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Wanda Sykes: Not Normal (2019) – Full Transcript

Wanda Sykes takes on the opioid crisis, and delivers a sharp-witted and hilarious critique on the state of the world in her first Netflix comedy special.

Ladies and gentlemen… Wanda Sykes!

Yes. Yes. Thank you. New York. New York. Oh, my goodness. So… let me just start by saying… if you voted for Trump… …and you came to see me… …you fucked up again. This shit’s not normal, y’all. It’s not normal. Come on. The lying, the tweeting, the playdates with dictators. Come on. This shit is not normal. It’s not normal that I know that I’m smarter than the president. That’s not normal. Come on. In the Mueller investigation, how does he not know that he’s Individual Number One? Come on. Everybody who’s been indicted or going to jail, Papadopoulos, Gates, Flynn, Manafort, it all says in the Mueller report that they co-conspired with Individual Number One. Motherfucker, that’s you! All right. Now… if everybody you come in direct contact with… gets herpes… …wouldn’t you be like… “Am I giving everybody herpes?” But no. President Trump tweets… “All clear.” “Too bad for Individual Number One. Hashtag sad.” No, motherfucker. You have herpes! You are patient zero. Trump, he doesn’t even look presidential. He doesn’t look presidential. It looks like he’s doing an impersonation of a president. He doesn’t know what to do with his hands. Even the way he stands there, he’s just like… He looks like those things that you put out in front of the car wash. You know… Shit’s not normal, y’all. It’s not normal.

Here’s another thing that’s not normal. Presidents, they all age while in office, right? They age while in office, because the job is so fucking stressful that it affects you physically. We’ve seen it. Obama… First two years, President Obama went totally gray. His face started drooping. He got all droopy in the face. One time, I was like, “Is that Kareem Abdul-Jabbar? Who the fuck…” “Is that what… Misha, is that Kareem? What the hell?” George W. Bush, he shrunk four inches. At one point, he was looking like Gollum from The Lord of the Rings. “Ah, my precious! My precious!” Bill Clinton. He grew that bulb on the tip of his nose. What the fuck was that? Bill Clinton looked like the man on the Operation board. But not Trump. Nope. Mm-mm. He’s on executive time. Trump hasn’t aged. But we have. He is fucking us up. Everybody’s looking older. My God. I was in my car, I saw a billboard. “Cher, Vegas.” I was like, “Oh, shit, that’s on my bucket list. I’m going.” I get to the stop light, I look back up, I was like… “Oh, damn, that’s Ariana Grande. What the hell?” He’s fucking us up. You know how they say some women have resting bitch face? Well, Trump has given me resting “what the fuck?” face. Every morning, I’m looking in the mirror like, “What the fuck? What…” I got crow’s feet. I got a fucking divot in my forehead. He has cracked black. That’s… That’s damn near impossible. I was like, “We got to get rid of him. Two more years, I’mma to look like Cicely Tyson.” She look good, but I ain’t ready. I ain’t ready to go there.

If someone offered me a deal tonight and said, “Wanda, here’s your deal. You keep Trump for two more years… or we’ll switch him out tonight with R&B singer Bobby Brown…” Without batting an eye, I’m taking Bobby Brown. I’m taking Bobby Brown. Bobby Brown is a proven talent. We know what he can do. Right? Trump, uh-uh. We respect Bobby Brown. Nobody respects Trump. You know how I know they don’t respect him? Because they let him walk up on Air Force One with toilet paper on the back of his shoe. You would stop a stranger to get toilet paper off their shoe. I’ve been in airports and, like, tracked people down for ten gates… like, oh… …to get this toilet paper off your shoe. I bet you there’s been murderers on their way to the electric chair… passing the guards with toilet paper on their shoes… and the guards are like, “Yeah, you motherfucker, you deserve all of this. I hope… Oh, hold up, man, hold on. Let me get this off your shoe.” “Can’t let you go out like that.” “It’s embarrassing, man.” Trump passed Marine guards… on his way. Marine guards. These people see everything. They are the sharpest motherfuckers on the planet. But they let him ascend… …up to Air Force One, the plane that represents America… with toilet paper on the back of his shoe. And they just stood there. “You see that?” “Yeah, I see it. I see it.” “I think it’s a good look for him.”

