When Mikey met Conshy

Hi. I’m Mike. OK, good, you’re still reading. It looks like we’re getting off to a peachy start here, you and me, so let me give you some inside advice: tuck this issue of the paper away somewhere safe, because this is the very first column I’ve ever written, hopefully the first of many, and thirty years from now, if the next Ice Age comes, you can burn it for heat.

The world’s first installment of “Just Humor Me” is well into its second paragraph now, and it’s going as strong as ever. Once you’ve been in the newspaper business (or “The Biz” as we call it in “The Biz”) for more than a paragraph like I have, people finally start to cut you some slack. I’ve found that you can command some hard-earned respect in this business once you’ve been a columnist for at least seven sentences.

If you just went back and counted the number of sentences, may I suggest a switch to decaf? Decaf Ritalin, I mean.

So here we have what promises to be the beginning of a beautiful relationship. I’m excited that we have the opportunity to spend some quality time together every week, right here on your kitchen table, or better yet, on your lap (just not in the bathroom, please – we’ve only just met). Don’t worry; even though I like you, I won’t be weird or clingy. You can still see other columnists.

If you should find yourself reading one of my columns in the future, and a cat plops itself on top of the paper, I will understand if it’s easier for you to just quit reading. Barring feline intervention, though, I hope you will find this space diverting enough to actually read all the way through to the end, unlike The Odyssey – and honestly, don’t feel bad about that anymore. Your English teacher didn’t read the whole thing, either.

So if you like this column, I hope you’ll check out the next one. And the one after that, too. But not the one after that, because I’ll have completely run out of ideas by then. For the next couple of weeks, though, before I go mentally bankrupt, the only goal for this column will be to get one good laugh out of you per week. Courtesy chuckles will also be accepted. If you can’t even muster one of them, a good exhale will do.

The fact that you are reading my first weekly column is the fulfillment of one of my three lifelong dreams. I took care of another lifelong dream this past summer, when I got married before going bald. Thanks for getting me this far, hair. You can go ahead and migrate down to my back now, ‘cause honestly, I don’t feel like brushing you anymore. Who do I need to impress? Those pictures are taken, Baby.

Oh, and my third and final lifelong dream? To be the sixth member of N’Sync. Sure, boy bands aren’t exactly as popular as they used to be, but check me out: It ain’t no lie, Baby, bye, bye, bye, (bye bye). You couldn’t see it, but I totally just nailed that dance move where it looks like I’m saying “bye bye bye” with a hand puppet.

Until I move on to boy band fame, though, I’ll be spending my time with you, right here in the good old New York Times or Conshohocken Recorder (whichever writes back first), and there’s no place I’d rather be. See you next week.