Jeanne Robertson's Last Performance - Nuggets from a Grandma Gone Viral

thank you appreciate it i'm already ticked off judson took my dancing part of my speech now i got to get up here and do nothing it just burns me up and if there are any other auburn people in here could this could this guy make a killing on toomer's corner with toilet paper rolls after one of our games this rocking chair is for me i have to be in the rocking chair because of medical considerations i have never in my life seen a rocking chair like this have y'all where did they get this but i've signed it and i think they're auctioning it off for the foundation later today so that would work for me i'm going to sit down right now because i want to ask a question to get started how many of you have ever worn by medical advice compression hose it's not an age thing it's not a woman or a male thing these are things that they assign you and i'm in them and i'm going to tell you they go up to my waist and i'm giving the people at home a warning those of you that are on viral you don't leave your room because at some time during the next hour these hoes are going to slingshot me somewhere in this room right out the door and if you're here and you're watching my face on the big screen and you see me go duck i may be coming your way so the name of my program is nuggets from a grandma gone viral i agree with what judson just said wasn't that a terrific presentation god but a few years ago people named me in a television thing the grandma gone viral now i am a grandma and i have gone viral and i just agree with what he said i thought i was doing real well but every time at nsa when i would people say well how many do do you have how many views do you have and even if i say 113 million they say how many does judson have every time i love being in vegas i'm a vegas person i'd love to speak out here would i move here no i'm not going to move here and my friend i'm going to tell stories today and i'm going to tell you what i think the nugget in that story is because we were all here to get better at what we do my bestest friend norma well we're in the south y'all know her name would not just be norwama her name is norma rose you've heard me say it since the 60s we always give our little girls two names in the south in case they want to be in a pageant norma rose said to me where are you speaking next month genie and i said the places and one of them was las vegas and she said las vegas you're going to las vegas again i've never been to las vegas and i said i didn't know that you know what why don't you come and go with me i will call the meeting planner and see if we can get cheap rooms for a couple of days after this convention or a couple of days before i've already checked there is a family comedian on we can go see the family comedian i have airline miles on the roads it won't cost you a penny and she said to me well what do they do in vegas don't they just gamble and i said well there's there's a little of that and then she said it's okay don't get me wrong if you're out there and you want to gather because you're a methodist but genie i'm a baptist and baptists don't gamble and i said well norma rose have they told all of them yet we fast forward now to arrive in this wonderful city i think we flew in on time that's a little different than some of us had this time and she had a camera and i had said this is a people-watching place not a cell phone she had bought a little camera and she was taking pictures everywhere we weren't even out of the airport and she was about just taking pictures taking pictures taking pictures and we stayed and we had a great time and finally the day came when i said we're going over to another we've got to go way over there to see this comedian that i'm telling you about that's family friendly we went over there we ate the buffet typical tourists we ate the buffet and then i said norma rose we have about an hour before we go into jimmy into the show and there's the door to the casino come on we're going in there and she said no jeannie don't you remember baptists don't gamble i'll just sit in the lobby and i said oh for pete's sake you're gonna go we're just gonna go in and play the slot machines he said i'm not gonna do it the slot machine's normal rose is why i chose the slot machines the slot machines are not gambling the word gamble means you have a chance [Applause] we went in and i went to great lengths to find an old-timey slot machine i bet you can't find one in the in this hotel where you pull the lever hence the term one arm bandit you get your own hands dirty you put the coins in yourself it's just an in you go and then you pull the lever but i wanted her to see this experience i said now pull your chair over here you got a stool bring it over here now watch normal rose because this is what you do she said i just don't feel right about that i said we're not going to really win if we put in five quarters and all the bites and the bells and the whistles went off let me put this in a term you might understand that would be what we would call a miracle and i put in a quarter and pull that lever and when you know it two quarters came out and norma rose said you've doubled your money she was the high school math teacher very quick you have won in the casino i said no mama rose i have not won the only way that i would win in this casino is i take these two quarters i put them in my