Return from Funnyville

I am fresh from the Erma Bombeck Writer's Workshop, where there were 332 participants. That is 331 more than I am used to being with on any given work day, so you can imagine that I am quite worn out. The collective funny bones were something to experience.

One speaker gave us a nifty formula for writing about something that you are still coming to terms with. Her example was a student who, soon after being in a terrible car accident, was endeavoring to write about the experience. I figured it would apply equally well to my search for bottled water at the workshop. That was pretty devastating, too, at least for me.

The speaker said that this formula neatly tricks your left brain into silence, thereby allowing your right brain to bash it into submission. No, actually, it's supposed to allow your right brain the freedom to let the creativity flow without being stopped by the left-brain logic police. And believe me, my left brain needs to be tricked into shutting up sometimes.

We had to start with some decision we had made recently, any decision, such as the decision to come to this particular session rather than an inferior one down the hall. We then wrote down a series of experiences leading from this decision, in the form "This is a story about..." or "This is a poem about..." Since my left brain nearly has a stroke at the thought of composing a poem, I elected to start my statements with "This is a story about..." The decision I chose to write about was my near-fatal decision to not take my own bottled water to the sessions on Saturday.

My Quest to Find Bottled Water at the Workshop

This is a story about deciding not to take a bottle of water in my tote bag to the Saturday sessions, sure that I had seen some free ones on the first floor of Kenny Union where the breakfast buffet was set up.

This is a story about how wrong I was about free bottled water being provided at the breakfast buffet.

This is a story about how I climbed to the second floor, somewhat slowly due to dehydration setting in, to see whether there were any bottles of water up there, outside the lunch room.

This is a story about being disappointed a second time.

This is a story about giving up on finding free water and descending into the basement, parched and fast approaching incoherence, to locate a vending machine rumored to be down there.

This is a story about being overjoyed to find the vending machine with water for the bargain price of $1.00.

This is a story about attempting, several times, to feed, cajole, and shove my dollar bill into the slot to obtain my precious bottle of water.

This is a story about having my attempts repeatedly aborted by a piece of paper that was stuck in the bill slot, and about breaking down into sobs at this failure.

This is a story about recovering from my sobs to scrounge around in my wallet for four quarters.

This is a story about finding three quarters.

[Interlude for more sobs, which we will refrain from describing, as the experience was very painful.]

This is a story about telling jokes to passersby in the hope of gaining one more quarter.

This is a story about how much I have yet to learn about telling jokes, in public, for money.

This is a story about dragging myself from drinking fountain to drinking fountain -- in the basement, on the first floor, in the science building -- until I finally reached the room where my next session was being held.

This is a story about how I saw hundreds of bottles of water sitting on the table in front of the room.

This is a story of a mirage, and of being doomed to disappointment. And great thirst.