Oh my goodness. It still hurts a little. Ow. Because my partner is brilliant, we're opening with Honor System in Vegas and it's really working. We have Jonesy playing live before the show (with some bass guy) and the show is really rocking. So, we open with Teller getting in the boxes and I flip the hinge down, lock it and sit on the box and talk about it. It's a nice start.

Well, I banged the top down really hard and then tried to close the hasp. During the audience examination, someone had bent it. It wouldn't close, I couldn't put the lock through it. Robbie tried to help, but we couldn't get it to close. Okay. No big deal, there are hasps and locks on the side, so I just alibied that and we were fine. Fine. I flipped the hasp back to the top of the box, so it wouldn't be hanging there, undone, right in their faces. So, the bent hasp is back and I'm sitting on it. Nothing wrong with sitting on a hasp. Nothing wrong with that at all. It's the opening, so I want the audience to forget that everything isn't perfect. So, I get into it. I'm sitting on a hasp, but all I'm thinking about is selling the patter. Fine. And they're with me; it's all going well. And then it's time to slide off the box and start walking around.

Okay, so the hasp is back and the hinge of the hasp is on the front of the box. And I uncross my legs and slide forward. In a very masculine way, I slide forward to jump off the box. It's a move I do every night, but never while sitting on a hasp. So, let's do this slow motion, as I slide forward, the back of the hasp goes under my body, and part of my delicate personal parts slide between the box and the metal. This stops me. It's a very unpleasant position - if I go forward the hasp goes right up into me, if I go back, my weight pushes down on the hasp and crushes the valuables underneath. Hmmmm. I have my arms on either side and I'm holding myself up like a Russian Olympic gymnast who happens to be 47 years old, 270 pounds and male. The solution is to fly straight up and I try that. I had the will to fly but I couldn't do it (note: use this as an example when people say "you can do anything you really want to do").

This is a bad enough situation. I have, shall we say, my nuts in a hasp, with should be a colloquial, off-color expression for big trouble. Goodness. Now add to this that there are hundreds and hundreds of people watching me. There are 5 or 6 words that should be screamed now, but they aren't right for the P&T show. I don't know really what to do. I'm adlibbing in my usual fastest mind in comedy way - "Ow. I'm stuck on the hasp, it's right . . . oww, I can't get off it. I can't . . . owww."

I'm going from side to side trying to find a way for my arms to push me the length of the hasp above the box. I'm wiggling from side to side. I finally kind of fall off the box. Now, all I want to do is grab a place that I really can't grab during the P&T show. Well, actually I grab that place during Liftoff and the Knife, but now is not the time. So, I do what any professional entertainer would do: I move my arms up and down like Yosemite Sam, while saying, "Ow. I was stuck on the hasp." I have to keep talking, so I talk about how one shouldn't sit on a hinge and slide forward, especially if one is a man. I talk about how I want to grab and check, but I don't think it's right. The audience may have thought it was entertaining, but they sure didn't think it was part of the show. So, I did about a minute and a half on my pain and then went right to where I left off. I made a few references to "hinge sitting" over the rest of the show, but that was it.

I'm okay. But, you know, things like this don't happen to other people. They just don't. It's so hard being the world's stupidest sober Atheist.

Penn

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