href="#litres_trial_promo">What I Want People to Say at My Funeral
Rider for the Funeral of Amy Schumer
Forgiving My Lower Back Tattoo
Hey, it’s me, Amy. I wrote a book! This is something I have wanted to do for a long time because I love making people laugh and feel better. Some of the stories you’ll read in here will be funny, like the time I shit myself in Austin, and some will make you feel a little blue, like the time my sister and I were almost sold into sex slavery in Italy. JK. Neither of these stories are in this book, even though both actually happened, unfortunately.
Speaking of, everything in this book really happened. It’s all true and nothing but the truth, so help me God. But it isn’t the whole truth. Believe it or not, I don’t tell you guys everything.
This book isn’t my autobiography. I will write one of those when I’m ninety. I just turned thirty-five, so I have a long way to go until I am memoir-worthy. But for now I wanted to share these stories from my life as a daughter, sister, friend, comedian, actor, girlfriend, one-night stand, employee, employer, lover, fighter, hater, pasta eater, and wine drinker.
I also want to clarify that this book has NO SELF-HELP INFO OR ADVICE FOR YOU. Over the last several years, I’ve been asked to write articles on topics like how to find a man. Or how to keep a man. Or how to rub a man’s taint at the right time. I don’t know how to do any of that stuff. I’m a flawed fuckup and I haven’t figured anything out, so I have no wisdom to offer you. But what I can help with is showing you my mistakes and my pain and my laughter. I know what’s important to me, and that is my family (not all of them, for Christ’s sake, just some of them). And getting to laugh and enjoy life with friends. And to, of course, have an orgasm once in a while. I find at least once a day is best.
So anyway, I hope you enjoy my book, and if you don’t, please don’t tell anyone.
Wish me luck!
First of all, I’m sorry. Second of all, you’re welcome.
I know I’ve put you through a lot. I’ve had hot wax poured on you and the hair ripped from you by strangers. Some of the strangers have burned you even though I told them you have very sensitive skin. But it’s on me for going to a shady-looking place in Astoria, Queens, that you thought may have been a drug front. I’ve been responsible for getting you yeast infections and UTIs and have worn stockings and Spanx for too long, knowing it could cause you problems. And I want to apologize for Lance on the lacrosse team, who treated you like you owed him money with his finger. That sucked, and I’m totally with you in being pissed. But you’ve also had a lot of nice visitors, right? Huh? You have to admit we’ve had a lot of fun together. I even fought to be able to call you “pussy,” which I know you prefer, on television.
I’ve honestly done my best as I’ve gotten older to only let people visit who will be kind to you, and I feel like I’ve done my part to keep you healthy. I know that sometimes I let people in you without a condom, but, in my defense, it feels better that way and it was only the people I was dating and trusted. Well, mostly. But we really have lucked out, haven’t we?
I’m also sorry for the time I had sex with my new boyfriend and we couldn’t find the condom afterward and then three days later I realized it was stuck in me and I had to “bear down,” as they say, and fish it out. That must have been a real bummer for you. Or maybe it was fun to have a visitor for so long? Either way, my bad!
So what do you say? Let’s grab a beer together. Okay, fine, nothing with yeast. And you’re buying.
I’ve only had one one-night stand in my life. Yes, one. I know, I’m so sorry to disappoint anyone who thinks I walk around at all times with a margarita in one hand and a dildo in the other. Maybe the misunderstanding comes from the fact that onstage, I group together all my wildest, worst sexual memories – which is a grand total of about five experiences over the course of thirty-five years. When you hear about them all back-to-back it probably sounds like my vagina is a revolving door at Macy’s at Christmastime. But I talk about these few misadventures because it’s not funny or interesting to hear about someone’s healthy, everyday sex life. Imagine me onstage saying, “So last night I got in bed with my boyfriend and we held each other in a supportive, caring embrace, and then he made sweet love to me.” The crowd would walk out and I’d walk out with them.
And besides, even I sometimes confuse my onstage sexual persona with my reasonable, sensible, real-life self. Sometimes I try to convince myself that I can have emotionless sex, the kind I’m always hearing about from men and Samantha on Sex and the City. And I have my moments, but 99.9 percent of the time, I’m not that way. I’ve never even hooked up with a guy after one of my shows. Isn’t that sad? I’ve been touring for twelve years and not once have I met a guy after I’ve performed, brought him home, and even made out with him. Nothing. I know some male comics who say they’ve never gotten laid without the girl seeing them perform first. It’s the exact opposite for me. I’m not in this for the dick. I enjoy sex the normal amount, and most of the time it’s with someone I’m dating, and I just lie there in Happy Baby pose making it sound like I’m having a good time. When I’m single and one-night stands present themselves, I’m usually still a fairly self-protective chick, and the thought of some mystery cock entering me doesn’t get my pulse going. Well, except for this one time …
I was on the road doing a tour and traveling between two horrendous cities: Fayetteville, North Carolina, and Tampa, Florida. I’m not scared about writing that and making those people mad, because I know for a fact that no one who lives there has ever read a book. JKJKJKJKJK, but kind of not K. When you go between cities like those two, you get the pleasure of flying on the tiniest short bus in the sky, which for some reason is still called a plane. You have to duck to get on, and you can hear the propellers the whole flight, and also the faintest sound of someone singing “La la la la la bamba,” but you hope that the latter is just in your head.
It was early morning and I was hungover. As I said, I’d been doing a show in Fayetteville and there is nothing to do there afterward except drink until your eyes close. I got to the airport as I usually do – with zero makeup or bra, wearing sweatpants, a T-shirt, and flats. I’m not someone who looks adorable in the morning. I would argue I look exactly like Beetlejuice – the Michael Keaton character, not the Howard Stern regular. I was enjoying this lovely time in my life when no one took pictures of me unless I photobombed them. I was just a wonderful thirty-one-year-old girl who was opening and closing her mouth, realizing she’d forgotten to brush her teeth – well, less forgot and more I’d left