When the saints came marching in

I took an improv class in college. This was, of course, a very long time ago. The course was designed to help people come out of their shell, learn to think on their feet, gain self confidence, that sort of thing. Quickly though, it devolved into an evening of entertainment for the rotund professor. Once it became obvious that the professor was more interested in personal entertainment than education, I certainly enjoyed it more, but I am not sure the class ever really served a purpose for the neurotics and other social misfits who took the class as some sort of self help system.

The professor called on me often because I was quick and funny, the qualities he found necessary in his particular brand of fat man humor. All was well. Then one day he changed things up, he wanted to work on drama. Now, I am all for drama, drama is fine by me, but I am more a shallow clown, and drama always seems to contain traces of depth, because to feel those sorts of emotions required of real drama, you have to entertain some sort of depth of emotions and at that time in my life, I could not do that, the world was my stage and I was its clown.

The professor would have none of that. He sat a small table on the stage and set the scene. He was a doctor about to give us, the patients, some bad news. One by one, a student would be called into his "office" and he would sit them down and say in a stern voice, "Cindy, the results from the tests are back and it does not look good." Cindy, or whomever was there at the time, would then begin to quiver and shake and ask, what the results were, what it all meant and then, hopefully crying at this point, he or she would ask, how much time do I have. It was all super dramatic.

Until I was called into the pretend doctors office. I bounded onto the stage, way to energetic for a man about to get life changing diagnostic information. I ran into his "office", quickly sat down, said something like, "hey doc, what's up?" and immediately steam began to come from his ears. "Start again," he said. Impatient with my antics, he wanted me to drop the clown act and show a serious side that had yet to appear. I walked off the stage, turned and slowly walked in, pulled the chair out, sat down, and looked at him and began to laugh hysterically. "Try it again" he said.

This went on a couple more times. Then he finally got my entrance right, and I was sitting patiently waiting for the diagnosis, he said, "the results are back, it's not good." I broke in, "when you say not good, do you mean the lab did not go a very good job, because quite honestly those nurses with the needles were brutal and I am not about to go through that again."

He had me start again. I entered, serious and distraught, sat down again, he began, the results, not good, things did not look well. I may only have weeks to live. "Weeks to live," I said, "why that's great news." He looked at me, exasperated, "how can that be good news," he asked. "Well," I continued, "I've been dating this freshman (true) who is a dumb as a bag of rocks (also true) and I have no idea how to break up with her (even more true) and this should do the trick."

He sent me off the stage to try again. So it went, for a few more minutes, to all sorts of hilarious laughter and the immense frustration of the professor. At some point he gave up and had me join my classmates in the small audience. He stood on the stage, and reminded us that not everything was a joke, not every situation was funny. He made pointed remarks about how some people, the talented and deeper people, could call upon memories and bring up honest emotions and get an audience to believe that even though they were standing on a small stage in a small college, pretending to hear life changing information from a professor, the moment was real, the emotional exchange was real, the reaction was real and the audience would react with real emotion. On the other hand, he continued, if a joker would continue to make silliness out of the most heart wrenching situation and not take it seriously, then neither would the audience.

For whatever reason that moment has stuck with me for a long time. Life is drama and pathos and silliness and sometimes it is all those things wrapped together in absurdity. Sometimes not. But in many times, I have been in what should be a dramatic situation and instead of buying into it, I remain calm, thought how strange it might be to crack wise at exactly the wrong time, and see what happens. A few years ago my mother had a stroke, she was dying, I was her primary caregiver at the time and I was the person legally in charge of making life and death decisions. I spent a lot of time with her in the hospital and her prognosis was not good, she was going to die and she was going to die in that hospital soon. She was unable to talk, she was not moving and barely aware of where she was. I sat with her and held her hand and told her things, like the kids were all fine and that she was going to be allright. One day a nurse came in as I was whispering in my mothers ear and the nurse asked if there was anything she could do. Now remember, for a couple of days my mother was basically in a coma, so when the nurse asked if there was anything she could do and my response was, "yes, my mom asked for a dry martini and she was wondering if you could change the channel to Matlock" the nurse looked at me like I might be a little high.

Making jokes at the wrong time is a family tradition. It did not serve me well in improv class and it did not seem to make any friends in the ICU unit at the hospital.

So, yesterday, I was at my doctors office. He had called the night before and said he needed to see me and wondered if I could come in the next day. Time on my hands and all that, I was there at 1PM. I sat in his exam room for a while, then a slight knock, the door opened, he walked in. Now, keep in mind, my doctor is a handsome young Asian doctor who has been brilliant and caring in every interaction he has had with me. I think we have a healthy friendly regard for one another. He is adorable and if I could, I would put him in my pocket and take him home with me. The door opened and his eyes were red. When he closed the door behind him he began to cry. He said, "I don't know how to tell you this." Immediately I stopped him and said, "you have the worst bedside manner or any doctor in history. What are you doing. Seriously. Stop. Go back outside, get yourself together and come back in here without the drama." He looked at me for a second. He seemed to straighten up, pull himself together and exit the room. A second later, a slight knock on the door, it opened he walked in, his eyes still red. He looked at me, I looked at him. Now I began to cry,

My improv teacher would have been so proud of me.