Sometime this past Summer—I guess—my wife Renee asked if we all wanted to go see Nick Offerman at the Warner Theatre in DC in November. I was very excited about the idea—and promptly forgot the entire conversation. There’s a certain special quality to being over fifty and having worked yourself stupid: things you planned in advance can come back to you as wonderful surprises, because you had no idea you planned them.

At our annual Hallowe’en party, which we only remembered to have because people kept asking us what time it was going to start, my friend Sharon said to me, “I guess we’ll want to get together for dinner Friday?”

“Friday? What’s Friday?”

“Nick Offerman.”

“We having dinner with Nick Offerman on Friday?”

Anything is possible, in my forgetful life. For all I know, Sharon scored Nick as a guest for Farpoint 2018. (Note to the inattentive: I did not just say that Nick Offerman will be a guest a Farpoint in 2018. We’re getting—damn, I forgot. But someone nice who isn’t Nick Offerman. Still, isn’t Nick as a guest a better rumor than the usual, “Did you hear Farpoint was canceled?!!!“)

“No! We’re going to see Nick Offerman—”

“We are? Damn, Sharon, did you arrange that? Well done!”

I imagine, by the time I’m seventy, I’ll be absolutely thrilled to learn each morning that someone was nice enough to fix me a cup of coffee and leave it on my reading table—because I’ll be so addle-brained I won’t realized that I made the damned cup of coffee myself, five minutes before. Reading table? At the rate I’m going I won’t need one. I’ll need a staring table, so I have a place to put the cup of coffee I forgot making while I stare off into space and wonder what the hell I’m doing sitting there, and where this nice cup of coffee came from.

Well, we did not wind up having dinner before the show, which sucks, because we had reservations at the Elephant & Castle, one of my favorite places in DC. No, we spent nearly all the time before the show on about two miles of I-95, trying to get to the Greenbelt Metro Station. Right before the exit to the station, there was what looked like a one-car accident on the shoulder. Some helpful rescue folks had showed up… and closed two lanes of I-95 at rush hour so they could park their vehicles. Okay, maybe there was a real need to establish a safety perimeter after the accident, but, when we got to it after sitting two hours, it looked a hell of a lot like they’d just closed two lanes so they could park.

Anyway, we made the Warner Theatre in good time, and Renee and I were soon thirty-three percent of the over-30 population at Nick Offerman’s show. Wow. Who knew that Nick Offerman’s show was a sequel to Logan’s Run? I thought I’d walked into my son’s five-year high school reunion by mistake. (Oh, God, my son’s five-year high school reunion was two years ago!)

Nick was as enjoyable as expected. I was pleasantly surprised by the number of songs he included. Of course, watching Parks & Recreation, I knew he sang. I guess I just wasn’t thinking of songs at his standup. “Plastic Jesus” was probably my favorite, although “I’m not Ron Swanson” was touching and funny. He also did “PG-13,” partially inspired by the fact that he was 13 when he lost his virginity. Nick and I lost our virginities the same year (not together), but I was in college, not middle school, that year. I guess I’m really not Ron Swanson.

He talked quite a bit about his lovely wife of 17 years, Megan Mullally. We were lucky enough to see Megan in person in Young Frankenstein on Broadway a few years back. He also did a long rant on the subject of the styling of pubic hair—well, the name of the show is “Full Bush.”

As pleasant as Nick was—he’s a low-key comedian, no shouting or jumping up and down—his audience was a bit of a trial. They shouted too much. The applauded too loudly at every mention of Donald Trump’s offensiveness. They especially got too excited when he made a slam on men and said women tended to screw things up less than we did. Listen, ladies, comedians say that shit. And men in general say that shit to sound self-effacing and humble. But if you really believe that you, by virtue of your gender, are morally and intellectually superior, then—

Oh. You do believe it?

Well, bless your pea-pickin’ heart.

I would say I’m just getting old, because being awash in that many Millennials made me a bit cranky. I would say it, but both my Millennial sons assure me that it made them cranky too. Maybe we’re all three just old before our times.

Anyway, good concert, and well worth your time if Nick is coming to your town.

Hey, didn’t I have a cup of coffee here a minute ago?