Much like McRib, sexy, and the ghosts from Poltergeist 2, I’m back. Well at least for this one post – let’s not get too ahead of ourselves here. Sorry for the months-long hiatus; hopefully doing this one and getting it under my belt will remind me that it’s easy to get little thoughts out there. Thank God my fellow bloggers have picked up the slack and kept you amused during my absence. Anyway I was out to dinner with my lovely wife and a few friends, and as I told a couple of them a story, I realized that it was the exact kind of thing I used to write about here. Here goes:
I’ve been at my job for almost a year now, which is crazy on both sides of the coin; that is, it’s flown by but I also feel like my last job was a lifetime ago. Funny how that works. Despite feeling very comfortable there, it’s still a work setting and I have to monitor myself in a way that I really didn’t in my last position. Recently, a co-worker of mine was telling me about her mom teaching piano. She said that she and her siblings all learned growing up, and while she’s pretty good, her brother is a better player. She seemed a little bothered by this, and I knew exactly how I wanted to reply: “So you have a little pianist envy?” It popped into my head, started its trek to my mouth, and almost made it out before I considered the appropriateness of the statement, debated, and held it in. In case you’re wondering, that process manifested itself in a beautiful sentence that sounded roughly like this: “So…hmm, yeah, heh heh, you…uhhh, that’s…I see.” Was that better or worse than if I had just said the line? Tough call.
One of the first rules in improv is that – though very difficult – if the timing of a line isn’t right, it’s much better to just let it go rather than try forcing it in where it doesn’t fit. I had the line I wanted to use and the timing on this one, but the whole “professionalism” thing adds an extra degree of difficulty when trying to be funny at the workplace. One year in, and I’m still trying to meet that challenge head on. And if that means that my joke about Lorena Bobbitt and Monica Lewinsky has to stay under wraps, then I suppose there are worse things. Right?