I wrote this a few weeks ago, but managed to forget to post it in those rare moments when I had internet access. I now offer it for your nostalgic consideration.

The most recent distribution of Academy Awards finally found its way to my computer. There was some good, lots of bad, whatever.

I did use the occasion, though, to prepare the speech I’ll give when I win mine. And since I’ll never need it, I’m offering it on a first come, first served basis to anyone who actually gets nominated.

I’m assuming it’s for acting. Writing, directing, or editing might require minor adjustments. It goes something like this:

Uh, wow. [Insert various other sputter-mutterings to demonstrate the impact of the moment.]

Let me give you the backstory on this [hold up little golden man]:

Thanks to you—you being everyone in the room or at home or not even listening at the moment—I had the chance to have the most fun of my life. I mean, you gave me everything I could possibly need to take this hobby I had (and found really, really fun) and see where it could go.

And just to make sure it went well, you dunked me in a pool of the greatest talent in the world [motion to the rest of the cast and crew]. I absolutely loved the whole process, and I thought it went pretty well. Then you checked it out and, apparently, agreed.

Now you’re giving me a gold statue to remember it all.

So, um, thank you.

That seems a little more gracious than my original: “Seriously? You just gave me millions of dollars to play around all day and now you’re adding a gold statue? Um, OK. Suckers.”

If I win Best Actor, I apparently get more time to talk and am allowed (though obviously not expected) to be more than a sycophant, so I might add this little riff about how it’s funny that I’m getting an award for pretending to be someone with a life worth watching and how much more gratifying it is to have a life worth watching than to just hear other people talk about having one and how I plan to take the little man home to occasionally remember that fake life while actually trying to have a worthwhile life and how awesome it would be to give gold statues to everyone we know who has a real life worth watching. I might even cave to the name-dropping peer pressure and mention some people who would deserve those statues. No one in the room would be on the list, but some of you might.