And he’s always on Air Force One. Never in the White House. Always running off, Mar-a-Lago or somewhere, costing us all kind of money. Hey, I was like, “We should just put the White House on Airbnb.” “Maybe we’ll get somebody good in there.” His whole family is costing us money. Yeah. Did you know that we pay for a Secret Service detail for Tiffany Trump? Exactly. Who the fuck is Tiffany Trump? Nobody’s gonna mess with Tiffany Trump. She ain’t on our radar. Shit, she ain’t even on Trump’s radar. We don’t give a shit about Tiffany Trump. Don’t wanna be paying for Secret Service. All she needs is a mall cop on a Segway. Just this motherfucker. “Oh, not the stairs, Tiff, not the stairs.”

Shit’s not normal. The president is in litigation with porn stars. With porn stars! Come on, that shit’s not normal. What the fuck? And everybody’s like, “Well, you know, that’s just what we doing now.” Really? We’re putting up with this bullshit? We were outraged when President Obama wore a tan suit to work. That was the bar back then. “Oh, how dare he come to the Oval Office so casual, in a tan suit?” People were disgusted because one of the greatest first ladies we’ve ever had, Michelle Obama… …she went sleeveless. “Oh. Oh, how unbecoming of the first lady to wear no sleeves, to show her arms.” Really? You gave Michelle Obama shit for that. Really? You can Google Melania’s titties right now. Yeah. I did it. I bet you the Obamas must be beside themselves. They must be. They must be beside themselves. I can’t… Could you imagine, like, all that shit that they went through for eight years and they’re watching all this bullshit just go and everybody just turns their heads toward it? I mean, what the fuck? I bet you they’re in bed, watching the 11 o’clock news and Michelle looks over at Barack and is like… “N i g g a.” “Porn stars? Really? We gonna to talk about the porn star now.” She didn’t put that in the book. But I was confused. I was confused by the whole situation. The whole porn star thing. Because first of all, I was like, “Who is admitting that they fucked Trump?” That’s what I need to know. Who’s going to admit that? And then all of the hush money thing. I said, “Okay, wait a minute. Okay, hush money was exchanged.” And then when I saw Stormy Daniels, I was like, “Wait a minute. Wait a minute. You mean to tell me he paid her?” I thought she paid him to shut the fuck up. ‘Cause that made sense to me. If I fucked Trump, he came to me and said, “Okay, I’m going to give you, um… 130,000 not to say anything,” I’d be like, “Bitch, I was about to give you 250.” Shit. If I ever fucked Trump, I’m telling you, I’m taking that to the grave. That’s going to the grave and beyond. I’d be walking around Heaven, I’d look Jesus right in the eye… “Huh?” “What? Me? Wasn’t me, Jesus.” “You must have turned too much water into wine that day.” But you know what? I believe that everything happens for a reason. Everything happens for a reason. Because of Trump being president… we sent more women to Congress than ever before. That’s because of Trump. Thank you, Trump. All kinds of women. African-American, Native American, Asian-American, Muslims. Yes. It’s funny looking at Congress now. All those beautiful women in there and all those old white guys. It looks like the cast of Cocoon… …meets the cast of any Shonda Rhimes show.

