TELL ME ABOUT AN EMBARASSING MOMENT ON SET

This week, I was in LA shooting Dinner and A Movie. It’s not the easiest job I’ve ever had, mainly because I’m married to my co-host, but sometimes it can be fun. Sometimes it can also be the definition of hell.

We were working on our third tranche and doing four episodes daily. We had a great team of people and an excellent writer, Darren, whose job it is to come up with dumb shit for us to do and say. Everything was going swimmingly until Wednesday.

It was our final episode of the day, and our guest, an actress who currently stars as a second-grade teacher on TV, came to talk with us about a small role she had in one of the films we were covering. The first part of our episode was benign, with some introductions and a bit of Hollywood chit-chat.

Jason and I solicit different reactions from different people. Without getting off topic, I’ll say he rarely has to prove himself when he walks into a room. People know he’s funny; they want to engage with him. With me, it either takes time, or they stare right through me like I’m a pane of security glass, preventing them from getting a grid-worthy selfie with my husband. This guest wasn’t doing that. However, she was a female comedian who had no idea who I was. She wasn’t rude. She was pretty sweet. She just definitely doesn’t follow our Substack. Nor would she be interested in a free subscription.

After bonding over being actors, she and Jason moved on to bonding over being Italian. Everything I said to her either did not register or landed flat. But it was my last show of the day, and I wasn’t going to let my ego get in the way of finishing strong. That was, until the producers decided to give me a math test. If there is one thing you know about me, it’s that MATH HURTS MY FEELINGS.

While we were rolling and the game was in full swing, I mentioned that I was dyslexic and that I shouldn’t have to do a timed test against Jason, who was actively trying to bury me. I wasn’t getting a single word problem correct. I wasn’t even listening to them. I was too busy picturing my sons watching the episode and cringing. I couldn’t speak, I couldn’t breathe. Even the guest started to feel for me.

Before blacking out completely, I remember the entire studio, helping me add up how many nickels “Jenny” would have, if she had two dollars. I went into showbiz to avoid ever having to answer one of these questions again. Yet, there I was, on the brink of forty-six, being chided into a fucking standardized test, with a teacher’s pet, straight A student husband who would rather stick his dick in a pencil sharpener than let me cheat off his paper.