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.

Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me…. Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.

-Jesus talking to his followers

The tragedy isn’t that American health care provision is going to be reformed by government mandate, it’s that we needed another mandate.

My bad.