologizing. Do you understand what she was able to do to me she made me mad and then she got me to apologize for getting mad. She is really becoming a woman.
I just think it’d be great if they were bad at getting away with things forever because right now it’s not a big deal we find some candy wrappers on the floor of the room that’s not a big deal but a few years from now we could be finding like rolling papers on the floor of the room and now we have serious parenting today our kids are experimenting with drugs and not the good ones you can get legally over there in Colorado to come in the form of cookies. And there’s an ingredients list on the back and all the ingredients are locally sourced. All the butter and the cookies comes from pasture raised cows that only ever eat grass and they’re never forced to live within the confines of a fence and they’re only impregnated during consensual sex with bulls that they’re in love with. You got to go to Whole Foods to get that butter but it’s worth the extra $30 even.
When I was young my friend got caught with a cigarette and his mom and dad made him smoke a whole pack of cigarettes and never want to smoke cigarettes again. I have a similar idea if we find marijuana in our kids bedroom my idea is my wife and I finish it that’s my idea we finish it and then our punishment is they gonna hang out with us the whole time. I’m not even a drug user but I’ll do it because I love my daughter. They’re gonna hang out the holes done no you can’t go play your friend’s house we’re gonna watch another one of your soccer games on TV see these things are hilarious. Everybody’s going for the ball at the same time, it doesn’t make any sense! You kids got to spread out have you ever even seen people play soccer or Mary just left a field chasing a butterfly Heather’s digging a hole this is a disaster. Who’s coaching this team anyway? What’s that it’s your real dad well my fault then yeah my bad.
I think it’s tough thing about being a stepparent is I don’t have that built-in thing that birth parents have to make them proud of every single thing that their child does I’m proud of most of the things my kids do cuz they’re super cool kids but I’m not proud of everything and people I know that how babies are proud of everything I’ve had more than one friend call me to brag about how early their baby lifted its head up. And to me that’s stupid to even mention but more the one guy has called me I mean like dude guess what my baby’s lifting its head up way before baby’s normally lift their head stuff. We’re probably gonna have some put her in a special school for girls was strong neck or something like that. She’s got chubby arms and chubby legs but her neck is ripped brow we gotta cut slits on the front of all her onesies so she doesn’t rip it out when she flexes her giant baby neck.
I’m jealous of that level of pride I want to have that you know. Here’s an example of what I’m talking about one of my girls came home from school and she said we ran the Milan gym today I guess my time I said I don’t know maybe like nine minutes and then she said sixteen minutes. Well I would not have guessed that you ran the whole time that’s a terrible time for a mile run. Does something go wrong with was there someone playing defense on your mile rim did you have to do your mile run through a corn maze? What happened?
We feed birds in our backyard that’s a big part of our lives we feed birds I don’t know what the birds were doing in our backyard before we started spending $30 a month on birds seed but it was rough times for the birds in the wood haul backyard jangling around coffee mugs out there tweet tweet food for the boat my wife loves those birds so much we were on vacation one time and we’re running low on birdseed and she got really upset and she goes what are we gonna do if the birds run out of food while we’re gone what’s gonna happen to the bird I was like well I guess they’re probably gonna die gonna we’re gonna come home to just a backyard full of dead birds you know we’re gonna have to rake them up and move on with our lives. We can let the kids play in the piles but only for the first couple days. One time she came from from Whole Foods with Whole Foods brand birdseed and it was smokehouse barbecue flavor no we’re not feeding them smokehouse barbecue flavor I’m gonna eat that I like sunflower seeds too. Does she think that birds are really in the backyard like playing again this is unacceptable it’s Labor Day weekend you know how we like to do we were gonna have the Robins over for a party but if we’re serving plane we’ll look ridiculous.
