Vacuums Suck

The comedian sits down on his filthy floor in his pitch-black apartment. He closes his eyes and waits for jokes to magically pop into his head. After three hours and forty-five minutes, he thinks of absolutely nothing.

“Maybe this comedy thing isn’t for me,” he says to himself. So, he turns on the TV. Sadly, every channel is broadcasting the same breaking story about the local hospice, which tragically burned down last night. This makes the comedian feel bad, and not inspired. So, he turns off the TV. Instead, he reaches for a book called How to Write Great Jokes and opens it to a random page.

Good jokes come from personal experience, says the book, but great jokes come from shared experience. Humor doesn’t exist in a vacuum.  

Clang! The comedian is interrupted by a shooting pain in his left foot. Something had collided with his ankle. His brand-new Roomba is humming away on the carpet sucking up a pile of potato-chip crumbs. “You did that on purpose!” he says to his vacuum cleaner. The comedian takes a breath and relaxes his shoulders. “Sorry, Roomba. I’m a little on edge. If I bomb tonight, then I’m going to give up comedy for good.”

Suddenly, Roomba’s hum evolves into proper English language. “Need a hand?” Roomba says with sarcasm. “I’m pretty funny!”

The comedian picks up Roomba and sets it back on course. “Eh, I don’t know. This book just said humor doesn’t exist in you. Plus, there was that whole thing on the news about—"

“Tell you what.” Roomba looks up at the comedian. “I’ll open for you tonight. I’ll prove it.”

The comedian takes a second to think. “Okay,” he says, “but you can’t say I didn’t warn you.” 

“Trust me,” says Roomba. “You’ll thank me later.”

Later that night, Roomba gets on stage and makes jokes about earning a nickel every time it swallowed a quarter. About ramming its head into the wall on purpose, just to feel something. Roomba even made a joke about wanting to EXPLODE! when it learned the meaning of its life was to eat garbage off the floor. On most nights, Roomba would have killed. But tonight was different. There is something...off...about the crowd. After every joke, the audience wouldn’t make a sound. Some people even look disgusted.

After his last joke, Roomba maneuvers off the stage and the comedian goes up next. Before he says a word, he takes a deep breath and curls his fingers around the microphone. “I want to address the elephant in the room,” the comedian says, trembling more with every word. Nobody makes a sound. The only thing anybody can hear is a woman in the front row trying to hold back tears. The comedian stops, singles out the woman, and reaches to her with his hand. The woman gently takes it. She smiles.

“Just like me,” the comedian says to the audience. “I’m sure you’re all still shaken up after yesterday’s robot-terrorist attack. After the Roomba ‘accidentally’ exploded and burned down our local hospice.” The audience nods in silence. The comedian fits the microphone back on the stand. “Please, a moment of silence for all of the terminally ill people we lost.”

All together, everyone in the audience lowers their head. When the time is right, everyone looks up again and the comedian grabs the microphone. He raises it to his mouth, and at the perfect moment, he delivers the punchline to the joke he thought of in his apartment. The joke that broke through his writer’s block.

“I guess that’s why they say,” he says. “Vacuums SUCK!”

Then, like a studio audience on a ninety’s sitcom, the whole club erupts in hysteric laughter. Slapping their knees. Spitting out their beer. Jumping up and down like wild maniacs. One of them scoops up Roomba, hiding in the back, and bashes it to pieces with the butt-end of a pool stick — making sure nobody in this bar falls victim to another vacuum. The crowd chants in unison, “VACUUMS SUCK! VACUUMS SUCK!! VACUUMS SUCK!!!”

All the comedian can do is stand there and watch everybody go absolutely insane over the single greatest joke he ever told. Then, before the comedian sets up his next punchline, as he basks in the chaos like a warm sunrise, another thought magically pops into his head.

Maybe comedy IS for me...

…but I’m going to need another Roomba.