We are gonna be all right. We gonna be all right. We’re just in a fight right now. We’re just in a fight. And when you’re in a fight, big thing, you got to stay consistent. You got to stay consistent, ladies. Especially us. That’s right. So, you know… You can’t be out there at the Women’s March, “Fuck Harvey, yeah! Equal pay! Yeah, we got to get equal pay!” and then be like, “Ooh, girl, I got to get home and watch The Bachelor.” No. The Bachelor cannot coexist with Time’s Up, Me Too. You can’t have it. No. The only time you hear, “Me too,” on The Bachelor is if somebody says, “I have chlamydia.” Got to let The Bachelor go. I know some of you are like, “Well, Wanda, it’s just entertainment. It’s a TV show.” Yeah, I know. But it promotes bad behavior and it makes women look stupid. It’s got to go. It’s got all these women, you know, all these women gathered, trying to all vie for this one little shitty dude. And he’s actively dating all of them right in front of your face. And you know he’s sleeping with all of ’em. And the women just standing around like… “When is he gonna fuck me?” “When do I get my one-on-one?” I have more respect for strippers than I do for women who go on The Bachelor. I do. What the hell? And then they try to make it like it’s some fairy tale. You know. With the rose ceremony. Oh, if he wants you to stay, he’ll give you a rose. I say bullshit. I want them to show it for what it is. Instead of the rose ceremony, I want them to line all the women up… and if he wants you to stay, he will tap you on your forehead. With his dick. “Oh, yes! Yes! I’m staying! I’m staying, yeah!” You know, y’all, I really thought I knew my country. I was like, “I really…” I was like, “I know America. I know who we are.” Right? I really thought that. But nope. It fooled me. When it was confirmed that Russia indeed attacked us… They… They interfered with our election. – That’s right. – I said, “Oh, shit, here we go. Here comes the America I know and love. Here we go.” ‘Cause this is what we do. When we are attacked, we stop the bullshit and we unite. That’s what we’re supposed to do, right? It’s like when Cardi B is beefing with Nicki Minaj… …and then Taylor Swift pops off. Cardi B and Nicki are like, “Okay, Nicki, we’re gonna put this on pause, right? And let’s go drag that ho.” “Okurrr.” But we didn’t do that. I was waiting for it. I was like, “Oh, shit, here come the crazy. Here we go.” I thought for sure… I was like, “Uh-oh, there ain’t gonna be no more Russian salad dressing.” “We gonna to start booing Russian hockey players.” I was like, “Oh, boy. Uber’s gonna be missing a whole lot of drivers.” But no, none of that happened. I’m like, “Y’all, Russia attacked us.” And everybody’s like, “Yeah, but have you had a Moscow Mule? They are delicious.” It’s like… It’s like we’ve forgotten history. Russia hates us. We broke up the Soviet Union. We broke up the Soviet Union. We gave them Boris Yeltsin. Boris Yeltsin was a drunk. He was a big embarrassment as a president for them. But it makes sense now. We gave them Boris Yeltsin. They paid us back with Trump. Forget that. We forget all about that shit. And Russia, they sneaky. Them some sneaky motherfuckers. Who else would think of those little stacking dolls? What the fuck is that? All those damn nesting dolls. That’s some sneaky shit. “Oh, here’s another one.” “Open it again.” “It’s another one! And another one! And another one! Okay, this is the last one, right? God damn, there’s another one!” “Y’all are some sneaky motherfuckers. God damn! There’s another one! Wait, this is the last one? This the last one? Wait a minute. Ooh, is this the pee-pee tapes?” Sneaky.

But Russia, they knew. They knew how to attack us. They know our weakness. Race. Yes. That’s our Achilles’ heel. Race. That’s it. So they brought out Trump to rally the racists. Exactly what they did. That fucking wall… That wall is racist. That wall is… It ain’t about protecting your borders. It ain’t about protecting our borders. He’ll tell you, “Oh, well, we want the wall ’cause it keeps out all the gangs and the… and the opioid crisis.” Yeah. That’s a message to white people. That’s for white people. Opioid crisis. Because of racism, black people, we don’t even get our hands on opioids. They don’t even give ’em to us. White people get opioids like they’re Tic Tacs. It amazes me how many opioids you motherfuckers have. I’m at work, I’m sitting in a writers’ room with a bunch of white people, right? And I’m like, “Damn, I got a headache.” White people start pulling out all kind of pills and shit. Just fucking loose pills in Ziploc bags. “Would you like an oxycodone? I got oxycodone.” “No, she should take a Percocet. She should take a Percocet.” Oh, other girl over there preparing a needle. “Give me your arm.” What the fuck? White people get the opioids. There was a study… It’s racism. There was a study and it showed that doctors, they actually prescribe opioids… frequently to white people than they do to blacks. They don’t give us opioids. Because they are sympathetic. They’re like, “Oh, this white person, they’re in such pain. I hate to see white people hurting.” “They can’t handle this pain. Let me… Here, let me give you this. Let me give you these opioids. Get that pain away.” They don’t give us the opioids. They’re like, “Ah, you can take it. Walk it off.” I had a double mastectomy. You know what they sent my black ass home with? Ibu-fucking-profen. Shit, to get some opioids, a black person will have to show up in the emergency room holding they own head detached from the body. “Uh… uh… Excuse me. Can I get some help out here? My body’s still in the car, but, uh…” Got to… Got to treat opioid addicts. You do. Got to treat them. We weren’t trying to treat crackheads, were we? No, we were capturing crackheads, locking up crackheads. Weren’t treating them. You didn’t see anybody busting down the door of a crack house, boom, “Okay, where’s the crackheads? I need to check your blood pressure.” “Let’s all sit in a little crack circle and talk about our feelings.” “Let’s get to the root of this. Pookie, would you like to start first?”

