Kenn Kington: Said, “Can I have a hot dog?” She goes, “Yeah, would you like anything on that?” I said, “Well, what do you got?” She goes, “Well, you can get mustard or nothing, or both.”
Audience: (Laughs).
Kenn: Well, give me both. Let’s see you pull that one off.
Audience: (Laughs).
John Fuller: Some interesting logic going on there, and we have more observational humor from Kenn Kington today on Focus on the Family with Jim Daly. We’re glad you’re with us. I’m John Fuller.
Jim Daly: Well, John, uh, life can be heavy, especially lately, and the Bible tells us that a joyful heart is good medicine. So we want to share that prescription on today’s broadcast. Our guest is one of my favorite clean comedians, Kenn Kington, and Kenn has been featured on Comedy Central and countless media outlets, and the last message we aired from him made our top 10 list for 2020.
John: Yeah, he always makes me laugh out loud. And, uh, with that, let’s go ahead and listen in to Kenn Kington on today’s episode of Focus on the Family.
Kenn: I’m also glad to be here. Have you ever had one of those trips where things didn’t go right? Four hours late, my flight. And I get in the rental car and I’m flying down the road because I’m already late and I I, I’m getting dressed on the interstate while I’m driving, which is not a good combination. And then I realized, I’ve forgotten. I’ve forgotten. So I called my wife and I’m like, “Honey, I forgot. I forgot, I forgot.” She goes, “What’d you forget this time?” I said, “I forgot socks.”
She goes, “Well, calm down, Sparky. They sell these in stores.” I’m like, “Yeah, but you don’t understand. I don’t have time. I’m late already, and I don’t know what, I don’t know where the shoe stores are. I just need to find, I gotta go, where do I get socks? She goes, “Well, calm down. Okay, okay. Okay. I, I think drugstores carry socks. I’m sure there’s one on the way. Try a drug store.” Good news, drugstores carry dress socks. Bad news, drug stores only carry women’s dress socks.
Audience: (Laughs).
Kenn: Good news. They’re really comfortable. And I’m sitting there. Do I get ’em? Do I not get ’em? Do I get ’em, I don’t know. How any time do I get ’em? Until I saw one-size-fits-all, and I know some women with some pretty honking feet. Okay?
Audience: (Laughs).
Kenn: So I, I grabbed them and I actually wore them. Here they are. Okay. I want you to see these. All right? Yeah. Oh, yeah.
But I love the fact that my wife always has the answer. She is the smartest woman I’ve ever met. Literally the smartest, not only just beautiful but smart. She’s, she was in, she would tell me how she was in advanced classes. Tell her how I was in special classes.
Audience: (Laughs).
Kenn: She used to get paid for her grades. Anybody here ever get paid for your grades? Did you really? That’s incredible. How many of, you like me, two days before report cards practiced forging your parent’s signature?
Okay. Yes. These are my people. My wife actually said this about a year after we were married. She goes, “I don’t know if I’ve ever told you this or not, but kindergarten through college, I only made one B.” I was like, “Me too.”
Audience: (Laughs).
Kenn: Because it’s not easy. It’s not easy. They, they will say this one thing because everybody has a glitch. And as beautiful as my wife is, as smart as my wife is, as intimidating as this, she has a glitch. And her glitch is something we call “isms.” Heather-isms. Because she says phrases that really don’t make sense except to her.
We were talking with some friends the other day. She’s saying, what a great friend she is. She says, “I am a great friend. I am as loyal as a heart attack.” I don’t think I want you to be my friend.
Audience: (Laughs).
Kenn: And she gets it.
Honestly, we were playing a game with her parents the other night. Her dad, after move says, “Hey, whatever turn’s your boat.”
Audience: (Laughs).
Kenn: Would that be a rudder?
Audience: (Laughs).
Kenn: Now, the great part is they usually pop up when we’re having an argument and they’re just over. They’re just over at that point. I’ll give you an example. We were talking about our checkbook one day and going back and forth. She goes, “Well, you can’t milk a dead horse.”
