Ladies, gentlemen, and children of all ages,
But mostly ticket-holders, 'cuz you're payin' my wages! I'm Camilla Nomer, and I'll be your entertainment for the night. Unless, of course, you're in accounting, in which case I'm likely your only entertainment for the week at the very least, or you're my boss, in which case I'm your entertainment eight shows weekly until I finally get myself fired.

Speaking of bosses, though, any bosses out there? Raise your hands high! It's a tough job, and it's about time you got to hear how folks feel about all the work you put in. All right, everybody else, on three… one, two, three…
BOOO!!
Nah, I'm just yankin' your chain of highly profitable burger joints. Actually, I'd like to tell you a bit about my boss. Yeah, that's him in the back, going into cardiac arrest.

Mistah Andolini is a great guy. And before you ask, he did not pay me to say that. No, he wanted to hear it himself 'fore he paid me anything. Like I said, though, he actually is a great guy. Practically patience's patron saint! Which is to say, I'm still working here. I'll let you in on a little secret, though, if you promise not to tweet it at least until you're out of the building. For all the guy owns more business than you can fit around a Monopoly board, he couldn't negotiate his way around a table. See, when we got down to the matter of payment, he makes me an offer of a couple hundred a show. Now, I ain't as stupid as I think I look like, I think, and I know business-folk always start out with a bad offer so they have an easier time haggling, or maybe even get some schmuck to agree right off the bat. I don't buy any of that, and so I tell him quite frankly that I gotta eat! So we get to the negotiation proper, and in no time flat, I get him down to sixty. Can you believe he lets me get on this stage for just sixty bucks? If he'd held out, he could've gotten a hundred, easy.

Now, to his credit, Mistah Andolini is a very principled man. Some folks think that just because they got themselves money means that they don't have to do nothin' no more, no way, no how. (Eat your heart out, English majors- quintuple negative!) He's not one to just sit back, and always says that what doesn't kill you just makes you stronger. When I saw how well it's worked out for him, I decided to adopt it as my personal motto as well. Since then, I've canceled my gym membership an' replaced my exercise routine with eating slightly sub-fatal amounts of doughnuts. Doctor didn't think that was a good idea, but I told 'im it makes perfect sense- if you can nearly bench your own weight, you might as well make that as much as possible!

Mostly what I appreciate about Mistah Andolini is that he took me on. I'm not sure you folks understand… you see, most other people have options. If you're athletic, you can play sports, be a personal trainer, or write health books promoting doughnuts. If you're good at arguing, you can be a lawyer, a businessman, or a day-time radio host. Heck, if you're good at stealing stuff, you can rob banks, go into politics, or join the IRS! Somebody like me has to find work as a comedian. Can you think of any other job that lets a person act like this and not get diagnosed as having potentially dangerous an' disruptively destructive sociopathic tendencies? Don't think I didn't try, though! The publishers turned me down, the lawyers got a restraining order, the bank robbers locked me in the vault, and the accountants all made fun of me and never invited me to any of their parties. The psychiatrists said they wanted me to keep their red couch warm for the next client, but then they started asking me all sorts of questions about my mum. Any desk jobs only lasted until they figured out that the sticky notes saying 'URGENT!' that they were finding lying on the ground hadn't fallen off anything, and that I was the one making them. I even tried joining the circus as a clown, but that was no good- I kept worrying I'd get me in my sleep. So here I am, snappy and aptly slap-happy as ever.