Racism. We got to deal with it. It is going to be the demise of our country if we don’t fucking deal with it. Look, I’m from Virginia, right? And whenever I go home… Wait a minute. Off of 95… right outside Chester, Virginia, there is a big, giant Confederate flag. Big Confederate flag. Every time I go home and I pass that flag, it hurts me to my core. It fucking hurts. ‘Cause it’s racist. It’s racist and it’s wrong. And I’m sick of this bullshit of, “Well, that’s part of my Southern heritage.” Well, your heritage is shitty. It’s garbage. Your heritage is trash. The atrocities that happened under that flag, are you proud of that shit? – Yeah. – What the fuck? There are so many other things about the South that you can be proud of. Right? Moonshine. Dollywood. Come on. You got to love Dolly Parton and Dollywood. Clay Aiken. Come on. Why don’t you tear down those statues and put up a statue of Clay Aiken drinking moonshine, wearing a Dollywood t-shirt? Race means a lot. It does. I think about it a lot, just because of the makeup of my family. Look, I’m married to a white French woman and we have two white kids. – Woo! – Yeah. And now white supremacy is on the rise. And I’m living with a house full of white people. I took them to DC over Thanksgiving break. I took them to DC and we went to the museum, the National Museum of African-American History and Culture. Yeah. Oh, beautiful museum. I’m telling you, you got to go. If you’re in DC go to this museum. Seriously. Yeah. I see the white people are like… “It’s gonna make me sad.” “I don’t want to be sad. Oh.” It made me proud. It made me proud. Yeah. It just reaffirmed what I always knew. I was like, “I can do anything.” I can do anything. To come from people who survived all that shit and we still here and kicking it, I’m like, “Pff, I can do anything.” Yeah. I can… I can do anything. I know this. And that’s why you don’t see a lot of black folks on, like, those survival-type reality shows. We don’t need to fuck around like that. Man Vs. Wild, Doomsday Preppers. No, thank you. We leave that for y’all. Black folks can get the same exhilaration just by driving around on expired tags.

But one of my favorite ones to watch is Naked and Afraid. That’s the best one. If you haven’t seen Naked and Afraid, treat yo self. They take a man and a woman and they drop them off on some uninhabitable island or, you know, desert or Florida and, uh… You know, like the Everglades. You know, the swamps. Yeah. They drop them off in there. They got to get butt naked and they have to survive for 21 days. And they get to bring one item. Usually, the guy shows up with some crazy knife or custom-made ax or something. And the woman, she shows up with, like, fishing nets or maybe a fire starter. But there was this one episode, this guy showed up with his ax and this woman showed up with a fucking magnifying glass. The look on his face said it all. Like… “Magnifying glass? Like… Bitch, what you think? We out here solving crimes? What the hell?” I love that show. There was an episode that stood out, because it was a black guy on the show. Yeah. This black guy… he’s paired up with this nice little white lady from North Dakota, right? They drop ’em off on this island… and they were… Things were going great, right? So after, like, day three… the white lady’s like, “Oh, Ronald, he’s a good team player and, uh, man, like, the bugs and everything, just nothing is bothering him. Nothing is affecting him out here, so I think we’re gonna be good. He keeps to himself, but I think we’re gonna be okay.” Two days later, you find out that Ronald is homeless. Yeah. These assholes booked a homeless man to go on Naked and Afraid. So no wonder nothing was affecting him. He got on that island, he thought he was at Sandals. He was like, “Oh, shit. Yeah. I can do this. This is nice.” That lady went home. She tapped out. She was like, “I quit. I’m going home.” She was like, “I don’t think he’s ever gonna leave.” They booked a homeless man to go on Naked and Afraid. That tells me that there was no black people in the room. When they made that decision, a black person was not present, ’cause they’d have been like this, “Wait a minute, you booking a black… Are you out of your damn mind?” That’s fucked up.

