How To Always Be On

by Steve Kissell

As we are all aware, our world is changing and becoming seemingly more dangerous and stressful. Even now, our lives have changed in the way we travel by air. The gate agents, pilots, flight attendants, security personnel all have a considerably elevated amount of stress at work. So, it is up to you and me to bring more joy to their work environment. A couple of ways I do that is to present an Elvis Presley drivers license as my ID at each security point. It gets a good laugh and from time to time they will respond in kind by sending me through the search procedure again. I also have a small red dot on my drivers license picture and as they examine it I reach into my pocket and put on a red clown nose. They look at the license and then me and it gives them an extra couple laughs. I also have a button that reads “Ask me about my vow of silence.” From time to time a brave person will say, “OK, tell me about your vow of silence.” And I just stare at them. Good for a laugh. I love to have fun in the airplane emergency exit row and sit in the aisle seat with a pair of those wrap around sunglasses, you know - the kind that the old people wear. It looks like I am blind. So when the flight attendant approaches me and asks if I can operate the emergency exit door, I look up and ask “Who’s talking?” Often when I board the plane the pilots are already in the their seats and I’ll say “I’m behind you 100%!” If I want to sit by myself, I just take out an airsick bag, open it up, hold it in front of me, mess up my hair and try to look real serious. It seems that no one wants to sit with me then. And lastly, on the smaller planes, I love to imitate the flight attendant. Most of the time, they will ask me if I want to give the directions because I’ve seen it so much.

The next area you can have fun is in public restaurants. When I am greeted by the hostess and asked where I want to sit I tell her the non-smoking, big tipping section. They get a big chuckle from that. When the server arrives to introduce themselves, I respond with, “My name is Steve and I’ll be your customer today.” Then I introduce everyone at the table, and quiz the server as to who everyone is. It’s a lot of fun. From time to time, if I’m at a restaurant with friends I’ll just stand at my table, pick up an empty glass and bang it with a spoon and say “May I have your attention please?” Then, when they all stop talking and look at me, I say, “Thank you. I just wanted a little attention.” Also at a restaurant you can practice your CPR by placing an empty coffee cup on a saucer. Place a spoon through the handle and as you are holding the sauce, hold onto the end of the spoon. Then gesture with the coffee cup, tip it a little and release the cup from the saucer and it will dangle by the spoon. It will give the appearance that you have spilled coffee on someone. But only do this if you know how to administer CPR.

Lastly, and I think the biggest entertaining value at a restaurant, I take a bread roll, hid it below the table and stick a fork in it. Then, I hold the end of the fork with my right finger and thumb behind an opened up napkin. I hold it in front of me so that the roll is in the center of the napkin. Then I rotate my thumb and the roll pops up from behind the napkin and gives the appearance it is floating in air. Someone will ask how to do that, and I tell them simply that it’s made with self-rising flour.

The next area of fun is shopping. I will approach a shopkeeper or employee, quickly glance their name tag, call them by name and introduce myself saying, “You don’t remember me do you?” They, of course, look in puzzlement. “You don’t remember me because we’ve never met, and can you direct me to how I can find this item.” At check out I begin to write a check and ask the person how much they charge for returned checks? Once I was at a store, and asked how much an item was. The clerk responded “A million bucks!” Much to his surprise I reached into my wallet and pulled out a million dollar bill and gave to him to keep. You know what he did? He gave me the item for free! I was using a million dollar bill at a Wendy’s drive-thru and I passed it through the window to the teenager behind the register. I asked him if he could change the bill. He replied, “Dude, I have to talk to the manager first.” I shook my head and said to myself, “Here’s a fellow who has reached as far as he can go in life.” Speaking of drive-thru’s, try driving through one backwards and shout your order through the passenger side. It confuses them and all the cars behind you, who are actually now in front of you.

Last is some telephone fun. At our office we always the phone, “This is Steve Kissell’s office, I can help you.” Rather than asking the question ‘Can I help you?’ I already know I can and I want our first words to be very positive. Often I ask people on the phone how they are, they usually reply ‘great’ and ask how I am. My reply is, “If I was any better, I’d be you!” They usually get a good laugh out of that. If they are having a bad day, they say “Oh, you don’t want to be me today.” If I am calling for someone and they are not in, and am offered voice mail, I respond with, “Yes, I’ll take category voice mail for $200.” And that, my friends, always gets a chuckle. Now if you really want to have some fun on the phone, call someone that you know has call waiting and while you are talking to them use another phone line and call them again. They will hear a beep and say something like, “Hold on, I have another call. I’ll be right back.” Then they click over and it’s still you. You say, “It’s still me.” They will do that a few more times and think that their phone system is not working. Often, in our office, we will call someone that may have an office in their home, so they have three lines - a cell phone, home line and business lines. I have the same setup. So just for fun, and to make them crazy, I will call all three phones at one time and visualize them racing around the house. And that, my friends, are a few crazy things that I often do, in public, to bring joy and laughter to those less fortunate. Yes, I make my living bringing laughter to others but I enjoy practicing what I preach as often as I can.