purse you and i leave and i never go in another casino as long as i live but we're not going to do that we're going to put them both in and i put one put two poor believer and the quarters were gone of course in her sanctimonious voice she said ah easy come easy go see what happens well we kept losing quarters winning quarters they tagged you along you went a little while and then it goes on you and we're sitting there and i said no more's in this fun she said yeah but jeannie is your right arm getting tired and i said my right arm she said it looks like it's tiring move over and let me pull the lever and i said no you're not coming out here swearing and declaring that you don't gamble and then you're reaching in and pulling this lever we're not going to do that normal rose not at all and i said we're not doing it and she said oh for pete's sake why don't you recognize the whole thing for what it is i am just a baptist trying to help a methodist with a tired arm now move it over we moved it over and she started pulling the lever and we're moving you do win but in the long run those quarters are going to be gone and after a while i said norma rose we got just a few quarters left but it's about time for us to get to the show so maybe and she said wait a minute she was fumbling around in her purse i thought she was getting that lipstick and then she said look what i found in the bottom of my purse three dirty quarters i'm gonna put them on this ledge they're not my quarters anymore if somebody else finds them they can do with them whatever they want to do with of course i put her three quarters in and we lost them and at that point i said norma rose we got five quarters left and we hadn't put in five quarters oh no i said let's put them all in and get to our show and we put those five quarters in and our lives changed all of a sudden seven seven seven lights you would have thought the police were after us people came running all of this noise and above all the noise i could hear norma rose screaming we won we won i said you didn't win those weren't your quarters i pulled the lever you didn't see me pull the lever and people came running toward us and that's when she turned and took over the entire situation and said it's a miracle let me put it this way it is the fastest i have ever seen a christian change denominations [Applause] norma rose sat down at that slot machine a good southern baptist and in just a few minutes she jumped up an episcopalian [Applause] of course people wanted to help us pick up the quarters sure and we were grabbing them and scooping them and i said just get them just get them in our purses whatever and she said wait a minute we have to take pictures left brain won't believe you one and alan won't believe it that one if we don't have pictures and i said you're right and i stood over here with the three sevens like vanna white and hugged the machine and she took my picture and then she said let me give you the camera and you get you get over here and before she could give me the camera the biggest man you have ever seen off of a football field in complete uniform said ma'am give me that camera she said what give me that camera just for the baptist in here let me just give you a piece you might want to write this down no cameras are committed on any casino floor you might be there with somebody you might be taking pictures of how they do things and norma rose changed personalities in front of my eyes she said no norma rose giving the camera no you've got a picture and i don't have a picture and nobody will believe that i was here no no no talk to him you go all around the country claiming to talk talk to him and get us his camera i stepped up to the man and i said you might not believe this but we're not from around here and one of us is never going to be here again because she didn't have her own airline miles we just wanted he said ma'am give me the camera and i said well she should normally give him the camera we just asked him a favor and he said man give me the camera so that's what i'm trying to tell you both of y'all get over there with the sevens and let me take your picture and then get out of this casino and don't come back you don't know what you're doing i came this close to saying we just hit your jackpot we just hit your jackpot so we posed for the pictures and when normal was standing there she had the nerve after he took a picture to say take another one you always take two pictures in this kind of a situation we took our money and we dragged it out into the lobby and i said norma rose wait here with the money we've got time just hold on let me go back in there and talk to you're not going back in there and talk to him we're out loud alive and just don't go back and i said i know what i'm doing and i went back and when the man saw me i wish you could have seen his face he started backing up and he said where's your friend now she's out she's outside in the lobby with our money i just wanted to come back here here and tell you something i realize you just broke a rule and you work here and we don't want to get you in any trouble i'll be honest with you i never dreamed when we came in this casino tonight that i would run into somebody who worked here that would do that and he said ma'am that's okay i'm not in trouble and i'll tell you something i never dreamed when i came to work in this casino tonight that i would run into lucy and ethel [Applause] now folks let me give you the nugget from that the first is i have a group of tablets i know when i say that y'all are thinking the computer i still use the yellow legal tablets that everybody use i must have 50 or 60 of them this week actually today is the 58th anniversary of me signing my first contract to speak can you believe that and and i backdoored into so much stuff that i'll share with you but one of them is this a few years at nsa ago i heard people say if you're still telling stories about world war ii you better look at your material well i've never told a story about world war ii in my life but i remembered what that person said from the stage if you are doing mainly convention presentations for corporations association whatever you do then you probably don't have young people in your audience as much i'm mainly doing theater shows now and we say family-friendly entertainment bring the family and let me tell you something people in junior high have no idea who lucy and ethel are unbelievable the show's on tv it's out of what they're looking at you could hear from the things judson was saying it's out of their realm right here and the second is that's a great story when i speak in vegas because i can open up with something that lets people know i know where i am after all these years and these yellow tablets that i keep which stack up to here i'm always working on something but over here why waste time if i get any kind of an idea let's get that jot that down do i have a story for every place i go no not yet but i have a lot of stories from places i can use a casino story anywhere that has a casino in town and if you're not taking this sort of wasted time anywhere that you go you won't ever have that advantage but are you in this business for the short haul or the long haul i mean it for the long haul and it's paid off for me i thought the shows yesterday were excellent especially the part about must be nice well if you look at me and you say must be nice i hope you investigate what i have done for 57 years for that to be nice and a lot of other people in here too so so that was one that was one story let me tell you another story and again we'll have to have the nuggets i mentioned the tablets so i believe in welcoming the unexpected i know the last 18 months have not this has been unexpected that a lot of us did not anticipate lives have been changed people are hurting y'all and yet it's the unexpected that takes our careers forward let me give you an example i live in a small town alamance county north carolina lucky enough to have another speaker there patrick henry two different age groups two different everything but last march in 20 like you did in your big cities and everywhere around the country we sat and looked at each other and said well what are we going to do now patrick lost all his convention speeches every one of my theater shows had been postponed of course they wound up being postponed six months later or six months later there was no money coming in anywhere so how many of you looked at somebody and said well i didn't expect this what in the world what are we going to do so what we did was and thankfully i had somebody that could help me with technology we started doing a weekly genie live from the back porch show we have now done almost 70 we done we done we did one here yesterday judson came in janie jenkins came in al walker came in and on these shows i just sat on the back porch and i discovered something i didn't have to really plan all i had to do was say to the people who follow me you know what ask me questions send these questions in and i would answer the questions and i found out i had a lot of material i wasn't even thinking about using it was unbelievable at the height we had 123 000 people listening on a saturday did i make a penny no did i sell tickets for the future oh yes but what i did the most was with these tablets we had people come in and i won't say the name of this person i just won't say that you can ask patrick i just won't say the name of this person but one saturday we had a big name coming in i'm saying this because we didn't have a professional speaker let us down for 18 months but this was not a professional speaker this was a big name and then along about midnight when the show was on at 12 o'clock he began to text and say this one didn't know if he was going to be able to be on not be able to be on we've been publicizing you for a week what do you mean is that an emergency no no so excuse me something else anyway suffice it to say four seconds before noon when the show went he emailed and said not gonna be able to mate maybe another time so we have an hour in front of us tony meredith my assistant of years said aren't we lucky we're creative people we don't need him i don't need him i ran in my office and i said to patrick stall a minute and i picked up a stack of yellow tablets this big i've been doing this 57 years i've got tablets from every year with ideas that i just haven't been able to turn in the material and i came huffing and puffing back up and i said let's roll and they have music they play and all that we got and when i got on i told my followers my fans my facebook buddies that was the guest that we had anticipated had an emergency we made him look good he had an emergency and he can't come but here's what i've got i've got lots of ideas for stories and i can't think of endings or punchlines why