Yeah. You need a black friend. You need a black friend. It’s 2019. If you don’t have a black friend… you’re the problem. But if you don’t have one, I understand. I understand. It’s scary. It is. Because of how we’ve been portrayed. Right? Black people have always been portrayed as sinister, menacing, a threat. Yeah. I don’t know if you’ve heard about this story in Chicago. A black security guard, right, at a club… There was a shooting. The black security guard apprehended the shooter. The cops show up, shoot the black security guard. Yeah. ‘Cause all they saw was a black man. Why can’t we be the good guy? – Right. – Yes! Black people, we need a better publicist. No, fuck that. We need a publicist. I want the publicist that the white guys use. That publicist kicks ass. That publicist is the best. ‘Cause they know how to spin it. Even when white guys fuck up, they can spin it… in a way you won’t think, “Oh, all white guys are fucked up.” No. ‘Cause they make them individuals. You know, crazy white guy shoots up a movie theater, they give you his backstory. Right? They tell you where he went to school. “Oh, he was a loner.” They put a picture up in the news of him that’s so sympathetic. I’m watching news, I’m like, “Oh, man…” “He shoulda called me.” We need a better publicist. Yeah, I want a campaign. A campaign for black people. Right? How about, like, some billboards all across the country of black people just doing fun, non-threatening, frivolous shit? Just black people just, like, bowling. How about some slogans? You know, like “Toys for Tots.” How about a good slogan for black people? “Hey, let’s get black to business.” I like that. Or, maybe, you know, something environmental, like show black people just taking out the recycling can, you know, like… “We’re black, but we’re green.” You need a black friend. Get a black friend, you’ll learn some shit. Like, here’s an easy one. You should know this one. Never touch a black woman’s hair. Yes. Never… touch a black woman’s hair. I don’t give a fuck if she has a tarantula sitting on her head. You… Let it bite her. Here’s another one. Here’s another one I’ll give y’all. White people, you go and you get a tan. You get a nice tan, you been on vacation. Do not go back to your job and go up to your black coworker… “Hey, Denise.” “I’m almost there.” “Hey, girlfriend, I’m almost there.” We hate that shit. And we secretly wish bad black shit happens to you when you do it. “I’m almost there.” Mm-hmm. “I hope you get sickle cell.” I know some of y’all are like, “Well, Wanda, what about black people who don’t have white friends?” I’m okay with that. A lot of trust has been broken. But I do encourage them. I do. I say, “Come on, guys, let’s break this up. Come on. Spread out. Open it up a little bit.” You know, I tell them, “Ease into it. Start off with a Puerto Rican.” “They’re cool. Come on.”

Look, I’m learning a lot. I’m learning a lot from my white family. I am. You know? And you know what? Yeah… People always say, “Because, Wanda, we’re all the same.” No, we’re not. We’re not all the same. We’re different. But we’re equal. We’re different. But we’re equal. And that’s the thing. That’s what we have to respect. Like, I’m learning things from my family. I’m learning how to play. Oh, ’cause black people don’t play. We don’t play. Some of the first things that we were taught as kids, right? You’re over there, acting up. Your parents tell you, “Hey, better stop playing. Oh, you think I’m playing with you? Keep playing here. Keep playing, keep playing.” Learning how to play. White people play all the time. Just make up shit. You don’t even know what you’re playing. Just play. I had to learn this. Like, we had a birthday party over the weekend, so, during the week, you know, there’s still some balloons floating around. I get up Monday morning, I’m coming downstairs, my son takes a balloon, kicks it, and it hits me right in the face. First thing I do, “Boy, you better stop playing.” He laughs, he takes another balloon, kicks it… almost knocks my glasses off. I’m like, “Oh, Lucas, you think I’m playing with you? Keep playing with me. Keep playing with me, hear?” My wife hears me yelling. She runs into the living room. “Baby, what’s the problem? Qu’est-ce qui se passe? Ça va? Ça va?” “No. No it’s not ça va!” “You want to know what… I’ll tell you what happened. Uh, Lucas here just kicked me in the face…” And now I’m hearing myself. Uh… “Uh, Lucas kicked me in the face… uh, with the balloon, uh… I haven’t had coffee yet, okay? First…” “And he did it twice. Twice. And, uh… And, uh, you know, it was that little knot part, the knot part on the balloon. You know, that little knot in the balloon? Yeah, that knot part hit me right… You… You were playing, huh? You were playing. I’m sorry, baby. I… I didn’t know you were playing. Okay, stop crying. Stop crying. It’s okay. All right. You got to let me know we’re playing or something. I didn’t know, right?” So then my wife just looked at me like I was an asshole. He goes off to school and she’s like, “What is your problem? Why did you…” I said, “Look, first of all, you need to take it down a notch, all right? You ain’t gonna be in my face like this, okay? And, second of all, I behaved the way I was supposed to behave, okay? All right? I’m a black woman, all right? I come downstairs in my living room and this little white boy kicks me in the face.” Just saying. But I felt bad. I did feel… I did. I felt bad. I did. So what I… So what I did, when he came home from school, I had all the balloons lined up. Oh, I was ready for his ass. Soon as he walked in the door, I was like, “Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom! You want to play? You want to play? Boom, boom, boom!” I took care of him. All kind of shit. All kind of shit.

