Just a Guy Notes from a Blue Collar Life

Chapter One Welcome to the story of my life. Let's start with the basics. Like who am I? Oh, I know you know that I'm the comedian who came up with "Here's Your Sign" and that I'm a member of the cast of the Blue Collar Comedy Tour and Blue Collar TV. I'm the one who's not Jeff, Ron, or Larry the Cable Guy. Yeah. That one. That's me. But who am I really? That's what I'm about to tell you. I'm a little nervous because I know what's coming. I'm about to reveal some stuff that's very personal, a little bit embarrassing, and sometimes kind of strange. I think there's a decent chance you'll chuckle once or twice. You might even tear up. Hopefully not at the same time. Now, a couple things you should know about me before we get started. First, I'm unbelievably normal. Unlike many comedians and serial killers, which my dad considers the same thing, I don't come from a screwed-up, crazy family. I was never smacked around, molested, or locked in a fruit cellar. Sorry. I'm pretty much the boy next door, the kid riding his bike down the street, the guy on the other side of the classroom. Okay, I'm the one with the chalk up my nose, but only because the teacher's putting me to sleep and I'm trying to amuse myself until the bell rings. So that's me. You know me well. You've hung out with me after school, gone to the movies with me, played ball against meand if you're a girl, you've probably ignored me. The second thing you need to know is that I'm a guy. Been one my whole life, which makes me an expert on the subject. As my wife, Gail, says, "You've been doing research for almost fifty years." True. My lab is my life. So let me clear something up right here. This might shake your world if you're a woman, but I can't help it. This is an indisputable scientific fact: All guys are the same. Doesn't matter if you teach college or drive a forklift. A guy is a guy. Nothing we can do about it. Now, in case you're not a guy, here's the dictionary definition: A person who doesn't think before he speaks. We just don't. We can't. Our brains are not wired to think. The truth is we're not that deep. A guy has only three basic needs: eating, sleeping, and sex. That's it. That's our whole day. I know a lot of women don't believe it, but it's true. If you see a guy thinking really hard, chances are two of his basic needs have been met and he's trying to figure out how to take care of number three. "I ate, I slept . . . where can I get me some sex?" The one thing we've got going for us is that we have an excuse when we do something dumb. If Gail catches me doing something lame, which has happened occasionally in the twenty-four years of our marriage, I'll just look at her and shrug. "Sorry, honey, I'm just a guy." Part of being a guy is that I don't care about the same things my wife does. Like balancing the checkbook. She reconciles it every month, and if it's off by one penny, she'll get out the calculator and go through the check register until she finds it. With me, if it's within a hundred bucks, cool, it's balanced. Next problem. Sometimes being a guy makes us vulnerable. For one thing, the marketingEngvall, Bill is the author of 'Just a Guy Notes from a Blue Collar Life', published 2007 under ISBN 9780312362676 and ISBN 0312362676.