don't y'all help me i backdoored into something y'all this was in march of this year i backdoored they started sending me tony and patrick and you can see them on face facebook and all the youtubes and that kind of thing they started sending my eyes had gotten tired of looking at these same scenarios where i just couldn't put it together and they we'd wind up with three different punch lines and in the back of the room i'm looking at patrick and i'm looking at my assistant tony and they're going just get going keep it going at the end of the hour what did my my facebook fans tell me they wanted me to do every week tell them some stories that were unfinished and let them write the end of it do you realize what this did for me my most productive year in writing material was the last 18 months because of all this i also got a call from a local radio show in virginia that had been playing my stories and he said what are you doing and i said well not much all of our shows have been postponed and he said i want you to come on every friday and bring funny new material for for us every friday i said i don't know if i want to get up out of the bed on every friday and do that and then he said to me you just told me all of your theater shows were postponed what else are you doing and i said i'll be there and i've done that i did it from here got up at 3am friday after we got here and i'll tell you until you have bantered with radio people you don't here we try to one-up each other when they sign something and until you've done it with djs who do four hours a day you don't know so with the two i'm now positioned i start going back out on the what we all jokingly call the tour in august i have all new stories and you'll hear some today so the point is i embrace the unexpected as speakers i'm not trying to turn you into a humorist but i'm just saying the unexpected gives us stories to tell material to use and it works very well for example i i had a book that came out y'all are going to laugh when i tell you the title of it and the title of it is don't bungee jump and other important stuff it's not my fault other people in nsa don't know how to brand their accent stuff and i thought about i maybe this year canceling the book coming out let's just wait i'd worked on it for years and i thought it was so good and then i said no i think everybody needs to laugh and i had such a following on this show that can you see they were ready to buy the book so i ordered several thousand books to come here they ordered and i was going to sign those and the rest of them were going to be sold otherwise the books arrived how many of you have had this happen i've only been in a business 50 something years now there was a mistake in the margins of the book it looked terrible so there's nothing to do but get on my live on the back porch show on saturday and say y'all i know i told you that we'd be shipping the books this week but there's y'all are gonna die when i tell you this there's an error with the margins and they are redoing the books i'll have them in three weeks but these books are not really ready to be sold there is no reason of course i had one in my hand there is no reason anybody anybody would want to buy this book unless you're one of those people that likes first editions somebody said genie you're a genius i'm not a genius i don't know when to quit talking before long tony's in the back going don't mention first editions the orders are pouring in we had to reorder some bad books it was just so so that's something i'm sharing with speakers but listen to this when you do a book festival is that a good story to tell yes they understand that we've all been there absolutely i'm in a little bit of a medical situations now and tonight i have to fly back to the red eye because i didn't tell the doctors i was coming here but i made the choice to come here and for example i have told tony if i don't get back she's with me i said if i if i don't make it then i know the doctors are going to be fussed but they'll be out of the picture if i don't make it here's what i want you to do and i'm telling y'all this because as nsa members do not criticize my assistant for following my directions after i may be gone because here's what i told her you get home you might want to write this down pick up your pencil you get home as fast as you can and you autograph my name on every product in our store and then you double the price [Applause] the point is that i have gotten i don't know how many stories like this that i can use for different things because i do embrace the unexpected that's not putting anybody down many of you have said to me since i got here when we come tony thursday seems like we've been here a long time anyway you've come up to me because you know that my husband left brain passed away a month and three days ago and you have said to me why are you here why in the world are you here and i said well y'all asked me to come a long time ago and this is my group my people why would i not be here well you just don't have to be here well thank you but wait to hear what i say but be careful why are you here i am an auburn university absolute sports nut you all are sportsnets or not but in auburn alabama which was a small town when i went there now it's a bigger town on game day game day is when thousands of people come in they're not only in the stadium they're parked around the stadium in rvs with everybody's