Audience: (Laughs).
Kenn: How do you argue with that? She caught me in something one time. She goes, “You are treading in hot water.”
Audience: (Laughs).
Kenn: I said, “Honey, I can be treading on thin ice, or I can be in hot water, but if I’m treading in hot water, that’s a jacuzzi.”
Audience: (Laughs).
Kenn: Don’t really mind being there.
Now, I love this. She plays bunko with some of our neighbors in, in the neighborhood. Do you guys know what bunko is? It’s a game, and it, it’s a Greek word that mean- stands for gossip while holding dice. Okay?
Audience: (Laughs).
Kenn: That’s what it means.
And she came back one day and she goes, “Oh.” I said, “How did it go? Who was there?” And she’s telling me about it. And she goes, “You know, I just needed that time with those other ladies. It’s such a wonderful bondage experience.”
Audience: (Laughs).
Kenn: I don’t think you can go back.
One of my favorites show’s out in California on tour. I called her, I said, “Hey, honey. I said, I can’t wait to get home”. She goes, “When you come home? I said, I land tomorrow afternoon.” She goes, “Oh.” I said, “Yeah, I got the first flight out in the morning.” She goes, “Oh man. You couldn’t catch the Jedi flight?”
Audience: (Laughs).
Kenn: “Yeah, I don’t think honey Han Solo’s doing that one anymore.”
Audience: (Laughs).
Kenn: Kinda hard to find a good Wookie these days.
And I mean, this comes out of a fundamental level of her being. We discovered this about three weeks ago, coming back from spring break. She’s in the backseat trying to get our two-year-old daughter to go to sleep in her car seat. And she sings, “Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so. Up above the world so high, like a diamond in the sky.” Then she looks at me. She goes, “What’s the next line?” I said, “Q-R-S.”
Audience: (Laughs).
Kenn: And she’s not alone. I love it that people started writing these in and sending them to me. A buddy of mine calls me this past week. He’s like my boss in our meeting. He says, “You know what? We got a busy quarter of hit us, but let’s not get the chicken in front of the horse.”
Audience: (Laughs).
Kenn: Okay.
I did a state fair in Missouri. They said, “Go get something to eat at the hospitality tent.” And this poor girl must have been in the sun too long. I said, “Hi, what do you got?” She goes, “Hamburgers and hot dogs.” I said, “Can I have a hot dog?” She goes, “Yeah. Would you like anything on that?” I said, “Well, what do you got?” She goes, “Well, you can get mustard or nothing or both.”
Audience: (Laughs).
Kenn: Well, give me both. Let’s see you pull that one off.
Audience: (Laughs).
Kenn: And they’re all around, and they’re happening around me too because my, I went in to wake up my son the other day for school, my oldest son, he loves school. I said, “Graham, are you ready for school?” He goes, “Dad, I’m happy as a muffin.”
Audience: (Laughs).
Kenn: You’ve been hanging out with mom, haven’t you?
Audience: (Laughs).
Kenn: I love being a husband. I love being a dad. I really do. But there’s certain parts of being a dad that don’t make sense. I have no money. I make money. I just don’t have money. My daughter and me are different. I have a duct tape wallet. I’m not making this up. This is my wallet. It is made of duct tape from a camp, two years old, and two years ago from my boys. My daughter, who has never had a job and has no money, has five purses.
Audience: (Laughs).
Kenn: That only makes sense if you’re a dad.
I go to the ATM, I go to deposit a check. I let my son, I say, “Punch in the secret code, punch in the amount, punch in deposit.” And he did. I said, “Now, put the envelope in.” And he puts it in and he goes… I said, “What?” He said, “Where’s the money?” I said, “It’s a deposit. We just put the deposit in.” And he goes, “Mom always gets money.”
Audience: (Laughs).
Kenn: Yes. That is the way it works. My wife got a part-time job. She’s done very well. We have our money and her money, her money and our money. I still have no money.
Audience: (Laughs).