Well I’ve came into our house the other day and she said there’s a copperhead snake in the backyard you have to go kill it I don’t know if everyone’s familiar with copperhead snakes but they’re venomous snakes and if they bite you you could die. My wife came into our home and told me to fight one to the death I’ve never fought a snake in my whole life as she wants me in a death match my first time in the ring. That’s that’s not how you’re supposed to begin new hobbies you’re supposed to build up to the difficult levels let me find a worm first learn some of the moves. So I said to my wife I don’t want to fight the snake here’s what I wanted to on a wait until it leaves she said we can’t do that what if it bites the kids or bites a dog I was like okay fair point let’s just not leave any dog treats or iPhones near the snake and I think that we’ll be okay. Yes that snakes a Wi-Fi router they gotta unplug and plug back in I don’t think the kids are gonna mess with it. How about this let’s have a barbeque invite over all the neighbors we don’t like just let nature take its course. My wife rejects all my ideas she wants this snake dead so here’s what she does she calls our neighbor he comes over and kills the snake that’s not a fun moment in a man’s life standing in your own backyard watching while another man protects your family, that sucks. This had a real negative effect on my self-esteem. she heard something the night and she goes oh my god I heard something you gotta go check I said I’m gonna go check I’m gonna give Steve a call this is his job from now on. I don’t wanna go check what if it says snakes family back to avenge his death? What if we accidentally killed snake Liam Neeson’s son and now snake Liam Neeson is in the other room right now just like I have a very sss-specific set of sss-kills.
That was the first thing that was ever in our backyard since then I’ve killed three of them I’m on a real rampage Steve taught me how to do it he goes what you do is you take a shovel and you chop the head off the snake and you completely remove the head from the body and you bury it in a separate grave. Which makes it do you think some weird stuff has happened between Steve and a snake at some point in his life he has to do this weird ritualistic killing every time he takes Flint out. I think it’s cute he thinks I’m gonna dig two graves I’m just gonna throw it over the fence when I’m done with it
This made me a braver man though because I’m no longer afraid of snakes and none of you should be afraid of snakes either because humans have a lot of advantages in a snake fight I would say arms are the biggest one arms arms are so useful in a fight. If you don’t believe me find a guy with no arms and then hit him in the face with a shovel: you’re gonna win that fight.
I don’t enjoy killing snakes. It’s not in my nature to kill things, so the last time we had one in the backyard I called animal control and I so you guys got to get over here and get the snake and take him to the forest before my wife comes home and puts a hit out on it and they go no problem we’ll be right there it costs $275 I said you know what never mind someone just chopped his head off we’re all set over here if you still want the body it’s in Steve’s yard you find it over there.
We have this coffee shop by our house that just started this new thing they do call the toast bar and if you’re not familiar with the concept yet there’s a place where you can go get toast and costs eight dollars just in case you’ve ever been at home making toast and thought yourself this is way too much work I would like to outsource this job and a five thousand percent mark up. Toast used to just come free with breakfast but that’s insulting to the tous ceux I meant the toast bar I won’t treat myself so I order one slice of toast with pumpkin butter on it and they said we’re sorry sir but it’s 11:05 and we stopped serving toast at 11:00 what will happen in the back the one guy that owns a toaster go home for the day. How is it possible that you have lost your ability to heat up bread is it a union thing is toast to breakfast food and you’re unwilling to serve it in the afternoon I found out later that the toast bar opens back up from 3:00 to 5:00 who’s running this place I was so disappointed but I was hungry so I just placed my order I was like all right you win I’ll take one grilled cheese hold the cheese put some pumpkin butter on
We have a dog with dog golden retriever beautiful dog and we bought her we didn’t rescue her I know that’s not the popular way to get dogs but it’s also a way that you can get the hugs we wanted to do the rescue thing we signed up for the Golden Retriever Rescue of North Carolina and we got to nine no kind of humiliating we filled out forms they came to our house and then they said it’s a letter in the mail that said we don’t think a dog should be living in your house. We’re like we have kids and they go yeah we’re calling those people as well. We’re all really sad we’re all really sad because we wanted that dog we were sad for about an hour and then I remember oh yeah if I want I can buy dogs. So I went out and we bought a dog that hadn’t been traumatized by a family that didn’t want it. And it’s a great dog it’s the best dog I ever owned and I don’t even have any hard feelings towards that rescue organization in fact I donate money to him last year I want to stay on good terms with them just on the off chance they’re right about us and I need them to rescue this dog
sometimes people ask me what my wife thinks about being in so many of my jokes and maybe this will explain it to you I did some of those jokes on Conan about her being late to things and hundreds of thousands of people watched it on the internet and like the video and wrote comments about how funny it was and how they have someone in their life that’s the same way other people wrote comments about how I look like fat versions of celebrities but those aren’t so
my wife was running late for something I brought up this video to her as evidence I said hundreds of thousands of people I’ve laughed at this video almost as if an agreement with my point of view that it’s crazy that you’re late to everything does that make me one change a lifestyle just a little bit and she looked at me and she said me being late is our number one source of income right now
thank you very much [Applause]
