This Never Would've Happened if Michael Jackson were Alive (RIP).

My friends and I are crowded into the back bar of a soul food restaurant for a female-friendly (though man-welcoming) open mic night. We are waiting for the opening comics to finish their sets so that we can take over. (If you wonder why female comics would need their own open mic, keep reading.)

“What is this over here?” A male comic addresses the audience from the stage, waving his hand over the group of women who occupy most of the room. He smiles and speaks to us like we are someone’s adorable grandmother. “Someone’s birthday? Girls’ night out?”

“No,” answers my friend. “We’re here for the open mic.”

“There’s an open mic tonight?”

“Yeah, you're part of it. We go on after your set.”

“And all of ya’ll – allll of ya’ll – are here for the open mic?” he asks in disbelief. Forty female heads collectively nod. Unnerved, he continues through the rest of his set, awkward and stumbling, karmic justice for those of us in the crowd.

He is perplexed for a number of reasons. The first is that his five-minute set is not the draw for this roomful of women. The second is the realization that women don’t celebrate birthdays by attending open mics at random bars. The third is that women – who are, by evolution and genetics, clearly not funny – are here to perform, not watch, at an open mic.

Compared to what a lot of female comics have experienced, this incident was relatively harmless. Indeed, it was less offensive than the wall of silence female comedians regularly encounter at open mics after an audience of 90 percent male comics, having just guffawed their way through 45 minutes of dick and cum jokes, stand cross-armed and glaring as a woman performs her five-minute set.

The host, who is also the offending comic’s friend, is embarrassed, though she assures us later that he’s a wonderful guy who happened to make a really stupid faux pas. I get that – we all sound like idiots sometimes. It’s just that if even the nice guys still think it’s preposterous for women to be funny, the road to acceptance is that much longer.