Kenn: It’s amazing to me the way that works. And over time, I got to thinking, you know what? There’s gotta be something to this. There’s gotta be something to this. And it’s about being a dad.
See, being a dad, things happen. And I wanna know from some of you who have been a dad for a while when these things happen, because I started noticing some of them in me. And I’m, I’m scared because I’ve seen some of you. My dad used to gimme a hard time about having long hair. I had a big afro when I was a kid, long hair. And I felt bad about it until I saw him go swimming. Might’ve had a very short hair except for this thing on top. And when it got wet, vroo.
Audience: (Laughs).
Kenn: Have you seen these, these comb-over things? It’s like they grow it like eight feet long. Vroo, vroo, vroo.
I was at the bank the other day in line behind a guy. He had a part right here. I wanted so badly for him to turn around so I could go…
Audience: (Laughs).
Kenn: See what would happen.
I’m gonna give away a secret that you, I’m gonna get kicked outta the man club for this. If you’re, if your husband is a dad, and you ever want him to stop doing something that’s irritating, or whether it’s something he says he wears or he does, here’s how you end it. All you gotta do is next time he says it does it or wears it, you just go, “That is so neat.” And he’ll say, what? And then you repeat whatever it is he said, did or wore. And then you add the words, “That is just like your dad.”
Audience: (Laughs).
Kenn: He will never say it. He will never wear it. He will never do it again.
John: We’re enjoying listening to Kenn Kington today on Focus on the Family with Jim Daly. And we wanna encourage you with almost four hours of clean comedy in a free set of audio downloads, you’ll get this message from Kenn, plus more humor from some of our favorite comedians. Request the Focus on the Family Comedy Collection at focusonthefamily.com/broadcast. Let’s return now to more from Kenn Kington.
Kenn: You can tell how old a tree is by how many rings it has. You can tell how old a man is by how high his waistline is.
Audience: (Laughs).
Kenn: This is junior high. And then you get up to around high school, then college, and then at some point in time that just crawls up there.
Audience: (Laughs).
Kenn: My dad meets me at the door like this now.
Audience: (Laughs).
Kenn: He’ll go, “Hey, you got a little spare tire on there, son.” Spare tire, not me. I wore the same waist size I wore in high school.
Audience: (Laughs).
Kenn: Like, “Yeah, dad. But I never have the problem with getting underarm deodorant on my waistband.”
Audience: (Laughs).
Kenn: That never happens to me. Never happens. And what gets me is that I, I mean, I look at some of these guys and they got their shorts up and their hair swooped wearing dark socks with flip-flops.
Audience: (Laughs).
Kenn: And at some time they looked in the mirror and went, “Oh, this looks good.”
Audience: (Laughs).
Kenn: When does that happen? God.
But it’s amazing to me that, you know, in, in time, not only do I see that as a dad, but, but life can get difficult. It can just be hard sometimes. I was flying from Corpus Christi, Texas, to Phoenix, Arizona. Now, get the, get the geography on this, Texas to Arizona. I get to the airport at 5:45 in the morning. I go, “Yeah, I’m flying to Phoenix.” And they go, “Oh, I’m sorry your flight’s been canceled. There was a winter storm in Atlanta.”
Audience: (Laughs).
Kenn: He says, “But good news, we’ve rebooked you. We’ll have you there tonight at 9:30.”
And I said, “Is there another flight?” He’s like, “Well, no. That’s the best we can do.” I’m like, “That’s the best you can do?” I said, “It’s 5:50 in the morning.” “I’m sorry, that’s the best we can do.” “That’s the best you can do?” I said, “You’re telling me from right now, 5:50 in the morning till tonight at 9:30, there’s only one airplane leaving from this region of the country flying to Phoenix, Arizona?” And he says, “Well, of course not.” I said, “Okay, let’s start there and work backwards.”
Audience: (Laughs).
Kenn: And he types, “Well, you probably won’t wanna do this, but I can place you from Corpus-Houston, Houston-Salt Lake, Salt Lake-Phoenix. You can be there by 4:30. I’m like, “Do that.” And he says, “Okay, dude.” I said, “Do I need to take my bag?” “No, we’ll take care of it.”