I’m learning we’re different. Yeah. I was on my way home from, uh… I was on my way home, right? I’m in the car. And my wife, she calls me in the car. She’s like, “Babe, uh… on your way home, uh, could you stop at the pharmacy and pick up this stuff? It’s called RID. Uh… There’s a problem at the school with the lice and the kids have the lice.” I’m like, “What? Lice?” “Yeah, yeah, yeah. The kids have the lice, I have the lice, you have the lice.” “No, I don’t. No, I don’t.” “That’s some white shit.” She’s like, “No, it’s a little bug in your hair.” “Mm-mm. No, no, no, no. We don’t do that. I would choke the shit out of a lice. We don’t…” “That’s you and your inferior scalp. We don’t do that.” She’s like, “Will you pick it up?” “Yeah, yeah, yeah, I’ll pick it up. And put it in the mailbox.” “I ain’t coming in that lice-y ass house. I ain’t coming in. I’ll be at Sabrina’s. Mm-mm.” Then I thought, “Am I being ignorant? Maybe I’m being ignorant about this thing.” Right? So I called my friend, you know, she has a bunch of kids and stuff. I was like, “Hey, look, um, have you or any of your kids ever had a lice issue?” She went, “Nah, girl, that’s some white shit.” I was like, “That’s what I thought.” That’s what I thought.” I knew it. I knew it. Mm-hmm. I was gonna Google it, but I figured, no, I knew, knew what I’m talking about. Knew that.”

We get different shit, different stuff. Yeah. When I was in fifth grade, I got mononucleosis. Yeah. Yeah, we had just moved. White neighborhood. And I got mononucleosis. I’m not saying white people gave me mononucleosis, but… I just got it. But the fun part was listening to my mother trying to explain it to her mother. Yeah. So my mother’s on the phone, like, “Hey, Mama, how you doing? Look, I’mma need you to come up here and stay with us for a few weeks. Wanda’s sick. Hm? Um… She’s got mo… Mononu… Hm. Lord Jesus. Uh, she’s got mo… She’s got tuberculosis.” “Mm-hmm. Yeah, she’s got the TB. Mm-hmm. Yeah, no. I got Vicks. I got the Vicks. I’ll put the Vicks on her. That’ll do.” The Vicks. We put Vicks on everything. Yes. Love the Vicks. I remember the first time I introduced Vicks to my little French family. You would have thought I poured acid on them. My daughter had a bad chest cold, right? So… So I heard the rattling. She was sleeping, but I could hear the rattle, so I was like, “Oh, Wanda, get your Vicks.” So I got my Vicks. I go in her bedroom, you know… open up my Vicks. I start putting a little bit on her, on her chest. Right? She wakes up… “Mommy-boo, you’re burning me!” I’m like, “No, no, baby, it’s just Vicks. It’s Vicks. It’ll open up the thing.” “Maman! Maman, vite, vite! Vite, Maman! Mommy-boo is burning me.” I’m like, “Olivia, I’m not burning you, sweetheart. It’s just Vicks. It’s Vicks VapoRub. It’ll open this up.” My wife comes in the room, “Baby, what is the problem? Oh, my eyes! Oh! Baby. Oh. Olivia… Ferme les yeux, Olivia. Oh, ferme tes yeux, Olivia. Oh, close your eyes, Olivia, please. Oh, baby, why are you burning us? What are you doing?” I’m like, “It’s just Vicks!” “Y’all can’t handle Vicks?” Vicks! I was so pissed. I was like, “Y’all have cheese that’s stronger than Vicks.”

