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  Even though I was miserably alone because of these impulsive shenanigans, I didn’t seem to have the power to stop them. I remember one time in middle school during recess standing by myself, watching everyone else interact on the playground. Rather than wallowing in my loneliness, I became impulsively fixated on a ladder leading to my second-floor math class, which was about to begin. It had obviously been left there by the custodian washing the windows. The bell ending recess rang. All the children cleared the playground, heading to their respective classes. Without a thought, I headed toward the ladder.

  After what I believed was enough time for the class to get settled, I began to climb toward my classroom. As I reached the second-floor window, I could see the kids focused on the teacher writing on the blackboard. I gripped the window from the outside and began to push it up. Apparently, the noise of the window sliding up caused a shift in the class’s attention. The teacher stopped writing and looked my way, along with twenty-something other heads. I lifted my body off the ladder and onto the ledge of the window. I casually lowered myself to the floor, wandered over to my seat, and sat down as if nothing had happened.

  Again, I had failed to let anyone in on my little escapade. Had I, this might have been considered funny. But instead I was considered insane by the masses.

  The proceedings were obviously brought to a halt. Followed by what seemed like an eternity of awkward silence, the teacher boomed, “Howard Mandel!”

  I looked up at him with all the innocence I could conjure, as if to say, “Why in heaven’s name would you be calling on me?”

  “Do you have an explanation?”

  I responded very earnestly, “Normally I would, sir, but I happened to miss the first ten minutes of class.”

  “Stand up!”

  I stood up.

  “Would you like to share with us?”

  I reached into my pocket and pulled out my Popeye Pez dispenser and started making my way down the row to give everyone a Pez candy. Before I could get the second one out, he screamed, “Out in the hall!”

  Needless to say, I ended up missing much more than ten minutes of that class, or many classes, for that matter. I remember discovering that I had the capacity to do a baby voice, which would later become the character “Bobby.” Again with the teacher writing on the board, I would pipe up in a babyish falsetto, “Help me! Help me, please!” Without even turning his head, he would say, “Howard, out in the hall!” A good portion of my academic career was spent in the hall.

  On that particular day, I remember the principal saying to me, “What good can you get out of this kind of behavior, Howard?”

  I wish I could find him today and tell him I don’t know if it’s good, but it’s a paragraph in this book.

  No one understood my humor. The most common sound I heard as a child in school was “tch,” followed by an eye roll. I don’t know how to write that sound. The girls would always exhale in disgust and go, “Tch,” because what I did was never in the context of a joke. I get the fact that nobody liked it because I was doing things you are not supposed to do. The fact that you are not supposed to do them is what made them funny to me.

  In middle school, I felt as if I were a pariah. I had no real friends, so I began attending a teen club on Friday nights at another school, Dufferin Heights Junior High. I became known as the guy who would do outrageous things. I was kind of a prop. Bring Howard, he will do whatever we want. And I would.

  As much as I wanted to be funny, my real goal was to meet girls. But at the time, I looked like and sounded like a girl. I had curly hair down to my shoulders and a high-pitched voice, and I still hadn’t shaved. I stood four feet ten and weighed eighty-five pounds. Oh, my God, I just realized that I was Hannah Montana.

  This proved to be an asset. I could walk into the girls’ bathroom, stand at the mirror, and brush my hair without anyone thinking there was a boy in the room. And it was a great way to meet girls. It was probably the first time I set eyes on my future wife.

  I was never that great with the ladies. My first memory of setting my sights on someone was in Mr. Cave’s class in the sixth grade. Her name was Vivian Sher, and she was my first crush. Today, I believe that she has no idea I existed or was even in her class.

  I had no concept of what to do, I just knew that she was a beautiful girl and I wanted her—though I didn’t know what that meant. I didn’t know how to talk to her. I don’t think I ever said three words to her.