It was going great until I got to Salt Lake City. I thought I had two hours, but I didn’t because I heard my name over the loudspeaker. “Kenn Kington, please report to Gate E-18 immediately. Kenn Kington to gate E-18.” I’m like, I took off running. I get to Gate E-Eighteen, and I’m like, “I’m Kenn. Is the flight still here, Is it…” Like, “Oh yeah, it’s not for another hour and a half.” I’m like, “Well, you called my name.” They’re like, “Oh, are you Kenn?” I’m like, “Yeah.” And they’re like, “You need to talk to those guys.” Two ramp workers, the knee pads and the headphones. And I said, “Hi, I’m Kenn Kington. Is there something I can help you with.?” They’re like, “Oh, do you want to tell him, or you want me to tell him?”
Audience: (Laughs).
Kenn: I said, “Tell me what?” They said. “Um, I don’t know how to tell you this, but, uh, your, your bag, uh, it didn’t make it.” And I fly 200 flights a year. That happens a couple of times a year. And I said, “Well, did it not make it from Corpus to Houston or Houston to here?” And they both looked, they went, “Um, uh, no, it got here, but it didn’t make it.”
Audience: (Laughs).
Kenn: I said, “I’m, I’m so sorry. I’m, I’m, I’m not following you. I’m so sorry. I’m a little slow. And I was in special class, you know, so I’m just…” And he says, “Well, uh, see, there was a roller or an accident. Your, your bag is gone. We think we saved most of what was inside of it, but your bag is gone.” I said, “Can I see it?” And they both went, “No.”
Audience: (Laughs).
Kenn: I said, “I can’t see it?” And they said, “The biggest piece is about this big.”
And sure enough, when I finally got my stuff, it had exploded on the tarmac. There were airplane wheel marks across my clothes. I said, “Well, okay. I said, well, is there a reason why you called me?” They said, “Yeah, we’re putting it in a temporary container. We just wanna let you know you can make a claim when you get to Phoenix.”
I’m like, “Okay.” And they said, “Well, you’re taking this pretty well.” I’m like, “Well, you know, is there anything I can do?” They’re like, “No, but you know, you’re…”
“Was the flight on time?”
“Yeah.”
So I get to Phoenix, and I’m sitting there with a baggage claim now, it’s not like Atlanta, where it comes outta the bottom or out the sides. At most airports in Phoenix, there’s two that come out of the ceiling. And they come down. And I’m standing there with about 80 people, when it dawns on me as the luggage begins to come down, I have no idea what I’m looking for.
Audience: (Laughs).
Kenn: I figure I’ll just wait. And then it became painfully obvious what I was looking for. I want you to picture the largest garbage bag you have ever seen. And the reason I knew it was mine is because it was clear.
Audience: (Laughs).
Kenn: Here comes my shoes and my underwear. And so now I’m gonna let you know I’m gonna let everybody leave before I leave. And that didn’t work. People are taking their luggage and then watching this thing go around, you know.
Audience: (Laughs).
Kenn: I look like some hobo Santa Claus walking through the airport. But you know what? I, I, life happens like that, and I need help. And people need help. And we need each other, and, and we need help. And I wish there were signs for help, but there’s not. There’s signs for everything else, but not for things that matter.
I was on, in Orlando, Florida, if you’re ever down there looking, I-4, in the median on I-4 in Orlando, Florida, they have a sign. They have paid hundreds of dollars to put this sign up: “Do not mow.”
Apparently there’s some renegade landscapers in Florida driving around going, “Hey, Bubba, have you seen any cops?”
Audience: (laughs).
Kenn: Break out the John Deere. We’re cutting some grass. Woo.
Audience: (Laughs).
Kenn: And they’re dumbing down signs. They used to have a sign, “deer crossing.” Do you remember that one? And they changed it to get on the Christmas theme, “deer Xing.” Apparently that was too hard. So now it’s just a picture of a deer.