thing on this and that and the other and only go my whole family excuse me loves auburn a few years ago my uncle mcadoree lipscomb was sick and in his final days and he was on life support life support is a tough thing left brain was not on life support that's a tough decision i've had to make with a sister very tough and the family was you know gathered there and he always said don't bury me on game day well you you know this this is if you don't understand this humor you're never going to get the stories that i tell you and all the stuff i tell you about so finally the doctor said miss lipscomb you really need to make a decision on this her next question was what happens when you take him off life support and they said well he could live 20 minutes he could live two days he could live four days you just don't know well see this presented a problem because the auburn alabama game the auburn alabama game was in auburn saturday and everybody what are we going to do whatever we could do here we could play in this if we waited till friday and then if he passed away on the weekend we could have the funeral see you can't drive to the methodist church in auburn on game day you can't get to any church you can't get to a cemetery and you sure can't get pallbearers because as the week progressed people came to get their name checked off the list because they were going to be busy on saturday and our family began to notice that every person as they walked them to the door to say thank you for coming these wonderful people in auburn who loved my uncle so much would say would you like for me to get rid of your tickets for you there were no tickets to this game and they would say we don't know what we're going to do yet let me explain my uncle owned the landmark of auburn university toomer's drugstore on tumor's corner where you roll in toilet paper if we should happen to win people run with their grandchildren they're on their necks everybody's going to get there and throw toilet paper that may seem crass but a lot of towns paint things and turn over cars we just throw toilet paper and this is it five grown children there and they had to make a decision go to the game don't go to the game their father has been now disconnected and they're waiting and he did live through the game and the funeral was at the first of the week but at that time they weren't real real sure but they had to make a decision my aunt libba of course said well i'm not leaving the hospital my sister who had arrived like on a golden chariot was said i'll stay with ain't nearby of course was speaking somewhere this is the way it goes so the five children said let us go in here and meet without our spouses and make this decision in about two minutes they came back out and they said they had decided they will go into the game and then they added a sentence that has become a little bit famous in our family they're going to the game because y'all can join in it's what daddy would want us to do and of course it was confusing the next day when they announced to all these thousands of people even alabama fans where's barry banther and said the owner of toomer's drugstore the landmark of auburn is very seriously ill and we would like for everyone to join us in prayer and a moment of silence and everybody in a town shut down absolutely shut down because they respected the process the only problem was sitting in the game were his five children and their spouses and people were tapping them on the shoulder going what's going on and they told them all it's what daddy would have wanted us to do and being here today is what left brain would have wanted me to do now folks that's getting real motivational and i am not a motivational speaker so let me please let's just get off of that subject right away the nugget from that story you have to make up your own mind what you do in situations like that i have said in nsa and on stage had people tell everybody what they needed to do when a loved one passed away or when the space shuttle went up or when this happened on and on and on nsa doesn't have a book with all the correct answers you know what you need to do for your individual situation i will now tell you something that will make you change your opinion of me probably i was split left-brained guided at 11 o'clock on monday night i had talked patrick henry to driving me i pay him of course ten hours to do a theater show i wouldn't i didn't want to get on a plane i said if something happens to the left okay ten hours to ship shawano somewhere up almost near you know michigan somewhere if we had driven that and we had been in shipshawana and they had called and said left brains passed away 10 hours from home i would have done that show that's the way i think and it's the way left brain thought but he didn't we hadn't left and that was fine and we went and we canceled the show you had to do that but nsa doesn't have all the rules we in this room have the smarts to figure things out all by ourselves so back to being a little funny our thank you our son beaver when he turned 16 years old he started i need a car i got to have a car everybody i know has a car we said let me tell you something you're 16 years old and you're a junior in high school and you're barely making your grades i think you need to get your grades up a little bit before you even have the nerve to ask for a car well wouldn't you know it left brain's daddy mr robertson