One of my first trips to Paris, right, I’m at her mother’s house, we’re having dinner, they pass around the cheese plate. “Wanda, tu veux du fromage?” “Non, merci.” Because I want to know… who just shit themselves at this table. So we’re just gon’ sit here like this is not happening, huh? “C’est qui qui fait caca dans leur pantalon?” That’s what I want to know. Don’t make me get up and just go around check everybody. Is that what we doing? Different. But, you know, like, all I’m doing, man, I’m just trying to, like, raise my kids like how I was raised. That’s what I’m doing, just raising my kids like how I was raised. You know? Yeah. Didn’t turn out so bad. Right? And, oh, boy, I lotion ’em up good. You should see ’em. Oh. They be glistening, man. They hate it. My wife is like, “Why? Why all the lotion, the crème? Pourquoi la crème?” I say, “‘Cause I don’t want some little ashy-ass kids.” I get their legs, everything. I lotion ’em up. They leave the house shiny, boy. I bet you even little black kids at school are looking at them like, “Oh, here come them greasy twins.” “Here come the greasy twins.”

We’re all different, man. I feel different. I don’t even know who I am anymore. Yeah. Going through menopause right now. I’m sorry. Did you say sorry? Yeah, yeah. It’s the worst. Oh, my God, the hot flashes. Woo. The hot flashes are the worst. They’re crippling. All of a sudden, you just flop sweat. Sometimes, I feel like I’m going to pass out. They’re awful. They’re awful. There’s no way in the world men would put up with hot flashes. No way in the world. I think if a man had two hot flashes… they would blow the sun up. You’d go out and they got the missile pointed to the sun. “Hey, what are y’all doing?” “Oh… Bob got hot.” “Did you, Bob?” “Yeah, yeah. Just… poof. It seemed like it started in my balls and just my balls got hot and just… Poof. It was awful. We’re gonna turn that off.” “Cool it down. Cool it down.” What the hell? I mean, ladies, come on. What kind… We got a shitty hand that we were dealt, right? Is it a design flaw? What the fuck? Okay, so let me get this straight. This is our plight, right? Okay, so when you’re young, you’re fertile, you’re producing eggs, you’re bringing life into the world, right? You’re bringing life into the world. And then you get older, no more eggs. You can’t bring any more life into the world… so they just set you on fire. What kind of shit is that? You know, I’ve always said, you know what, the older I get, the less I care. But you know what? There’s science behind that. There’s science behind that. Yeah. Because, when you’re young, right, your body is producing estrogen. Now, estrogen, that’s that hormone that makes you compassionate, makes you empathetic. Makes you say sorry all the damn time for no reason. Ladies, you know how many times we say sorry for no reason? Like, even when it’s not your fault. Like, you’re at the grocery store, somebody runs into your ankle with the grocery cart and you’re like, “Ooh, ooh, sorry, my ankle was in your way.” That’s that estrogen. And then, when you get older… it drastically reduces. You’re not producing estrogen like that anymore. Yeah. So it’s not the older you get, the less you care. It’s the older you get, you’re just becoming a man. That’s why you don’t give a fuck. And becoming a man indeed. Oh, my God. If I go four days without tweezing… …I could have a nice situation going on right here. The other day, I pulled a hair out of my neck that was so long… I thought my neck was growing bangs. I was like, “What the fuck is this? Ah! How long has this been here? I can see it out the corner of my eye. Ah!”

