DAVE: Well, I would guess that one of the good things about this, you've had some time off. You've taken some vacation, have you gone anywhere, traveled?
NORM: Yeah, I wanted to get away from all crazy showbiz. So, I decided I'd go on a vacation. And I don't like going to hotels because of all the years doing my nightclub act. So, my buddy tells me, "Hey, you should go to one of them bed and breakfasts."
DAVE: Sure.
NORM: The idea is, you go there, and it's a guy's house, and you live in his room, and then he makes you some breakfast.
DAVE: Yeah, that's it, sure.
NORM: I looked one up on the Internet, there. I found one in Vancouver Island, Victoria. Which is beautiful, it's God's country. And I look up my place where I'm supposed to go -- I have it on a little piece of paper -- and I knock on the door. And there's no answer. And I knock again, and there's still no answer. And so I look in the window, and there's an old man sleeping on the couch.
DAVE: Yeah.
NORM: So I bang on the door, ringing the doorbell, so finally I hear, "Hey, keep your pants on," from the inside. And he comes to the door -- old guy, I'd say around 80, 85 years old -- old Harold Delaney. Old Harold Delaney was his name.
DAVE: Harold Delaney.
NORM: Yeah, nice enough gentleman, you know. So, I got in there, and I say, "Well, I better go to sleep." There was no one else there. I thought it would be a whole bunch of people in different rooms, and it was just me. So I go up, and I go to sleep. A knock comes on the door, right? A knock on my bedroom door.
DAVE: Uh huh, yeah.
NORM: So I figure, uh oh, old Harold Delaney wants to have sex with me.
DAVE: That's the first thought that went through your mind!?
NORM: Well, I'm a young fellow.
DAVE: Not a bad looking guy, sure.
NORM: These days anything goes.
DAVE: Traveling alone, why not?
NORM: Sure, and of course I didn't come to Victoria to have sex with old Harold Delaney. I came to do some sightseeing. Then I hear him, he says, "You want to play some Scrabble?" Yeah, so I say, "OK, that's good, I'll play some Scrabble." So, I go down and he pulls out this old Scrabble game, and we start to play. I like Scrabble. I get the first turn -- because I picked the lower letter -- and so I get the first turn, so I make "rabbit."
DAVE: Pretty good.
NORM: It's a good word. I do it pretty quick. I take like a couple minutes. Then old Harold Delaney, he takes like a half hour to get his word. The whole time, he's not talking, he's not telling me old stories, because I like hearing old stories. Instead, for like a half hour, it was just Harold Delaney going [Funny face.]. After a half an hour of that, I'm just sitting there, he comes up with this word: "hat."
DAVE: That's his word.
NORM: That's his word, yeah. So he puts it, he takes the word "hat" and puts it like way in the corner on that triple letter score, the triple word, the red one, that you want to get to. But you can't just put it there.
DAVE: No, no, you have to have some relation to "rabbit."
NORM: Yeah, you've got to move up there, ya know, and finally get to there. But instead, he just puts it right there. So I go, alright. There's my turn, you know, I do something, quickly, and then again, the same thing [Funny face.] And time is going by, and I was coming up with good words. I had "sleigh," like a sleigh ride, and avocado.
DAVE: Whoa.
NORM: It was a seven-letter word, you get fifty extra points. I'm still way behind him.
DAVE: He's just freelancing the board.
NORM: Yeah, and so finally I decided, I've got to say something, ya know?
DAVE: Sure.
NORM: And all of his words were like "cup" and "hat." I think it was just things he had seen around the room. I'm playing excellently. I should be in the lead, but instead I'm like a thousand points behind. And finally, I've got to say something. So he puts, uh, "boot" up on this triple. And it really annoyed me because I was building towards it. And he just puts "boot," and I said, I've got to say something here, and I go, "Hey, old Harold Delaney there, I don't know. You can't put 'bootí' there." And then he goes, "You never heard tell of a boot?" So I go, "No, no, I know what a boot is, Iím just saying -- " And he says, "If a fellow goes out, he's got to wear a boot." So I go, "No, I know what a -- I made 'avocado' -- I know a boot." And it just took him forever. I think, also I noticed a weird thing: there were no blanks. It's always good, you can use any letter.
DAVE: Yeah, sure.
NORM: I realize there's no blanks in this game, and I figured, old Harold Delaney must have -- when he got the game -- figured, "What the hell is that?" and threw them away.
DAVE: How was the breakfast? Did you have the breakfast?
NORM: There was no breakfast! I got up the next day, I was so hungry from playing Scrabble all night, so I say, "Hey, Harold, how are you doing there? How about some breakfast?" And he says, "I've never been much for breakfast." So I go, uh, "Alright, so I guess I'll go down the McDonald's and pick up some breakfast, or something, Harold." And he goes, "Could you get me an Egg McMuffin?" He's crazy.
DAVE: Norm, you've got a movie coming out here, Dirty Work opening May 15. So, things are looking good for you.
NORM: Yeah, yeah, it's going to be a good movie.
DAVE: Good for you, you're landing on your feet, buddy. That's what I like to see. Nice to have --
NORM: Yeah, unless the movie stinks.
DAVE: No, the movie will be fine. Norm Macdonald, ladies and gentlemen! Nice job, very funny.
