Some funny business

Some requests are easy to resist. A student wants to meet with me via Zoom at 10 p.m. on a weeknight during Spring Break? Um, no, and I'm not even going to offer an excuse.

But I did feel the need to offer excuses the past ten times I refused the annual request to teach a course in our local Learning in Retirement program. I taught for the program once before and found it rewarding, exhausting, and exhilarating, but I've resisted their requests ever since for various good reasons: Too busy or tired to teach a two-hour class once a week for eight weeks; too distracted by other projects (writing and editing essays on teaching comedy); unwilling to put in that much work for a stipend that's significant but not life-changing. 

But the leaders of the program persisted and finally I agreed to teach a course on comedy in spring of 2020. Then came Covid. Then the whole program moved online and they asked me to teach the class via Zoom, and I said that I couldn't spend one additional millisecond on Zoom than was absolutely necessary or my head would explode. 

Then this spring they went back to in-person classes and I ran out of excuses, so here I am getting ready to lead a weekly discussion of comedy with a bunch of retired people, and I couldn't be more pleased. For one thing, I need that stipend to pay for my new cell phone so I can continue to enjoy funny pictures of my grandkids, and for another, I need to immerse myself in comic material to distract myself from the current misery on campus, including the fear that I'll never get another raise. 

So today's the big day: an introduction to the history of comedy, illustrated with film clips and some short readings. I can count on these students to read the homework assignments, so I know they'll be prepared to discuss theories of comedy next week. Among other topics, we'll have sessions about comedy and the human condition, comedy as uniter or divider, and what makes British comedy so very British (with an expert guest speaker). I have one class session set aside to view a film, but I'm going to ask them for suggestions before deciding which one. And during the final class session, I've set aside time for anyone who wants to perform up to five minutes of comedy in front of the group. I hope some of them will want to put comedy theories into practice, and by that time we'll be so comfortable with each other that we'll laugh even if it isn't funny.

So I guess it's a good thing that I finally ran out of excuses. Eight weeks from now I may be exhausted from the extra work, but at least I will have had a few laughs along the way.