1. Pretending to smoke when the temperature drops low enough for visible breath.
2. Trying to locate your straw using just your tongue, failing repeatedly, acting cool when you’re finally able to take a sip.
3. Posing atop a grand staircase, tumbling to the bottom, recovering instantly.
4. Banana phone.
5. Walking “downstairs” behind a counter, with unbroken eye contact.
6. Oops, book is upside down.
7. Bucket of water? No. Bucket of confetti.
8. An exasperated “WHO CARES,” if someone asks how you’ve been.
9. “Wait, Beyonce KNOWLES?!”
10. Saying “Only in New York” at the end of a cookie fortune message.
11. Perpetual cycle of putting on and taking off a jacket, one sleeve after the other. (Advanced: Doing this to someone else while helping them put on their jacket.)
12. Yelling an accusatory Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf style “HAVE ANOTHER DRINK,” if someone has a minor clumsy moment, or mispronounces a word, or has the simplest confusion, like “It does not feel like Tuesday. All day I’ve thought it was Wednesday!” “HAVE ANOTHER DRINK.”
13. Saying, “Charge it to the room?” when feeding a dog.
14. “Let’s do our funny handshake,” but you don’t have one, so you make it up on the spot.
15. Someone asks for the salt or ketchup, and you move it a little further from them instead.
16. “Are you guys talking about the Zapruder Film? Love that one,” if you’ve interrupted a conversation about movies.
17. “That’s my ride,” upon hearing sirens.
18. Straight face on rollercoaster cam.
19. “Body of Christ,” when offering someone a mint.
20. Rushing through the last seconds of plating your dinner as if “TEN SECONDS” has just been called on Chopped, shaking parmesan onto a frozen pizza, and throwing your hands up.
21. Meeting a friend for drinks or a movie and seeing them before they see you, then pretending to walk by without noticing them, and being very obvious about it but still playing up that it’s such a surprise to run into them at the time and place you planned in advance.
22. Claiming to be one of the other people in a group chat, and really digging your heels in about them being an imposter.
23. Posing beside one of those “poke your head through this funny muscle-man photo-op board” instead of poking your head through.
24. Beginning your phone number with a slow “FIVE, FIVE, FIVE.”
25. Asking a baby how they know their parents. “Fun party. How do you know Steve and Chelsea?”
26. A double-take upon seeing the check in a restaurant.
27. Mumbling “Don’t forget to take YOUR receipt,” at self-checkout.
28. Using the Force to open automatic doors.
29. “Ladies and gentlemen: HER” as your dog enters a room. See also: “Once again.”
30. Clearly stating an alibi for killing your partner or spouse loud enough the neighbors can hear. “Be careful on the stairs! Everyone knows you’re always slipping and falling!”
31. “Okay well it got a ten-minute standing ovation at Cannes,” as a response to even the most inconsequential criticism of anything you’ve done or made.
32. Announcing to your dining companions that you have juicy gossip, then immediately taking a huge bite of food and making everyone wait while you chew and cover your mouth with exaggerated politeness.
33. Calling the exploitative reality show you watch, “My stories.”
34. Calling the sport your friends or family (especially your dad) watches, “Your stories.”
35. I’m nodding off? No, I’m wide awake! Oh no I’m nodding off again! Nope! Wide awake again! (Toddler audience only.)
36. Saying “What do I know this actor from” while watching their signature show or movie. Like Jerry Seinfeld during an episode of Seinfeld, or Mariska Hargitay on Law & Order SVU.
37. Pretending you don’t know someone’s taking your picture, and posing overly-thoughtfully, looking off into the middle distance.
38. “Laps and claps” during the studio logos before a movie.
39. Spitting out an Altoid like it’s a broken tooth (this crushes at my fight club.)
40. “This is my family’s idea of fast food,” when preparing something with a million steps that takes forever.
41. Turning profile, pretending to eat a corndog or slice of pizza by doing exaggerated chomp-chomps and moving the food slowly behind you.
42. “I saw it on the news,” about anything going on in your friends’ or family’s lives. “Did you know David got a haircut?” “Yes. It was on the news.”
43. A dramatic “leaving the room in a huff” harumph anytime a character from The Gilded Age exits.
44. Inexplicably negotiating up, like when the guy at the vintage furniture store told me a lamp was eleven-hundred dollars, and I said, “Will you take twelve?”
45. Waving up ahead when exiting a room so it looks like you’ve already ran into someone else you know.
46. “Do you want me to slam the door?” when finishing a meeting with your boss.
47. Pantomiming a dramatic story when a loud train goes by, followed by “Thank you for listening, I feel so much better,” or “Anyway I forgive you,” once it’s quiet again.
48. Congratulating you on winning whatever award is given by the ceremony we just watched together. If you’re over for the Oscars, when you leave you get a sincere, “Oh and congratulations on Best Supporting Actor. We’re all so excited to see what you do next.”
49. Carefully coaxing your heart open with art little by little, over months and years and decades, until you achieve a pocket of empathy that lets you be moved not just by things that are sad and near, but also things that are good and distant, until reaching the point that you mainly cry over good things, most good things, and you start to see your family and friends as artists and art, as characters and creators who move you by being good, and yes this leaves you vulnerable to hurt feelings, and too sensitive for the tiny sincerities of songs like We’re Going to be Friends, by The White Stripes, or Maybe, from Annie, or literally any poem, yet also sensitive enough to well up at the silly joys of an improv show, or karaoke, or the scene from Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure at the park with the dinosaurs. Gratitude, laughter, sometimes even eye contact causes you to tear up as much as a successful gymnastics routine, or tapdance number, or perfect punchline before the lights cut out. Maybe you’re depressed, or maybe your eyes welling constantly is a sign of an overflowing heart (as a bit.)
50. Australian accent.
Honorable mention to answering, “No, I got them all cut.” when someone asks if you got a haircut.
I like that you have placed little to no judgment upon any of these bits. Too many people offer their opinion on bits (e.g. overdone, uncommon). Here they are simply are bits, ranked. Allowed to breathe and exist, like all of us.
*tries to exit, bumps into invisible wall. Turns, bump. Turns, bump. Full mime routine escalates.