I was scheduled for an appearance on Late Night with David Letterman, somewhere in the early nineties when he was still on NBC, following Johnny Carson. One of the other guests was a gray-haired woman pushing a book on how to cook in the wild. She walked around backstage holding a small white bird; let's call it a Dove. Every one wanted to pet this cute little bird, including David, who paid each guest a brief pre-show visit, designed to become a little familiar and comfortable, but not to suffer a premature release of conversational magic.

The first guest went long and one of the show's producers informed me that I was be bumped. I was catching a redeye back LA, and decided to hang around backstage instead of the airport.

After the commercial, the gray-haired wildlife chef walks onto the stage where Dave waits by a stove. She announces the first dish she was going to cook, Dove. She then pulls the dead Dove from her sweater pocket. She had wrung the neck of the cute little bird before stepping from onto the stage.

The camera caught a close-up of her hand holding the dead bird, its little limp head swinging at the end of a broken neck. The audience gasped. David looked first at the bird and then into the camera to say, "We'll be right back."

The producer who moments before solemnly gave me the bump call, now rushed into the green room in a panic. She stood in front of me and yelled to no one in particular, "Is the comic still here?"

I struggled through my five minutes, later adding freshly strangled Dove to my list of "acts not to follow."