My metabolism just shut down. Oh, my God. I got a nice gut going on. Ugh. Yeah, Esther is out of control. Woo! Yes, I call her Esther. When I was in my forties, I got this little fat roll. I just named it. That was Esther. And now Esther is spreading. Esther is roaming around my body. Esther’s all creeping around my back, like, “Mm, what’s back here? Let’s see what’s back here. Hey.” And she wants to eat everything. You know? And, you know, when you get older, your digestive system changes. I can’t eat a bunch of junk, like greasy food and shit like that. That’d tear me up. But Esther’s… We sitting there watching TV, commercials come on, and Esther’s like, “Mmm. Let’s live a little. Let’s go get some of them Taco Bell Nacho Fries.” I was like, “Ain’t no way in the world I can eat some Nacho Fries.” If I got some Taco Bell Nacho Fries, I would have to eat them in the parking lot of the urgent care. I caught my wife eyeballing Esther the other day. That didn’t feel good at all. We were getting ready for bed, you know, brushing our teeth. You know, brushing my teeth. I’ve got an electric toothbrush and the jiggling from brushing my teeth just kind of… resonated on down, so Esther was just… And I saw my wife look over like… I was like, “Uh-oh, uh-oh.” But it’s okay. Esther can’t stand her either. Esther was like, “What the fuck you looking at, Frenchie?” “Don’t worry, one day, you gonna get a little Estelle. Bonjour, Estelle.” It’s the worst. Whiskers, weight gain, hot flashes. I know, one day, TMZ, they’re going to catch me standing in the frozen food section with no pants on and a full beard. But I won’t give a fuck. I’ll be like, “My balls were hot.” But, you know, there’s help, you know. There’s a solution. Like, a lot of women, they just take the estrogen. Just take the hormone. But, see, I can’t take the estrogen. I can’t take the hormone because of the type of breast cancer I had. Yeah. But the irony of it all is like when… You know, because I curse and stuff. When people say to me, “Hey, Wanda, would it kill you to be a little more ladylike?” I go, “Yes.” “It would.” “It really would.”

I’m snoring now. That’s different, yep. Snoring. You know, my wife, boy, God bless her, putting up with it. You know, ’cause, at first, it started off with just some deep breathing, you know. Just like… And then it quickly escalated to… How do I know? Because my wife records it. That doesn’t feel good. That doesn’t feel good. Yeah. ‘Cause, you know, like, during the day, I’ll get, like, a text message from my wife with an audio file. And I get all excited. I’m like, “Oh, my baby loves me. She even…” It’s bad. ‘Cause, you know, you wake up in the middle of the night and she’s out of the bed. I’m like, “Uh-oh.” I got to go look for her. Like, “Ooh, did she leave me this time? What’s going on?” “Oh, no, okay, she’s over there with the kids. All right, okay. Cool, cool.” Yeah. You know, she wears the earplugs, and that doesn’t help. So she was like, “You know what, babe? I think maybe if I take, like, some Ambien or something, that could help.” I’m like, “No, no, no. You can’t take Ambien, because, you know, those drugs, you’ll wake up and do things you don’t even know you’re doing. You know, like suffocating me to death.” I don’t want to wake up chewing on a pillow. Or she’s shoving Vicks down my throat. Argh! So I was like, “Let me check with my doctor.” So I went to the doctor. I was like, you know, “I got to do something, man. I got to do something about this.” And he was like, “Well, you know, first, you got to lose some weight, Wanda.” And Esther was like, “Fuck you, I want some Nacho Fries!” I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry. And he goes, “You know what? You could stop drinking.” “What else you got?” And he goes, “You know what, Wanda? I want to test you for sleep apnea. I want to test you for sleep apnea, because judging from the recordings, uh…” “Oh, man, that’s fucked up.” He said, “Yeah, I think you have sleep apnea.” So I’m like, “No, no, I don’t want to take that test, because if, uh, I have sleep apnea, then you’re going to put me on one of those CPAP machines.” I said, “I can’t do that. You know, my wife is ten years younger than I am. I can’t be in the bed with a fucking Darth Vader mask on. You know? Looking like an astronaut or shit. I can’t…” You know, I said, “It’s bad enough I’m already in the bed, you know… hot flashes with a gut and a beard coming in.” “Now you want me in the bed with that mask on?” “Do you want to sit on my face?” Thank you, New York! Yes! Thank you.

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Tom Papa: Home Free

Tom Papa: Home Free (2024) | Transcript

Tom, an aging man whose kids have left home, embarks on reliving his youth with his wife. They engage in wild antics, reminiscing about past adventures while embracing the freedom of their empty nest, surrounded by their animal companions.

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