A long time ago, long before I started my current job, I worked for a Big Serious Company. I can be a pretty serious person myself, especially when it comes to business, so it was a pretty good fit.
During Very Important Meetings, I would sit within stalking distance of the glass conference room doors. If my boss coughed more than once, if he started tapping his toes, if the clients stood up unexpectedly, or looked around the room– I was there.
Tissue? Coffee? Copies?
If anyone thinks that assistants aren’t important, you should see one of those Big Important Meetings go down when there’s not a good secretary on hand. I’m not saying the government wouldn’t be shut down right now if they had better secretaries, but you can’t underestimate the value of a well-place cup of tea or look of disapproval.
The meetings could last several hours and I would quietly browse the internet while waiting. This worked out fabulously until the day I discovered Allie Brosh and her blog Hyperbole and a Half.
I’m a smiley person in real life. I like to laugh. When I type “haha!” to you, it’s accompanied by at least a chuckle in real life. Sometimes, it’s a full blown giggle fit. I know this about myself, so while at work in this Big Serious Company, I restricted my internet access to depressing news stories and light comics.
When I came across her wildly drawn comics, I felt an affinity to her madness. I started reading.
On the first panel, I smiled.
By the second panel, I was quietly chuckling.
The third panel transformed my chuckle to a gigantic laugh. I tried to stifle it at this point, but I couldn’t stop reading, and I couldn’t stop laughing.
Pretty soon, there were tears rolling down my face and I was holding my stomach because I was bubbling over with maniacal laughter.
I can’t tell you what about her work kicks off my giggle fits, but every single one of her pieces hits me hard. I’ve tried to explain it to non-readers of her work, but it always seems too simplified or outrageous.
Over the last couple of years, Allie has gone through some hard times and some great times and, as a result, has not been posting regularly, but today she made up for weeks of silence.
Today, she posted something truly magical– something that makes me feel like we were maybe always connected.
Allie. In a Dinosaur Suit. *fan girl swoon*
I was so excited when I saw that she had a new post out, that I decided lunch would wait till after I read it. I was so happy about the dinosaur picture in the first panel that I did a little dance. Then I started reading.
First I smiled.
Then I chuckled.
Then I laughed.
And the next thing I knew, I was gasping for air and rolling around my bed laughing. Dave was trying to take a little nap, but he looked at me– with tears streaming down my face, laughing like a banshee– and said, “Hyperbole and a Half?”
What can I say? My husband knows me.
The moment made me relive the first of her cartoons I ever read– that day, during the Very Important Meeting at the Big Serious Company.
That fateful Monday, I had nearly fallen off my chair laughing. When I finally got myself together, I remembered where I was sitting– right in front of an open door meeting with glass walls.
I was absolutely sure I was going to lose my job over this. I had never been fired before, but I decided to face it straight on.
I peered over at the room, and sure enough– my boss, and his clients were looking over at me.
One of the clients was beaming, and his wife was patting his hand lovingly. She smiled at me and said, “Oh yes, his jokes so often strike people’s funny bones.”
Apparently, one of the clients was a striving comedian and had made a joke. They thought I overheard his joke and fell into riots of laughter. I just let them believe it.
My boss handed me a piece of paper to file, which is Big Serious Company code for read and destroy. In it, he wrote, “Good job. It swayed them.”
Before I opened it, I thought it was going to say, “Close call. You’re fired.” and the Allie Brosh part of my mind was already playing out dramatic exit scenes. Luckily for my professional work history, I had no need to make an army of paper dinosaurs that formed the words “LAUGHTER IS NOT A CRIME, YOU WILL REGRET THIS”. Instead, I simply went about my day, laughing silently in my mind.
Thanks, Allie.
I always knew you were a dinosaur, too.
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You can read this amazing dinosaur-related post by Allie here: http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com/2013/10/menace.html and buy her book here: http://hyperboleandahalfbook.blogspot.com/
Have you read Hyperbole and a Half? Does any thing hit your funny bone each and every time?
