–By Jan McInnis, Comedian and Keynote Speaker
Some things are COMEDY GOLD! Did you know there’s a whole industry devoted to tearing down old airplanes? How do you tear down a plane? Fly a bunch of cranky 3-year-olds around for a couple hours until they kick in all the seats? JOKING. Because I keynote at conferences in all sorts of industries, I learn a lot of weird (some might call it “useless”) information about those industries without having to work in them. All of this learning is great because it makes my job more interesting and “they” tell us that our brains will turn to JELL-O if we don’t keep ‘em working. Also, some of the stuff I learn is useful. . .sort of:
For example, if you were thinking of running a vending business, the soda and snack vending machines that make the most money are located in prisons! Of course prisoners have money: they don’t have to pay for cable TV and health insurance! Learned from my keynote for the National Association of Blind Merchants.
And if you find yourself in jail, make sure you get arrested in Kansas because you might just get to train a seeing-eye dog if you land in the Topeka women’s prison (sorry, guys). The prisoners probably teach the dogs all sorts of useful things like how to sit, roll over. . . and fetch the guard’s keys. People in trouble with the law can still be successful. The real John Deere moved from the east to Illinois to start his farm equipment company because he owed the government some money. Hey, if you’re running from the law, don’t you think you’d invent something faster than a tractor? I did a comedy show for, you guessed it, the good people at John Deere!
If you’re throwing a party this year and run out of booze, tap into your gas tank. They’re now making fuel out of corn liquor! I’m not sure if it’s really drinkable, but it will get your guests to leave on time. You might also notice that your gas smells faintly like McDonald’s…that’s because they’re also making gas out of french fry grease! Yes, we’re putting french fry grease into cars! And you thought the SUVs were big now—just wait until we start feeding ‘em that! Okay, that’s not fair. We blame our bad health on fast food, and yes, Ray Kroc, the founder of McDonald’s, actually did have diabetes. But the weird thing is, he had it before he invented the Double Quarter Pounder with Cheese.
Stay healthy and stay out of the hospital because patient stays are getting shorter and shorter. In fact, maternity ward nurses say that new moms aren’t in the hospital long enough to learn how to breastfeed properly. Tell me about it. . . the women usually don’t get the hang of it until they’re sitting next to me on an airplane! If you go to a new hospital though, architects are now designing them so that the patient’s window faces a garden because they say it makes the patient get well faster. Hey, if they want the patient to get well faster, why don’t they make the windows face a cemetery?? But make sure you pay your hospital bill because there are collection agencies for hospitals. How’s that work? If you don’t pay up, we’ll break your legs. . . again. I keynote at a lot of health care events!
Hospital stays can rack up debt, which means you might contact a credit counseling agency where the average credit card debt is $38,000. So “revolving credit” is the real reason why that toaster I bought with my Visa cost me $500. Of course the only thing more expensive than a $500 toaster is a parking ticket. A good meter maid can write out 900 tickets in one month! And by the way, they hate the title “meter maid”; they prefer “parking citation officer.” So don’t call ‘em a meter maid unless you’ve already got the ticket and you want to give them one parting shot! Yes, I did comedy for the parking association – don’t hate me!
To pay for that ticket you can make some money selling cookware. The big money in cookware is selling those specialty cake pans for kid’s birthday cakes; You know, the ones shaped like footballs, basketballs, and soccer balls. So kids are eating cake in the shape of all the sports they should be playing instead of eating cake. And when it comes to eating, you should know that if your cereal tastes funny, it might be because wood is used in many food products, including cereals and imitation bacon. Finally the ingredients of Grape Nuts are revealed! And speaking of wood, 40-50% of it is made up of a compound called “cellulose.” Of course I always thought having “cellulose” was the reason I don’t wear a bathing suit.
You say you’re more of a meat eater? Well, you can thank the leaf cutter bees for our beef! They’re the ones who pollinate the alfalfa that feeds the cows that give us our steaks. I’m guessing the alfalfa bees don’t do it because they’re too busy cutting leaves, no? Speaking of leaves and yard work, are you tired of raking leaves and cutting grass? Well then, plant some Centipede grass. That’s the stuff on the highway median strips and it grows slower than other grass. That’s what I learned from doing comedy for the department of transportation.
Now if you like these facts and figures, go ahead and mail this newsletter to someone, but be warned that the postal worker you hand it to might be a PMR – that’s Post Master Relief person. These are temporary workers for the post office who get paid but don’t get medical or dental benefits. I’m guessing you can tell who they are because they have really bad teeth. This information is courtesy of my comedy show for postmasters!
Learning all of this cool information makes my job a blast and it could even be lifesaving! Remember, if you live near a nuclear reactor, the valve on that thing only lasts 30 years!
About the Author. . . Jan McInnis has shared her customized humor keynotes with thousands of associations and corporations. She is a keynote speaker, comedian and comedy writer, and she’s also the author of “Finding the Funny FAST; How To Create Quick Humor To Connect With Clients, Coworkers And Crowds,” and “Convention Comedian: Stories and Wisdom From Two Decades of Chicken Dinners and Comedy Clubs.” Jan was featured in the Wall Street Journal, the Huffington Post, and the Washington Post for her clean humor.
From a recent client: “We invited Jan back for a second year to deliver a final morning conference keynote. The first year our attendees ‘Found the Funny in Change’. This year they took away lots of ideas for using humor in business (Finding the Funny in Communications). They laughed while they learned about developing humor quickly and working through guidelines for keeping out of trouble when using humor.”
