I Didn’t Know What Divorce Was Until Her: Katie Hughes

Growing up, I was very poor, I was also very weird, so you could catch me in the middle of that Venn diagram eating free lunch with my English teacher. Her name was Miss Deal, she was 55, recently divorced, what better friend for a 14-year-old gal? We had a lot in common, starting with boys didn't like either one of us, and every day I would eat lunch with her. I'd bring my little square piece of pizza into her classroom and she would tell me about her dreams. And I'm not talking about her goals and aspirations, she taught English in Western North Carolina, those were dead. I'm talking about her chamomile-induced night terrors. So I'd come in, she'd be waiting for me like, oh Katie, I had that dream again. You know the one, I'm driving the RV, can't find a parking spot for nothing. So I am going back and forth, and back and forth, all of a sudden I look down, steering wheel's made out of my ex-husband's pelvic bone. What do you think that means? I think that means we need friends our own age. Didn't make any back the next day. Brought some chicken ring things in her classroom, she was still there, she's like, oh Katie, I had a new one last night. Last night I dreamt I was in an elevator, I was going up and down and up and down and up and down, all of a sudden I started giving birth. Didn't even know I was pregnant. Then the only thing that came out was the laugh box from a Tickle Me Elmo. What do you think that means? Think that means you passed out with your back massager and your sweatpants. That day we had lunch and detention together. I did feel bad for her, it's hard to make friends as an adult, especially when one of the best parts of being friends is complaining to each other, and it's really hard to complain to somebody when they think they have it worse than you. She couldn't be friends with the theater teacher, Miss Knight, she'd have no sympathy for her. Bill Hill, you had a bad dream. I went to Juilliard, now I teach theater in Appalachia. I live in a waking nightmare. Did you know the school board wants me to put on a production of The Miracle Workers? Well tell me this, which one of these little rat-tailed mountain babies is more articulate than Helen Keller? Just cut to her directing the star of the show, like the line is come here, come here, everybody come here. Mayor. Mayor, baby. I recently got into acting myself. I haven't told a lot of people this, but I was recently cast as the lead in a remake of the movie Pretty Woman. It's called Okay Lady. I am trying to do more auditions and stuff like that, like I used to live in Atlanta and I auditioned for a Coca-Cola commercial for the role of flirtatious female. Two words that have never come to mind when people think of me, but I went for it and I didn't think I was gonna get the part until the casting director saw I had improv on my resume and they asked me to do a couple takes for fun and then I knew I wasn't gonna get it. They were like, all right, action. I'm like, fun and flirty, fun and flirty, fun and flirty. Hello, sir. If you think this drink is soft, wait till you feel my teeth. Guys love it when you leave something behind, you know? Why not a molar? How about an incisor? I recently moved to LA. I don't know if I like it, because I don't like it, but I think I'm too Southern to live there. I think that's the conclusion I've come to. People kind of get worried when I say that. I'm the kind of Southern that believes in vaccines, but not recycling. It's a real sweet spot, because I know a scam when I see one. You're not getting my cans. I need those for target practice. I love the South. I love it here. I wish I still lived here, but I like the people here. I feel like people here are very real, genuine, just nice people, very generous, and I feel like out there, it's like a weird kind of toxic positivity. It's hard to get a read on. I'm like, do you have nothing negative to say? They're like, uh-uh. I figured out what it is. I think it's just that the Southern California accent does not lend itself to bad news. How many of us would feel bad for somebody with vocal fribing, like, I'm getting audited. Just some dude like, bruh, the test, inconclusive. I feel like Southerners, we have the opposite problem. We could have great news, but our accents still make it sound kind of morbid. My granddaughter's pregnant. And we're having a party. One of my favorite things to do out there is watch the local news, because I love to be scared, and it's thrilling. Like, the first week I moved out there, I saw a story unlike anything I'd ever seen down here. I saw a story about a forest fire, and in the course of that fire, they found a body in a barrel. And for a full day on the news, all they could talk about was if it was a man or a woman. They didn't know, like, is it a man, is it a woman? The next day rolls around, they're like, it's a man! I was like, oh my God, they've got reverse gender reveal parties out here. We're doing the fire, then the genitals. I will say, the one thing I like about LA more than I like about, you know, especially my hometown in North Carolina, is they really believe in science out there. Like, they love the environment. Like, everybody in my hometown thinks climate change is a hoax, and they think hoax is singular for hoax there. Bad, dumb people. But I think the reason why, I'm trying to be more empathetic to them, you know, that's where I grew up, I was trying to, you know, get inside their head. I think it's just because we used to have a taxidermist in town, and it closed, and in the same exact spot, a pet shop opened up. So everybody's like, see, nature's healing itself. I have a friend who still lives there, and she told me I should write a joke about how that pet shop is now haunted by the animals that were taxidermied there. What a dumb bitch. Like, I never saw a redneck pulling up in his F-350 with a live deer in the back. You know, he's like, rassling out a 12-point buck. He's like, freaking out. He's like, Travis! Travis! Fire up the bear machine! And I know based on that joke, y'all think I don't know how taxidermy works either. But I do know they don't kill them there. I do think the fact that there are still pet shops opening and thriving in a world where there are animal shelters full of lightly-used, deeply-discounted dogs. That gives me a lot of hope for stand-up comedy. Because like, as a comedian, or maybe any artist, like, it's hard to feel original all the time. It's hard to feel like you're unique, and like, I get in my head, I'm like, what if my joke's too similar to somebody else's joke? And what I do is I remind myself that comedy is just a business, and there's no successful business that gives a ---- if you're selling something similar to them, you know? Like, do you think McDonald's is worried if someone else has meat and cheese and buns? Like, I don't think there's one Cold Stone Creamery that's freaking out, like, oh my god, what if somebody else has vanilla ice cream in a freezer full of teenagers fingering each other? Like it, love it, gotta have it. I worked there, I can attest. We're not singing for fun.