Audience: (Laughs).
Kenn: I shared that in Ohio. This guy came up, he goes, “I can’t believe you said that.” He says, “My wife hit a hit a deer less than a hundred yards from one of those signs last week.” And I was like, “Dude, I’m so sorry.” He’s like, “No, no, no, that’s not what I’m telling you.” He says, “They called me. I went out. She was okay. And I couldn’t help, but I said, honey, did you not see the sign?” Her response, “I never thought they’d come from the other way.”
Audience: (Laughs).
Kenn: You’re gonna need to gimme the keys. And the signs they could do pictures for, they don’t. Bump. Or dip. Oh no, they spell those out. I’m just wondering what the poor foreign drivers in our country are doing when that comes up. You know, Hey, Franz, Franz, they sign, come up here. What’d this sign mean here? I think the sign mean bump.
Audience: (Laughs).
Kenn: Now, I talked to a friend of mine at DOT. I said, “How much are those signs?” He says, “They’re like three to $500 to make ’em. They cost a crew anywhere from three to $500 to put ’em in.” Here’s my idea. Why not just take the $1,300 and fix the bump?
Audience: (Laughs).
Kenn: Maybe it’s just me. Yeah. Oh, this was one of my favorites. We went to Maui for our 10-year anniversary. We’re on the road to Lahaina, beautiful mountains and the cliffs and the water. And we’re pulling up to the, where the mountain goes into the ocean, and there’s a tunnel, 10 feet in front of the tunnel, 10 feet in front of the tunnel. There is a sign with one word, and all it says is, “tunnel.” Who is struggling with this?
Audience: (Laughs).
Kenn: Who is driving, going, “Oh, there’s a hole. There’s a hole in the mountain. There’s a hole. Oh, it’s a tunnel.”
Audience: (Laughs).
Kenn: “I didn’t see the sign. Tunnel. Who knew?”
Audience: (Laughs).
Kenn: It’s just not right. It’s not right. And then I get to thinking in my life, you know, there’s, there’s times where I think, you know what? I, I don’t get being a dad. I don’t get it. And it’s becoming more confusing. Used to be able to just dress jeans and khakis. You’re fine. And I used to be able to do events where I just say, hey, it’s, it’s either dressy or casual. Now, it’s like confused. Say business casual. What does that mean anymore? Used to mean no tie, then no tie/no coat, then no tie/no coat, maybe khakis, then no tie/no coat, maybe khakis, maybe jeans, maybe T-shirt, now it’s T-shirt, short, flip-flops. It’s gonna be a Speedo pretty soon is what it’s gonna be. “Honey, where’s my loincloth? It’s casual day.”
Audience: (Laughs).
Kenn: I mean, it’s confusing, but I love my life. I love it. And I had an epiphany, a moment where it just, and it all came together. This past summer, we were coming back from vacation, 10 minutes packed up, and we’re going 10 minutes, come to a red light. As I’m at the red light, I look out the window, there’s a brand new pickup truck right next to me. I’m like, ah. And then I looked in the back’s, a beautiful golden retriever with a head out the window. I’m like, whoa, cool dog in the back, brand-new Harley Davidson chrome package. The guy looked over, I’m just like, “Har, har, har,” because that’s what we do. And he looked over at me and he kinda, “Ha,” back and kinda laughed. And I was like, “What is he laughing at?” And then it dawned on me, I’m in a minivan.
Audience: (Laughs).
Kenn: It is impossible to look cool in a minivan. And I’m not buying really cool toys for thousands of dollars. I’m spending hundreds of dollars on things you don’t call your friends about. I don’t go, “Hey, Rob, come over. I’ve got new water heater.” “No, wash your hands. That’ll be great.” You don’t do that. And I’m just, so I started to distract myself. I kind of fiddled with the mirror and I saw, I saw something I have never seen before in my life. On the top of my ear, there is a hair growing straight out, just like this long. That’s not the bad part. I looked at my wife, I said, “Heather, look at this.” Her response, “Oh yeah, I saw that the other day.”
