Snatched
Snatched
When you stop trying to suck it all in—emotionally, physically, whatever—that’s when you start taking up the space that was always yours.
Okay. So let me set the scene for you.
It’s 2008, and I’m bombing at an open mic in a bar that smells like regret and Miller Lite. The place is called Slappy’s, which is either a strip club or a comedy venue depending on the time of day—and right now, it’s a Wednesday at 9:15 p.m., so it’s just sad.
I’m wearing bootcut jeans, a flammable polyester top from Contempo Casuals, and under it all, a $12.99 control brief I bought from the clearance bin at Ross Dress for Less because I read in Cosmo that “real women wear shapewear, even under sweatpants.”
I’m not even sure why I wore it. I wasn’t on a date. I wasn’t trying to impress some jacked producer with a soul patch and a startup. It was just… something I thought a “put-together woman” would wear.
Spoiler: the shapewear was not working. It rolled down halfway through my set, forming a sad little belly burrito under my shirt that made me look like I was five months pregnant with a quesadilla.
And still, I kept talking.
My jokes were about working retail in a fancy department store, trying to sell perfume to women who treated me like I was made of lint. I threw in a bit about my mom walking into my room and saying, “Your eyebrows look like the McDonald’s arches. Fix them before you leave the house.”
A guy at the bar snorted.
That was the first laugh of the night.
---
Let me rewind for a second.
Back then, I wasn’t funny-funny yet. I was trying to be funny. And that’s worse than bombing. Bombing is at least pure—you tell a joke, they hate it, you go home and eat Flamin’ Hot Cheetos and cry in the shower.
But trying to be funny feels like you’re standing on stage in Spanx, sucking it in emotionally, hoping no one sees the emotional cellulite hanging off your dreams.
But something happened at Slappy’s that night.
After the snort-laugh, I leaned into the awkwardness.
“I know I look like the assistant manager of a Payless who just got fired for stealing insoles,” I said.
Another laugh.
“I wore shapewear tonight because I thought it would make me feel powerful. Instead, I feel like a human sausage. Which is appropriate, because no one here is kosher about their opinions.”
A bigger laugh.
That’s when it clicked.
My control brief wasn’t controlling anything. But owning the truth of it? That was power.
---
After the set, this woman came up to me. Early 40s. High-waisted jeans, a blazer with shoulder pads, like she stepped out of a Janet Jackson video.
“You’re really raw,” she said. “You ever think about turning this into a real act?”
I blinked. “Uh. Yeah. All the time.”
“I book a showcase at a women’s theatre downtown. We need new voices. Come by.”
Then she slipped me a flyer that smelled like patchouli and cat. And just like that, I had my first real gig.
---
The night of the showcase, I put on the same shapewear. Not because I thought I needed it. But because it reminded me of that night—of owning my mess, my weirdness, my truth.
It had become my lucky charm.
The mic was better. The lighting, too. The audience leaned forward like they actually wanted to be there. And when I told the joke about my mom calling my legs “emergency exit doors”—because they were wide and always open—they laughed like they knew her.
They laughed like they knew me.
