Don’t blame yourself for how things turned out. It’s not your fault that you’re a complete bore and your stories are garbage. While the rest of us were out living our lives, you had your nose jammed in a book. Consider these anecdotes my gift to you, a way to make up for all those lost years. I’m positive that any of these stories can withstand even the most lackluster and tone-deaf of deliveries.

- - -

During a big wave surfing trip in Oahu, a tiger shark started tailing your board. You tried to paddle away, but it wouldn’t leave you alone. After a brief tussle, you managed to fight it off, though not before it bit off your right hand. Hold up your severed hand for the audience. If someone sees your actual hand hidden in your shirt sleeve, tell them it must have grown back.

- - -

A group of political dissidents kidnapped you and coerced you into robbing a convenience store. Eventually they released you and even let you keep some of the money and a carton of pork rinds.

- - -

While climbing K2, your Sherpa tripped on a rock and turned his ankle. For the remainder of the ascent, you had to carry him on your back like a baby koala. Later, as a gesture of friendship, he made you a necklace out of some twigs and dental floss.

- - -

Describe growing up on the mean streets of Long Island, and how you lost your best friend Freckles in a turf war. Don’t be afraid to cry. The cameras won’t cut away from a crying person.

- - -

You once sat next to Phil Spector on a plane.

- - -

On your way to a job interview you fell through an open sewer grate and had to crawl through several miles of excrement to arrive at the interview on time. The image of you clambering around in a dark tunnel, covered in raw sewage, is just self-deprecating enough to endear you to the audience.

- - -

Maybe you have a talking hat of some kind. I don’t know.

- - -

Let’s say you steal a book from an antique book shop, and you soon discover the events in the book are not actually fictionalized but are happening concurrently in an alternate realm. Long story short: It ends with you flying around the city on a giant dog.

- - -

Tell Alex about your plan to legally change your name to “Alex Trebek.” And how some nights you park outside his house and imagine what it would be like to live in there: eating at his dinner table, sleeping in his bed. Maybe mention how you occasionally root through his garbage for souvenirs to take home. He’ll be grateful for your interest in his career and, who knows, you might even land a job as his chauffeur or personal groomer. Stranger things have happened.