  One day, I devised a way into her heart. I didn’t really devise it, because again, the way I operate is that I don’t think ahead. ADHD is a beautiful thing. It was after school, and I was in a trance. Vivian left school, and I followed her. She lived at the corner of Bathurst and Sheppard, which was not in the same direction as, or anywhere near, my house. Basically, I stalked her. She walked home, and I followed about a hundred yards behind her. Without ever turning or even acknowledging that I was there, Vivian entered her building, and I just stood outside and stared. I didn’t have a plan. I didn’t know what I was doing, and I had no idea how this would gain me her companionship. I stood for what must have been an eternity.

  I eventually went home and got yelled at for coming home late. I had walked two miles out of my way. That was the extent of my relationship with Vivian Sher. I never followed her again, and I never said a word to her. The next time I mentioned Vivian Sher’s name was right now in this book. I just want to say I probably wanted to continue my pursuit, but as you can see, I probably lost focus and went off in many other directions on the road to building the monument that would become me.

  At this point in my life, my only friend was my humor, and I desperately needed someone to share it with. As I entered high school, I continued on my quest to meet a woman. I believed that the path to a woman was sports. The jock always got the girl.

  I know what you’re thinking: How could I be a jock? I’m only four feet ten and eighty-five pounds. But remember, now I’m in high school. I’m a totally different person. I’ve grown up. I’m now four feet ten and a half inches and eighty-six pounds … with long, flowing locks. The word jock doesn’t fit that image unless you add an e and a y on the end of the word jock. Unfortunately, this wasn’t part of the curriculum. That being said, I can’t tell you how many times I showed up at school wearing brightly colored, shiny clothes.

  I had to join one of the existing school teams. A team that needed someone with not only my athletic prowess and my dwarflike dimensions, but my ability to work alone. Lo and behold, the Greco-Roman wrestling team. I really didn’t care about the sport, but I truly believed that any female who laid her eyes on me in the Northview Heights official athletic uniform would be mine for the taking. Again, I never think ahead as far as the consequences of my actions are concerned.

  I made the team. The prerequisite for making the team was to fill the void in the under-ninety-pound weight class. I was given my uniform. Who the hell would imagine that the uniform for Greco-Roman-style wrestling was a f––ing onesie?

  In my dreams, I believed this was my ticket to end up in the arms of a beautiful woman. Instead, I ended up in the arms of another ninety-pound guy trying to roll me around on the filthy floor while I was wearing what looked like a one-piece bathing suit belonging to a beautiful woman.

  The only task the coach gave me was to remain under ninety pounds. There were times when I tipped the scale at ninety-two pounds and had only hours to get back to my fighting weight. This was achieved by wrapping my entire body in plastic garbage bags and running until I lost over two pounds of liquid weight—or, as the layman refers to it, dehydration. My mother eventually made me quit the team. I don’t want anybody to believe my parents were not supportive. They attended many of my matches, watched me get pinned within thirty-five seconds, and then frequently drove me to the hospital to be x-rayed.

  My quest for female companionship never let up. A family friend, who owned one of the biggest bingo halls in Canada, gave me a job selling sandwiches and
drinks. On most bingo nights there were probably two thousand people, mostly old ladies, playing bingo for thousands of dollars.

  My mom happily drove me to work. I actually remember the drive to work because guys would pull up next to us at the red light, honk their horns, and make signals. I would wave back, thinking, Who are these guys? It took a while, but my mother and I eventually realized that they thought I was a girl and they were trying to pick me up. Truthfully, I didn’t think that I looked like that much of a girl without my wrestling uniform.

  Once I was inside the bingo hall, there was no mistaking the man in me. I had a metal cart on wheels that was loaded down with cases of soda and egg salad sandwiches. I wore a white shirt with a bow tie and a paper hat, which I cocked to the side. This was not the uniform of a lady. I swear to you to this day, I was so excited about my look. I thought, Wait until the ladies get a load of me! I had a tie, a paper hat, and egg salad sandwiches.