passed away he had a clunker of a car an old car that people came to see when he parked look at it and so forth and the only person in our family who didn't have a car was beaver so we gave him the car and there it was when he got ready to go to college he didn't want to go go to auburn he said everybody there would know who i am i'm not going to auburn we'll go to elon university i'm not going to elon you're on the trustees it's the same thing they don't know who i am so we went away to randolph-macon in virginia to play basketball and maybe go to class after he'd been he took the car and after he had been up there a while six weeks or so we went up for parents weekend now you know how this is a big deal and we could drive it and i should have known something was a little funny when i was checking in the hotel and i said are you a student at randolph bacon and the young clerk said yes ma'am i am she said to me are you here for parents weekend and i said yes and then she said so you have a student at randolph-macon left-brain leaned in and say i wouldn't call him a student by any stretch of the imagination where are you beaver you're here i couldn't help but wonder would you have wanted to come if we were beaten in boise where is he in the back where are you beaver i can't even say oh on the front row okay and so we called beaver and said we're here and we're ready to take you and some of your friends allowed to eat tonight come on and go out to eat he said that'd be great we got us we got a whole crowd on my hall but um we won't come out to the hotel could you find coming over to the college and picking us up i've got a really good parking place and a circle in front of the dorm and if i leave there on parents weekend the the place will be it won't be a parking place i'll be parking blocks from here and oh my gosh he'd have to walk and i said no well sure we'll pick you up at the gate i picked them up and there was another car following and of course we paid for everything because that's just what you do and hope parents do the same when you're not there the next morning we called and said now look we told you about this buffet this hotel has a great buffet and he said oh we know about the buffet everybody that goes to school here knows about the buffet could you could you come back to the college and pick us up and we'll all be ready to go it again left brain even said how did he get after six weeks with the grades he has a parking place apparently the best one in virginia and i said i don't know we did this three more times we did it for the game we did it for dinner that night again oh they would by then they were almost caravaning behind us people and and it was always pick us up at the gate it was like a parakeet pick us up at the gate pick us up at the gate pick us up at the gate and it was wonderful it did not dawn on us that he had lost the car [Laughter] i don't mean he was playing poker and beth the car he didn't know where he put the car now beaver you will go to your grave swearing swearing that y'all you were coming on back roads back to the college because among the boys in the car no one had the 50 cent toll to come down the interstate and so there they went they would go this way that way and i couldn't believe it but we thought at the time he was very happy there and we were driving home and we said this is wonderful he's adjusted he's studying he has friends just didn't dawn on us on monday morning we got a call from the people with the virginia highway patrol they had had a clunker of a car registered to jerry robertson for 17 days they found it abandoned on a highway beaver said later we were going to come back and get it we gave out a gas and i just didn't get back for several days and then mama we couldn't find it oh you couldn't find it and i of course go all over the country telling everyone look for the humor in stressful situations i was ticked off lost the car and i said let's go up there right now and ring his neck and left brain said well see he's left brain but he was very creative and he said no let me think about this a minute a little while he came back and he said i know when he gets out of basketball practice come back to my office around five five o'clock i'm gonna call him sure enough five o'clock i stewed about it all day cannot believe this doesn't know where the car lost the cars i don't know these things at that point i just want to just get the and and left brain called him this is back when you didn't have cell phones you had one phone on a hall and half the time the receiver was hanging down but jerry called and he got got somebody on the line and he said this this is uh a person that's calling for beaver he's a six eight guy and he's on that hall and uh could you get him for me please and this student just like that just like that said oh i just saw him he was leaving the dorm with some books under his arm he was going over to the library to study left brain said i'm his father put him on the line yes sir beaver came to the phone and and then left brain i was so proud of him i'm standing way over the door just listening and he said i know we told you we'd never get you a new car but a deal has come through and the people here at the car dealership have called a red porsche was ordered by somebody in town and now they can't take it and they thought of us because we have such a good student must be up at randolph-macon and there's a