Tara Clancy - Hello, Straight People!

 

Wyoming, how are you? [audience cheers and applause] Oh, wake up, baby. Wake up. [audience laughter] Welcome to The Moth. I am so, so excited to be here. As you can tell, I'm a native, right? [audience laughter] Now, I am from New York. This is my first time ever in Wyoming. [audience cheers and applause] 

 

Thank you. Thank you. I love you back. I'm blown away. I'm blown away. It's like so beautiful here. And last night, somebody told me that this is the least populated state. And I was like, “Wow, man. Now, that is a tagline.” [audience laughter] Wyoming, less people. [audience laughter] I'm in. 

 

 So, tonight, our theme of the night is Flirting with Disaster. So, all the stories are going to tie into that theme. And so, I have to tell you that when I thought about that theme for myself, I just instantly, I think, well, when did I most flirt with disaster and it's when I decided to become a parent. That's it. You become a parent and you are just perpetually flirting with disaster. [chuckles] 

 

I have two kids. They are four and seven. Two boys. Two little boys. It is two boys, two moms. It is like the universe's little joke [audience laughter] on the lesbians. [audience laughter] Flirting with disaster. [audience laughter] So, I have these two little guys. All right, so, a little quick story here. So, we are all in the car. We're in the car. I am driving the car. The other mom is in the passenger seat. They are in the back. We are having a conversation which we think they're not paying attention to. I used the word dyke. We were talking about water and immigration. Like, irrigation systems. [audience laughter] 

 

Anyway, of course, the second it comes out of my mouth, my five-year-old in the back is like, “What's dike?” I'm like, [onomatopoeia] But I spit right out. I am like, “It is a pejorative term for a lesbian.” He's five. [audience laughter] I wish I could tell you that the next thing he said was, “What's pejorative?” But he doesn't. He says, “What's a lesbian?” Like, “Really, kid?” We both raise our hand. [audience laughter] So, I'm shocked. Kid's missing the forest with the trees here. He doesn't know, but you got to do it. 

 

And so, I'm stopped at a red light. And so, I, explain. I'm like, “A lesbian is a woman that loves a woman. A gay man is a man who loves a man. When a man and a woman love each other, we call them straight people.” I could hear the wheels turning, but there's a little bit of silence. We look at each other and we're like, “All right, all right.” Seems we got out of that one. But then, all of a sudden, I hear the window. I hear like [hiss sound] I look in the rearview mirror, and I can see my son and he's got his head. He's sticking it way out the window and he's looking at something. And so, now I look forward and I see a man and a woman pushing a baby stroller coming down the street. He's staring at them. 

 

I look again in the rearview mirror, and he's got his head all the way out. And then, all of a sudden, he goes, “Hello, straight people.” [audience laughter] And I duck. [audience laughter] Like, these people must think, those lesbians just drive around Manhattan, [audience laughter] like it's a safari. [audience laughter] “Look, son, they're the indigenous straight people. [audience laughter] Don't speak loudly.” Flirting with Disaster. That is my experience, Flirting with Disaster with my kids. 

 

All right. Are you ready to start hearing some stories? [audience cheers and applause] 

 

You ready? So, here at The Moth, in lieu of reading people's bios. There are bios in your programs, and we want you to read them maybe at intermission, take a look. But in lieu of doing that, what we do instead for a little bit of fun, is we ask everybody the same question, and then we bring them up on stage with their answer to the question. And so, tonight, since our theme was Flirting with Disaster, the question was like, “Tell us about your last close call.” 

 

When I asked our next storyteller the question, she told me this little story and I love it. So, here it is. She loves to watch those videos you see online where people are doing something stupid basically, like they've been asked a question and they don't know the simplest question. So, she always loves sit and watch and laugh at these stupid people. And so, one day, one of the questions came her way. A friend sent her a question. 

 

And the question was, “Which animal would be the first to get the bananas out of the palm tree? A giraffe, a monkey, a cat or a lion?” She sat around thinking about it, thinking about it and finally she's like, “You know what? I think I'm going with a monkey. I'm going with a monkey” She puts in her answer and she gets to the end and it's like palm trees don't have bananas. Who's stupid now? Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Cristina Briones.