  I was going to make money and look good doing it, so much so that I actually invited girls to come and watch me. I had no sense of what looked good or even how to get a girl. I walked around with the stupidest expression on my face, but I wasn’t trying to be funny. I remember looking in the mirror at my hair flared out from the sides of my cocked hat, thinking, This guy’s hot. I had the looks, the swagger, and all the egg salad you could want. What more did a woman need in a man?

  Once I brought a girl to watch me sell egg salad in the bingo hall. Actually, I told a friend to come and watch me, and he brought the girl. But I thought she was there to see me—even though she was his girlfriend. So I set out to impress.

  The first bingo games were for $50, followed by a special game played before the break for $1,000. At that time, they didn’t use punch-out cards the way they do today. The players had see-through plastic chips that looked like tiddlywinks. I knew that the game was almost ending. The moment somebody yelled, “Bingo!” I was supposed to be in the middle of the hall, where everyone could buy refreshments. If I was late getting to the designated spot, the owner would lose sales. So I loaded up my cart with sodas and egg salad, checked my tie, and cocked my hat. My boss told me that I had better hurry, so I figured I would run.

  First, I charted a path that would take me past this girl. It was nearing the end of a $1,000 game, and tension in the room was building as two thousand people were listening for the next number that might thrust any one of them into the financial stratosphere. I took off like lightning, gaining speed, heading in her direction. In my mind, when she heard the whoosh of my cart streaking by, she would look up dreamily at egg salad boy with the paper hat.

  What was I thinking? As I retell this story, I can’t tell you how serious I was. I wasn’t trying to be funny. I was dead serious. It’s not as though I didn’t see myself. I had actually checked in the mirror seconds earlier to make sure I looked my best and had seen the image of a five-foot, ninety-pound man-girl garden gnome with a paper hat and thought … perfect.

  With my hair blowing in the wind and a glint in my eye, I ran right by her. I watched the excitement as her eyes locked … on N-44. She never even looked up. But then I made my right turn down the aisle toward the center of the hall. When I say “I made the right turn,” I mean I made the right turn. The cart did not. With the speed that I was traveling and the weight of the cart, physics took over. The cart hit the corner of a long table where five hundred people were sitting. Instead of hearing the next number, they heard a smashing, explosive sound, followed by old ladies screaming and chips flying all over the floor. It was one of the most embarrassing nights of my life.

  At that point the girl may have looked up at me, but I assure you she didn’t go home with me. No one ever did. At least I was consistent. I can’t even imagine taking a woman home at this point in my life. We were now living in an apartment. I was sharing a room with my brother and living with my parents. The sound of a giggly girl and the smell of egg salad would be disconcerting to any roommate, to say the least. I left that job shortly after it began.

  Speaking of consistency, I consistently lost jobs no matter how much I enjoyed them. In the summer of 1970, I found a job working at the Canadian National Exhibition, the annual summer fair in Toronto. It was also my first foray into show business. I operated a ride called the Vegas Chase. It was a ride that went around and around and around. I don’t know why I wrote that, because what ride doesn’t? There are no rides that just go straight and never come back. On the Vegas Chase, you sat in an egg-shaped pod with pictures of dice on it and went in circles quickly.

  I loved my job. I wore an orange jumpsuit with a little clown emblem and the word Conklin on the right pocket. Conklin was the guy who operated all the rides at the exhibition, so I was working for Conklin. I would sit on a tractor seat with a microphone in one hand and the lever controlling the ride in the other. This was so much better than the paper hat and the egg salad. Again, I thought every girl was looking at me.

  I took such joy when people screamed. I would say, “Do you want to go faster?” and they would all yell, “Yes!” I was performing, and I was in control. But this didn’t seem to be enough for me. I had to take it one step too far. I decided to make it my personal Candid Camera, without thinking of the ramifications.

