If Only Don Pardo Was My Tag Along Friend…

I have a problem. It’s a big one (I’m really, really resisting saying TWSS here, by the way) and I need to discuss it. My problem: I seem to enjoy and actually have the biological need to quote memorable lines from Saturday Night Live in almost every conversation I have. I actually cannot stop myself from doing it. I won’t say that I get a tick in my face or anything like that when an SNL quoting opportunity presents itself, but I do get a little giddy. To help you understand, I can only say it’s very similar to that pure rush of joy you get when someone around you blurts out ‘That’s What She Said’ for the first time and then says something like ‘Dammit Michael (or your name), now you’ve got me doing it,’ to which you HAVE to reply ‘I know, that’s what she said.’ Getting the final TWSS in helps assert your mastery of the art over them and prevents them from getting too big headed too early in their TWSS career, but that's really, really besides the point here.

Sometimes, SNL things happen at work that just seem to fall into my lap. Take last week for instance when I was asked to return a call to someone with the same name as an original SNL cast member. Due to client confidentiality and all that overly legal, I need to keep my job mumbo jumbo, I’ll just say she was very short and very funny and married Gene Wilder and sadly died of cancer. I know what you’re thinking; that was so descriptive that I might as well just have told you her name. But, that description was offered to throw you off. This client’s name is the same as the original cast member who was really tall and really skinny and played the Coneheads’ daughter. I’m sorry, but that’s really the only hint I can give you. When I received the message to call this client I could not stop saying her name in my best Don Pardo impersonation, which for some reason sounded a lot more like the late Don Adams from ‘Get Smart.’ Perhaps this is why no one in the office knew why I kept going around saying her name in the voice that I used, no matter HOW MANY TIMES I kept saying it. I joked with my boss that when I called her and she answered the phone that instead of saying hello and identifying myself, I would just say her name in my 'Don Pardo but really closer to Don Adams, at least they both have the first name of Don' impersonation. As you might have already figured, he asked me not to. Well, it was more like he TOLD me not to.

I was also cursed blessed with having the LAST cubicle before the office’s copy machine. I know I don’t need to tell those of you who are SNL fans what comes next, but for the sake of the rest of you, I will. Yep, everyone who heads to the copier in our office is…wait for it…wait for it…ok, here it comes: ‘makin’ copies!’ Most of the work mates are numb to it as if beaten into submission pretty accepting and good humored about it. The lone exception is of course Female Coworker. I don’t care how many times she threatens to kick me in the ankles, flip me off or flash me with the big ‘loser’ L with her fingers on her forehead, I will ALWAYS say ‘Femalus Coworkerino makin’ copies’ each and every time she passes by with documents needing to be mimeographed (while I don’t play Scrabble, that has to be a major point word).

Then are the times we go to In ‘N Out Burgers for cheese burgers (cheese burger, cheese burger, cheese burger, cheese burger…), the times someone says they don’t feel well (time for blood letting from Steve Martin’s ‘Medieval Doctor’) and the times when I find myself doing Dan Akyroyd’s Fred Garvin, Male Prostitute (don’t ask, although I will say that I only do the voice and HR has not had to be called). I have lost track of the times I have told Female Coworker that ‘she looks marvelous,’ regardless of how she looks. Our office is next to a gym, so when we are in the parking lot and happen to see the men who spend a little too much time at the weights, I can’t stop myself from uttering ‘we’re here to pump…you up.’ And who can hear a bit of bad news and not respond by saying ‘well, isn’t that special.’ Paul Simon’s ‘Still Crazy After All These Years’ played on my Ipod the other day and I started saying ‘I’m dressed like a turkey’ and flapping my arms up and down. Sadly, no one remembered this sketch and the whole thing was made worse by the fact that I was indeed NOT dressed like a Turkey. Also, no one seems to get what I’m saying when I blurt out ‘I guess he smells my dog’ from the Dana Carvey head trauma sketch, or my Frozen Caveman Lawyer references or my Bill Murray lounge singer act.

I also routinely find myself talking like Linda Richmond in ‘Coffee Talk,’ Christopher Walken saying ‘champagne and caviar’ in my favorite recurring sketch ‘The Continental,’ and Wayne Myers and Garth Algar (no way, way). At least once a day, I find myself quoting motivational speaker Matt Foley, played by Chris Farley. I cannot begin to tell you how many people I have accused of ‘living in a van, down by the river.’ There are countless other sketch’s characters and sayings I quote often that I don’t have time to include here (it’s scary how many times in a week one can find himself working the phrase ‘this just goes to prove my theory that Germans love David Hasselhoff’ into a random workplace conversation). And I MIGHT have let the occasional 'Jane (or insert any coworker's name), you ingorant slut' slip out, but only once or twice, by which I mean as often as I can get away with it.

The worst part of my affliction special talent is that I think and believe with all my heart that I am being clever. I actually get great joy from quoting SNL over and over and over again, despite how my coworkers feel about it. Yes, it’s true that they once enjoyed it. Yes, they used to sing along when we went to lunch and I would start singing ‘Lunch Lady Land’ or say ‘come let us consume mass quantities.’ Of course they were familiar with the theme song for ‘the ambiguously gay duo’ every time I’d sing it, which our HR will no longer allow me to do. And they all knew what I meant when I said that I just met a ‘Pat’ because I was slightly unsure of the person’s gender. Those days are over now. These days, it just feels like I’m that freak in the corner cubicle who keeps unnecessarily quoting from Saturday Night Live. Wow, that description was hauntingly accurate...

It’s ok though, I still manage to entertain myself and keep my spirits high and isn’t that what’s important here. After all, I'm Good Enough, I'm Smart Enough, and Doggone It, People Like Me. See, I can’t stop doing it…