Toastmasters Humorous Speech Competition
This speech won second place in our club for the 2001 Humorous
Speech Competition.
Time: 5 to 7 minutes
Snip, snip!
I'd like to tell you about my Uncle Dan Druff. Uncle Dan was a romantic and a great collector of souvenirs. Some people save their concert programmes. Some collect cutlery. But do you know what Uncle Dan collected? Toenail clippings!
It all began when he married his childhood sweetheart, Kitty Litter. On their wedding night, while Kitty was taking a bath, Dan sat on the bed and trimmed his toenails. Snip, snip!
Kitty came in, rosy and tender from her warm bath. Eagerly she slipped between the silken sheets. Ow! Something dug into her soft pink flesh.
"Dan Druff!" spluttered Kitty. "Can't you put your toenails somewhere else?"
So Dan found a glass jar and swept all the toenail clippings into it.
Next morning, Kitty was about to dispose of the toenail clippings, but Dan stopped her - just in time.
"You can't throw them out," he protested. "They are a reminder of our first night together - a symbol of our love."
Kitty was touched and agreed to keep them - along with the wedding serviettes, the telegrams and chicken wishbones.
But it didn't end there. A month later, Dan trimmed his toenails again, and put them into the jar. "These are a reminder of our first month together,” he told Kitty, as he used one of the longer clippings to pick his teeth.
And so it continued. Dan saved his toenail clippings to in remembrance of their first down-payment, the first time the toilet blocked up, and eventually, their first argument.
Kitty said she didn't mind Dan keeping his toenails in a jar, but why did he have to keep them on the coffee table in the living room. She was tired of the strange looks she received when people visited - specially when they mistook the jar for the sugar bowl.
Now Dan was a reasonable man, but on this issue he was adamant. Other men kept trophies, he insisted, women cluttered their houses with knick-knacks. What was wrong with a bloke displaying his stuff?
Kitty stormed out of the house. Dan plonked himself down in his chair and took out his nail clipper. Snip, snip, Ow!
In his anger, he had snipped too far and cut off the top of his big toe. Dan hobbled into the bathroom, to look for bandages, leaving a trail of blood behind him.
While he was wrapping his toe, Kitty returned, saw the blood on the floor and screamed. “Aaaaaagh!!” She thought Dan had been murdered!”
Dan rushed out of the bathroom as Kitty dropped to the floor in a dead faint. He picked her up and lay her on the sofa. To make her more comfortable, Dan removed Kitty's shoes. That's when he noticed that her toenails needed trimming.
Snip, snip. Kitty came to and found Dan working on her toenails. It was the last straw. Kitty yelled and kicked Dan right where it hurt.
Dan reeled back, bumped against the coffee table and knocked the jar of toenail clippings to the floor.
The jar shattered and the floor was strewn with glass and toenail clippings. There was a hushed silence as Dan and Kitty surveyed the damage.
"I'm sorry, sweetheart," said Kitty. "I'll sweep up the mess."
"No," said Dan quickly. He found two jars, then he knelt down and picked out the toenail clippings. He put them in one jar. Then he picked up the tiny shards of glass and placed them in the other jar.
"I'll throw out the glass pieces," said Kitty.
Dan was shocked. "You can't do that! These are a reminder of our first row. They symbolise how fragile a relationship can be…"
He ducked as Kitty added to his collection by hurling a glass bowl at his head. The shattered glass panel in the door as she slammed it on her way out was a symbol of the end of their marriage.
Poor Uncle Dan Druff! He went quite flaky after that. He lived alone - no one called to visit because of all the broken glass and crockery piled up in the front yard. But when he passed away, he left me his most precious collection - his toenail clippings. I keep them in a big jar on my coffee table.
And I can hardly wait to get home tonight to trim my toenails!
COMMENTS
Bit corny, isn't it? But it went over much better than I expected. More about it in my July Newsletter.
MAMALADE
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