  In the midst of the ride loaded with people and whirling at about thirty miles per hour, I would scream into the microphone, “Do you want to go faster?!” They would scream back at me, “Yes!” Pushing the lever even farther, I’d scream, “Even faster?!” “Yes!” Then out of left field, I would scream, “Secure your orange shoulder harnesses, we are going upside down in five seconds!” I would begin the countdown: “Five … four …”

  Here’s the deal: There were no orange shoulder harnesses, and the ride didn’t go upside down, but they didn’t know that.

  The screams began to sound different. It might have been the sound of terror.

  “Three … two …”

  The screams were accompanied by heads jerking to the left and right and hands reaching desperately over shoulders, grabbing aimlessly at something that didn’t exist. I also could hear people scream, “Help me! Please, I can’t find my harness.”

  Nobody was having fun … except for me.

  This lasted a couple of days. Not my enjoyment—the job.

  My spectacles became legendary in small circles. During this time period, kids in my area hung out at Howard Johnson’s. I would go and sit alone in a booth. Every booth was packed with groups of eight or ten people, yet I’d sit alone. I would put on a ridiculous accent and set my volume control on loud. Everybody watched as the waitress approached. The waitress was usually a woman in her sixties with no patience or sense of humor. Remember, she was serving sixteen-year-olds at two a.m.

  I would proceed to order my favorite dessert, which at the time was a Fudgana, a banana split covered with fudge. So it’s “fudge” and “banana,” but with my accent, I could make “fudgana” sound eerily close to “vagina.” My goal was to see how many times this loudmouthed foreign exchange student could scream, “Vagina!” into the face of this sixty-year-old woman before being asked to leave.

  It would go something like this.

  She would ask, “May I help you?”

  I would say, “Doo yoo ave vagina?”

  She would ask, “What?”

  I would explain, “I would like yooo vagina.”

  She would say, “What are you saying?”

  “I saw picture your vagina in menu. I vant eat your vagina.” As I was screaming, “I vant your vagina,” the entire restaurant would be rolling in laughter. I would maintain an innocent, fish-out-of-water demeanor. “Why can’t I ave yooo vagina?”

  I want to make two points. First, the record was thirty-one. Second, I was always asked to leave and ended up home alone. You may be reading this and thinking this is very juvenile, but I was only sixteen years old. That being said, I would do exactly the same thing today.

  Through these spectacles, I started to garn
er some friends and began to spread my social wings. I got invited to a party at Lizzie Zuckerbrot’s house. As usual, I just sat on the floor, not knowing what I should do at a party. I wasn’t really mingling because I’m not a mingler. To my left was a guy wearing Coke-bottle aviator glasses who also seemed to be a nonmingler. His name was Michael Rotenberg.

  The walls of the room were covered with pictures of Lizzie and the entire Zuckerbrot family. The pictures were various shapes and sizes. By looking at them, you could tell that it took years and years to create these memories, not to mention the display itself.

  The party seemed to drift into another room, leaving Michael and me alone. We didn’t say anything to each other as we got up and walked toward the pictures. We started removing the pictures from the wall and placing them on the floor.

  Once all the pictures had been removed, I noticed the look of blank walls covered with an irregular pattern of what seemed like hundreds of nails. And now, ladies and gentlemen, the pièce de résistance: I removed one of the nails.

  As if nothing had happened, Michael and I sat down and waited until Lizzie Zuckerbrot and the rest of the partygoers migrated back into the room. There was a shriek of horror as Lizzie Zuckerbrot realized that the Zuckerbrot family collage had been destroyed.

  The party took a dark turn. Michael and I remained calmly on the floor as every other party guest began to join the frenzy of trying to put back all the pictures before her parents returned home.

  Lizzie Zuckerbrot assembled the pictures on the wall according to her memory. After almost an hour, Lizzie was down to the final two pictures. The end was in sight. The second-to-last picture made its way onto the wall. One picture remained. One picture and no nail.