Tell me you remember Rodney Dangerfield. The comedian with the self-deprecating, “I don’t get no respect” act. (If not, I highly recommend a Goggle.) Sweaty, nervous and always tugging at his collar as if chained to a post, he delivered rat-a-tat lines, one after another, about how bad things were for him.

“It’s been a rough day. I got up this morning, put on a shirt and a button fell off. I picked up my briefcase and the handle came off. I’m afraid to go to the bathroom.”

“I could tell my parents hated me. My bath toys were a toaster and a radio.”

“My mother had morning sickness—after I was born.”

“I remember the time I was kidnapped, and they sent a piece of my finger to my father. He said he wanted more proof.”

“Once when I was lost, I saw a policeman and asked him to help me find my parents. I said to him, ‘do you think we’ll ever find them?’ He said, ‘I don’t know kid. There are so many places they can hide.’”

“And we were poor, too. Why, if I wasn’t born a boy, I’d have nothing to play with.”

“I went to see my doctor. ‘Doctor, every morning when I get up and look in the mirror, I feel like throwing up. What’s wrong with me?’ He said, ‘I don’t know, but your eyesight is perfect.’”

“A girl phoned me the other day and said, ‘come on over, there’s nobody home.’ I went over. Nobody was home.”

“During sex my girlfriend always wants to talk to me. Just the other night she called me from a hotel.”

“My wife made me join a bridge club. I jump off next Thursday.”

“If it weren’t for pick-pockets, I’d have no sex life at all.”