When I was 23, I was at a coffee house where this troupe called “Theater Sports” was performing. They would do something like “filking”, in that they would take words, phrases, or in this case, anecdotes, from the audience, and work them into an extemporaneous skit.
I always seem to get picked when performers choose someone from the audience. Must be the red hair. Anyway, they asked me to share a traumatic episode from my childhood. Now, I have a lot of those, but they wouldn’t go over too well in a coffeehouse setting. My mind whirred, and I came up with this.
“When I was in elementary,” I began, “there was a series of ads on tv for some kind of instant oatmeal. The jingle declared, declared, mind you, ‘We’re gonna make a hot cereal lover outta you!’ With an ‘mm-hm!’ for emphasis.” [audience giggles] "Well, my mom was always trying to get me to eat healthy, so she got a box of the stuff, cooked it up…
“…and I did not love it.” [audience laughs more] “In fact, I hardly even liked it. And the ad had promised that I would! They said it: ‘We’re gonna make a hot cereal lover outta you! Mm-hm!’ " [Rilchiam’s voice trembles] And they didn’t! Advertising lied to me!” [Rilchiam looks out at the audience, stricken] “How could they do that?” [audience guffaws]