really good deal on it so i'm just calling to see would you be interested in this and we i could hear stan my dad's buying me a red porsche and these boys that we had fed all weekend that knew he didn't know where the car was have gathered around the phone of red porch red pores red pork left brain just sat there and let it continue and he said well when when are you going to bring it jerry when are you going to bring the car and then he said well we can come up there tomorrow if that'd be okay and he said oh this is that's great that's great that's we ready bring it in and jerry actually picked up a cup of coffee and sat back and said you get your car ready for the trade-in and then he took a swallow of coffee and he waited now you can imagine the coach the boys all calm down and said he wants the other car for the trade-in and finally beaver spoke and said well i got a little problem with that i'm not sure where that car is located and left brain said well that's interesting i am it's with the virginia highway patrol and then he actually sat back and took a swallow of coffee and waited and then came courtesy of you beaver the understatement in the history of the world beaver finally spoke and said i guess this means there's no red porsche [Applause] and of course the truth is the virginia highway are there any people in here from virginia oh great it had to be a clunker car with a north carolina license towed in by the virginia see the people in virginia have always thought they were better than the people in north carolina you know it to be true but guess what it doesn't bother the people in north carolina because we know we're better than the people in south carolina [Applause] some people in here from south carolina you've got georgia don't be complaining for pizza [Applause] left brain handled the whole situation and i decided let me not mention it to beaver that way he would never know when i would jump in and know all about the red porsche story after a while it just kind of goes off your radar there are other things and then you forget about it fast forward 29 years 29 years our grandson rider named after a truck his little brother is gray named after a crayon we don't understand this ryder was coming to elon university from georgia and he had a piece of a car and i knew that down in georgia there was big discussion over whether he could bring that car or not but we're grandparents just leave me out of it no i'm not getting in it no y'all decide and then early one morning in august the phone rang and beaver said mom i need some advice he has called his mother for advice i couldn't i couldn't believe it i said what is it son see if i can help and he said well you know we're bringing bringing ryder up there in about three or four weeks and i don't know what we're gonna do about this this car he wants to bring this car with him to elon and the problem is he's a good boy he never has caused us any trouble but we're just not sure that he has the maturity enough to have a car in college 29 years it is written in the bible vengeance is mine saith the lord but i can't help but believe in heaven they don't cut mothers a little slack i reached into my mother's never forget bag and i pulled out the perfect answer i said i guess this means there's no red porsche there was a long pause and then left brain said excuse me fever said i can't believe you just did that i can't believe after all of these years you just pulled that out of thin air and did i'm gonna tell you something beaver the problem with you is you have never realized how patient your mother can be and he said the problem with you mother is you're going around the nation doing all these theater shows and people are buying tickets and they're laughing and you're beginning to think that you are a lot funnier than you really are so the the nugget is clear i don't want anybody to think they have to wait 29 years but if you're not keeping a list of stories that you think could be something that you might could use as an illustration it's it's tricky i would say so you think about doing that because it works for you very very well now i got all these thousands of people right in the punch lines okay so we discussed over and over and over about making sure that i was off stage on time i'm always off stage on time when i get on stage on time i'm always off stage [Applause] but we got a schedule to keep so i'm gonna drop one story here and tell you the last one and i'm gonna tell you the nugget beforehand it's a shorter one and then y'all can figure out that at the end i'm really doing a secret salute and y'all can decide whether or not it was appropriate do i look okay i got on these shoes got on these these hoes that are about to make me bulge my eyes and do all this and and and here i am up here and my friend jane tucker who helps me with clothes said i need to help you sometimes the sleeves aren't even long enough on what you wear well here i am and the sleeves are right here and i look like a bat but after she had worked with me on my clothes she started saying to me genie let me help you with your jewelry and i said well i don't need help left brain didn't want me to pay her again for something else so i said i don't need help with my jewelry and and i just don't think and she said no no let me help you i said jane we got the same jewelry in north carolina you got in new york city and i bet i can get it for cheaper and she