A time for jokes; a time for being serious

I really enjoy reading the blog of Earl Pomerantz. He is a screenwriter and producer and writes an entry in his blog every week-day. He recently needed surgery and wrote about it. One of the posts was titled, "Twenty-Five (Mostly) Helpful Tips For Prospective Hospital Patients".  It was interesting to me on two levels. One was that his list of tips for the hospital is, in many ways, tips for life in general. It reminds me of the series of posts I started that I call The Rules of Life. So far I've only written two (Rule 1, Rule 2) but more are coming. [Update - here are two more, Rule 3 and Rule 4]

The second part of Earl's Tip #6 is, "Also, some people have no sense of humor. Respect that. When you fail to make someone laugh three times in succession, stop trying."

About ten or eleven years ago, I was going to be having an operation to repair a deviated septum (that's the cartilage that divides your nose into two - I was almost down to one nostril) and I had to meet with the surgeon a few times before the operation so she could figure out whether it was worth it and how she would do it. She was a rather austere woman. She wasn't old as you might think from the adjective "austere" and some might just say she was eccentric. Anyway, she never laughed. If I'd have read Earl's tips ten or eleven years ago, I wouldn't have tried to make her laugh but I couldn't resist. And anyway, I was feeling nervous and wanted to put myself at ease.

So I hit her with some one-liners and a few witty observations. Nothing. I remember I had three office visits before the surgery and I was, believe it or not, feeling like I needed to make her laugh or at least chuckle. I didn't want someone hacking away at my nose with a stern look on their face. I wanted her to be happy while she had sharp instruments that close to my brain. So, on the third visit I let loose with all my best stuff. She wouldn't budge. Then, while we waited for some medication to take effect, she got a phone call and I heard her side of the conversation. She carried on the conversation in her usual stiff speech pattern until she said, "I was eating a ham sandwich." There was a pause and then she laughed. And laughed and laughed until she got to the point where she was having trouble breathing. When she came back into the room I was in, she still had a smile on her face but that quickly faded. She was, after all, back in the presence of that patient of hers who had no sense of humor.

The operation went well and I've always been grateful I got it. I never tried to get that doctor to laugh in the few follow-up visits I had after the operation. She seemed relieved, too. But I never did get the whole story about that ham sandwich.