Sometimes, when something embarrassing happens at home, Katrina Brown's 8-year-old son will look at her and say, ''Ma, this doesn't make it on stage.''
Sometimes, Brown will say OK.
Other times, her response is, ''No, the seven stretch marks on the left side of my body have earned me the right to tell some of these stories.''
Life as a wife and the mother of two boys inspires much of the material in Brown's act, which she'll perform Saturday at the Warren Comedy Club.
Brown has been working professionally for about six years after a less than auspicious attempt 18 years ago.
''I did it on a dare, a family friend dared me to do it,'' she said. ''But I sucked. I was too young, didn't have any life experience for good material. I figured it would be something I could say that I've done once, and that's it.''
Fact Box
When
You?Go
WHO: Katrina Brown, Mark Colella and Matt O'Nesti
WHEN: 9 p.m.
Saturday. Doors open at 8 p.m.
WHERE: The Warren Comedy Club at
Sunrise Inn, 510 E. Market St., Warren
HOW MUCH: $15.
But friends continued to urge the self-described ''drama-club, speech-team dork in high school'' to try it again. And if her children may be apprehensive about appearing in her act, it was the support of her husband that convinced her to stick with it.
''At an open mic at my home club, the Funny Stop in Cuyahoga Falls, my husband went me,'' Brown said. ''After my six minutes, he put his arm around me and said, 'I think our lives are going to change.' What do you mean? 'This is what you're supposed to do.'
''From that point on, I went to every open mic I could get my hands on. And if I couldn't get on stage, I at least watched.''
Since then Brown has worked at clubs and colleges throughout Ohio and neighboring states and won the ''Funniest Comedian in NE Ohio'' contest in 2007 at the Funny Stop.
''I bill myself as the mutant queen of Ohio comedy,'' Brown said. ''I discuss a lot of oddities about myself. Everything I talk about on stage is the truth. It's very much life-based, observational comedy. People in the audience who don't have children find the parenting stuff funny because they've been around kids ... It's about being a mom, being a wife, being a woman, all dealt with with a realistic edge.''