said no jenny it's not that you don't know what to buy boy she dolled me up right here she said you're wearing what you had in the 10th grade you're putting a little lapel pin somewhere you need help you need to make a statement when you walk out on stage i said well i try to be funny she said no make a statement so i was in new york and she was really pestering me about let's go and i finally said jane guess what i'm not wearing jewelry any more not ever again because i have arthritis in my hands so bad that i can't get the necklace done and i can't get the bracelet done on time all these kind of things i have to go out in the hall and stop a strange woman said can you help me get my stuff on please and you do that to a man they'll run up the hall you scare him to death we were walking in new york and the minute i lied and told her i had bad arthritis i felt bad about it and and i did so because she suddenly changed her face and she said jeannie i didn't know that you had that problem come with me right now i thought she was taking me to a new york city doctor no we went into a place you would never go in without a guard or with people who took you in there in just a hole in the wall place but it inside was jewelry and she went over and said that's what you need right there magnetic bracelets and look they have necklaces too you don't need any help there's magnets on the end of each thing and i said jane you're worth your money i'm gonna get one and she said you're not getting one you don't make a statement with one you're gonna get five and finally i said because the price was so low i said to her okay i'm gonna get five she thought i was getting five to wear at the same time like this no i was buying five so that as i lost them one at a time i would have another one i knew that was gonna happen a few weeks later she called and she said where are you today and i said i'm at the greenbrier in west virginia and she said who are you speaking to i said 500 women at lunch she said tell me you'll make a statement if you don't make a statement with what you have on don't mention me don't use me in a story and i said i'll make she said what do you do you have those bracelets and i said i've got all of them but i'm not going to wear them she said promise me you'll wear them and just to make her happy i put on all the bracelets and ladies they look pretty good and i'll summarize the situation for you quickly 500 people in the big ballroom at rounds of either eight or ten and the two committee chairwoman were sitting next to me both the women this one when she sat down said to me i'm left-handed don't let me jab you off i said i'm going to just move my chair right over right now we should chatted a few minutes and then i turned to talk to this lady as they served the salads and after a few minutes this lady said genie help yourself to the salt and pepper and pass it to me and let's get it going i looked over and i reached for the salt and pepper and i didn't realize that all the bracelets on my arm the magnets had gotten in sync at the same time the left-handed woman had picked up her fork and was going toward her salad and my bracelets with all those magnets went across and i sucked the fork right out of her hand [Applause] i heard a woman go oh and i turned and put my arm down which was good because the fork was aligned straight down the forehand but when i put my arm down the fork disappeared and i said what's wrong [Laughter] she said i had a fork [Laughter] [Applause] in my hand and i was reaching for my salad i know i had a fork because it was it was my second bite and i reached for my salad and it's gone my whole fork is gone i still had my arm down like this and i said well it's got to be here somewhere we looked all around for it and i finally said let's look on the floor i even said to her look in your purse like she she's the person who steals things and i even saw her looking up we never could see the fork down my arm but the other women at this round table could see it but they were laughing so hard that all they could do was point point point point point point point i went back in my room my cell phone was ringing i pick it up i said hello jane she said tell me you made a statement [Applause] i said i made a statement and as soon as i got off the phone i called left brain because when you have somebody with whom you are sharing all the stories that you find and put on your tablets it's fun to quickly tell and this time he had the nerve to say to me let me go first i found something really good i didn't think he had something really good i wanted to tell him about the what happened with the fork and the bracelets but i finally said okay jerry what is it and he said good news you and jane tucker can be friends and she can help you with your clothes but you don't need to pay her anymore in today's paper they're telling about a brand new store that's opening up here right at elon university and they have clothes that will fit you genie i said you are kidding what's the name of the store and his complete innocence he and it excuse me answered and said big lots and that ends what i'm doing here today you may applaud you coming out

Channel: JeanneRobertson

Views: 77,773

Rating: 4.9647393 out of 5

Keywords: clean comedy, Jeanne robertson, southern humor, christian comedy, funny lady, grocery store

Id: XbnUHYxtYgI

Length: 59min 24sec (3564 seconds)

Published: Mon Dec 06 2021