Free Seriously... I'm Kidding by Ellen DeGeneres Page B

person. In fact, I’m a very busy, hardworking person. I host a daily talk show. I have my own production company. I have my own music label. On the weekends I manage a Kinko’s downtown. But every once in a while I do something very lazy, shockingly lazy.
    A few months ago, I got home from a long day of entertaining America and many other parts of the world and I sat on my sofa to watch some television. I realized my favorite cat, Charlie, wasn’t with me. She usually finds me as soon as I come home. My other cats are more independent. They spend summers backpacking through Europe and call when they need me to wire money.
    But Charlie and I have a very special relationship and I wanted to let her know I was home. Don’t worry, I’m not one of those crazy cat ladies. I just like my favorite cat to know I’m home so we can talk, have dinner together, and watch Hoarders .
    I assumed she was in our master bathroom because that’s where the cats like to hang out when we’re not home. They record most of their “cute kitty plays with loofah” YouTube videos in there.
    Now, in order to let her know I was home I could have walked to the bathroom or yelled for her, which is what I usually do. But for some reason on that day I did something else. We have an intercom where I can push a button and talk to someone in another room. Sometimes it’s fun to use when we have company. I’ll get on it from a different part of the house and whisper stuff like, “Is there anything you ever really wanted to tell God? I’m listening.” Oh, we have fun.
    Anyway, I got on the intercom and I said, “Charlie, I’m home! Charlie!” and I hung up and I waited for Charlie to come running. I didn’t think anything of it until I looked over and Portia was staring at me.
    She said, “Did you just intercom the cat?”
    And I looked at her and I had no choice but to say, “Yes. I did just intercom the cat.”
    In my defense, I was very tired and if I wanted to walk all the way to the bathroom to find Charlie I would have had to get on my Segway, ride it to the escalator, take the escalator to the third floor, cross the champagne fountain, get my retina scanned, and deactivate dozens of laser beams.
    Okay, that isn’t true. I would have had to walk down the hall.
    I’m not usually that lazy. Have I ever tried to take my pants off without taking my shoes off first? Yes. I also recently got in my car one morning, noticed a stain on my shirt, and then continued to drive to work instead of going all the way inside to change.
    I’m sure you have all done that at some point. You get dressed in the morning and you’re excited about your outfit. Right before you leave the house, you notice a coffee stain right in the middle on your shirt or a little hole right in the armpit. Of course that means you put it back in your closet like that after you wore it the last time. “Oh, that’s not too bad. I can wear that again.”
    Once you see it, instead of having to go back and find a new shirt to match the pants and shoes and neckerchief you already picked out, you shrug and say, “I’ll just tell people it happened on my way to work.”
    We’re getting lazier and lazier. There is so much technology that helps us be lazy. There are now cars that park themselves, which is great not only for lazy people but for people who also hate not having scratches on their bumpers. There are vacuums that vacuum for us. Thanks to Bud Light Lime, we don’t even need to squeeze the lime into our own beer anymore.
    Humans aren’t supposed to be so lazy. We’re not supposed to go from work where we sit for hours and hours in the same chair staring at the same computer screen to our homes where we spend hours and hours sitting on our sofas playing video games and watching reality TV.
    I’ll admit I’m guilty of watching a lot of reality TV. Nothing makes me feel lazier than complaining I can’t find the TV remote to change the channel—and then eventually