KIRKWOOD, Mo. — Life is always a little better when we're laughing.
Which is why people like hanging out with Nikki Glaser.
"I had a female pilot the other day," Glaser said during a stand-up set on the 'Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon.' "And as a woman I was like, 'Yeah girl, woo hoo!' (cheers) But also, 'Are we going to be OK?'"
Glaser is the host of 'You Up?,' a daily radio show on Sirius XM Comedy Central.
But if you haven't heard her there, you've probably seen her on Conan or Seth Myers or the Tonight Show.
In the last decade or so, Glaser has become one of the country's best-known stand-up comedians. But it all began right here in St. Louis.
"I came from a really funny family, so we were just always making jokes," she told 5 On Your Side's Mike Bush.
The 34-year-old said growing up, it was her dad who had great taste in comedy, telling her to check out people like Conan and David Letterman. But at Kirkwood High School she was not the class clown.
"I was really shy and I was just worried about getting made fun of and I just kept to myself; I was such an introvert," she said.
But she said she reinvented herself in college, first at Colorado and then at the University of Kansas while majoring in English literature.
It was on stage at an open-mic night and a summer visit to Westport in Maryland Heights that changed her life.
"There was a little table tent that said summer comedy class," she recalled. "And I signed up for that and I started going to these comedy classes at the Funny Bone in the summer of 2003 and the rest is history. I mean, I was hooked."
Since then, it's been a slow climb up the comedy mountain.
"I would say it took 10 years to feel like I was good," she said.
But now, a night off is rare for Glaser. She's hosted two series for Comedy Central and last fall she was one of the celebrities on ABC's 'Dancing with the Stars.'
"Even though it was the hardest thing I've ever done," Glaser said, "I kind of looked at it as a vacation from this life that I'd been building for 15 years."
And now, she's working on her first Netflix special.
Her style can be described as racy and often very personal.
"I'm just like an open book," she said. "It's the thing, it's the number one thing I can point to that has made me successful."
But she always has one goal: to make people laugh.
Where she goes from here, she's not quite sure.
"I had all these goals and now I'm kind of looking at my personal life and I'm thinking 'Well, I'd like a family,'" she said. "And I maybe would like to settle down, whatever that means."
For now, New York and Los Angeles are where she will live but Nikki Glaser said St. Louis will always be home.
"There's a pride that comes out of living here that you don't lose once you go to the big metropolises. I am so proud to be from St. Louis," she told us.
You can see the entire interview with Nikki Glaser here.
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