Audience: (Laughs).
Kenn: “What? You thought I wanted that there?”
Audience: (Laughs).
Kenn: Braid it with the others. Make a little pony tail or something? That was interrupted by my two boys in the back fighting over who gets to pick the movie and who gets the electronics and that was interrupted by them going, “Daddy, Kennedy, smells bad.” And sure enough, the smell waves forward. And I’m thinking, 10 minutes. We’ve been on the road 10 minutes. Why not 10 minutes ago? Why not 10 minutes from now? And if you are a dad, you knew what I was doing. I’m calculating, how far can I go, focused, without having to stop before this smell burns my eyes shut.
Audience: (Laughs).
Kenn: That is interrupted by my dog discovering the other dog, and began to barking at that dog. I call him a dog. I wanted a dog. My wife said, “Let’s get a dog.” And I’m like, yeah. I’m thinking German shepherd, goldendoodle. Do we have a 12-year-old, four and a half pound Yorkshire terrier? It’s like having a barking hamster.
Audience: (Laughs).
Kenn: The only thing dog size on my dog is his tongue. He has a, if you took a German Shepherd tongue, grafted it to a gerbil. That’s what I’ve got.
Audience: (Laughs).
Kenn: He falls asleep. The drool spot is bigger than he is.
Audience: (Laughs).
Kenn: And the light turned green. And we began to go. And as we drove off, it was as if this voice came to my head, Kenn, if you could switch right now, if you could choose, if you could choose right now, you could choose the new truck and the new dog and the cool motorcycle, or you can keep the minivan and the wife that leaves you hanging in the kids in the back of the smell of the barking hamster.
Audience: (Laughs).
Kenn: Which do you want? I gotta tell you, 10 times outta 10, I would choose the minivan, because I have found more joy and more purpose and more fulfillment and more comedy material in that minivan…
Audience: (Laughs).
Kenn: And that is why the greatest joy of my life and what I do is because I am a dad. God bless you, and thank you for coming tonight.
Audience: (Applause).
John: Well, what a great ending and a profound thought from our guest Mr. Kenn Kington on today’s episode of Focus on the Family with Jim Daly.
Jim: John, I love that image there with Kenn’s wife, the kids, and the dog in the minivan.
John: Mm-hmm.
Jim: Because that’s the essence of family, right? And it’s, uh, messy and chaotic. But in the midst of that, parents are shaping the next generation. They’re soaking it all up, the future sharers of the gospel and the future voters of our nation.
It’s a critically important job because without families, nations crumble. And we’ve seen that in history time and time again. And here at Focus on the Family, we’re working hard to help families to thrive in Christ. We want to help you in your marriage and give you the tools you need to have a great partnership together. And we want to help you in your role as a parent. And we have great resources for every age and stage of a child’s life.
Most importantly, we want to make sure that you know the creator of the family, and that’s our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. That’s our mission in a nutshell. There’s the elevator speech.
Uh, so if you believe in those values, let me encourage you to join us as a monthly sustainer, a partner with this ministry. We’re a non-profit organization, and we are extremely careful in how we manage the resources that are entrusted to us. We consider your donations to be a sacred trust. And, uh, only about 1% of the audience actually, uh, contributes to the ministry. And that’s, uh, shockingly low. It would be great to move that to 2%.
So if you haven’t given, could you please consider doing that? Uh, regardless of whether you can donate, we have a free gift for you. Visit us online to gain access to our Focus on the Family Comedy Collection, featuring almost four hours of clean comedy from today’s guest, Kenn Kington plus Ted Cunningham, John Branyan, uh, Jeremy Nunes and Chonda Pierce. It’s a fantastic collection.
John: Hmm. It is. And you can visit us online to request your free access to the comedy collection. We’re at focusonthefamily.com/broadcast. Thanks for listening to Focus on the Family with Jim Daly. I’m John Fuller, inviting you back, as we once again help you and your family thrive in Christ.
