Maury spoke so slowly and carefully that you wanted to pinch him, or stick him with a sharp object, to make him finish the seemingly never-ending sentence.

He made perfect sense, if you had the patience to listen until he ended his thought, and placed a long-awaited period on the aforementioned sentence. He never spoke more than one complete thought at a time.

While the rest of the world babbled and prattled around him, Maury held firm. Slowly and with great deliberation he uttered his wants and desires in a sluggish and leisurely tone.

While all about him spoke volumes about nothing, and jabbered and gushed nonsensical ideas, Maury was talking slowly but extremely lucidly.

When you asked him a question, you weren't sure he heard you properly. An uncomfortable period of time passed before Maury opened his mouth and delivered, at long last, the well-thought-out answer to your inquiry.

Maury was a turtle in a hare-brained society.

Maury was unemployed! Maury was out of work! His mother complained to me that "Maury spends entire days in his room. He doesn't look for a job. He doesn't answer want ads or place himself on any lists that would lead toward the job market."

"What does he do in his room?" I asked, almost terrified to hear the reply.

"He writes comedy routines," answered his long-suffering and frustrated (and loving) mother.

"I wish he would get a regular job. Maury wants to be a stand-up comic."

"That's nice," I said aloud.

"That's insane," I thought to myself.

Talk about being in the wrong profession!

Talk about nerve! Talk about chutzpah!

Mama continued, "He keeps working on those stand-up routines, and he tries them out on me, his mother."

"Are they good?" I asked.

"I'm his mother. What am I supposed to say? He's no Henny Youngman, and he speaks very slowly. But he is not terrible. In fact, next week he's appearing in one of those comedy clubs on Long Island."

"He's doing it for free and he wants you and your wife, Lorraine, to see him perform in public. I don't have the nerve to go to those nightclubs, even if I am his mother."

I said, "I like Maury a lot and I don't want to see him get hurt. So, my wife and I will make it our business to see his act and we will applaud the loudest and laugh the heartiest of any people in the audience."

"God bless you and your lovely wife," said Maury's mother as she bestowed a fat, wet kiss on my right cheek.

To be continued next week.