When I was a high school junior, I hit upon that certain rite of passage that so many of us do: college application essays. This was back in the day when we wrote them and maybe showed them to our parents, as compared to today’s parents hiring a ghost writer to craft it or simply instructing ChatGPT, “Write an essay that will blow Purdue’s socks off, in the style of Stephen King.”
For Duke University, my essay question was, “If you could meet any person, living or dead, whom would you pick and why?” Your average teenager in 19XX would start researching George Washington, Martin Luther King, or Napoleon to impress them. I was not your average teen (in a long list of ways), didn’t want to do research, and didn’t care as much as my parents if I got into Duke. So, with all sincerity, I picked someone I thought would be more fun to meet: Erma Bombeck.
For those of you not reading this with little glasses at the end of your nose, the name Erma Bombeck won’t bring back the nostalgia that it does for those of us a tad older. Erma wrote a series of best-selling humor books including The Grass is Always Greener Over the Septic Tank (1976) and If Life is a Bowl of Cherries, What Am I Doing in the Pits? (1978). She’s better known, though, for her syndicated column “At Wits End” that appeared three times a week in newspapers nationwide. Between 1965 and 1996, she published over four thousand of these humorous looks at motherhood, housekeeping, dealing with her own mother, and the challenges of marriage.
Erma Lesson #1: Laugh at the Oddities of Life
While other kids were reading Superman comic books or trading baseball cards, I never missed tearing into the newspaper on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Sundays to get a laugh from Erma. She taught me that life’s peculiarities and frustrations were also what I’d come to know later as material. Here’s a few gems from her columns along the way
- “When your mother asks, ‘Do you want a piece of advice?’ it’s a mere formality. It doesn’t matter if you answer yes or no. You’re going to get it anyway.
- “Housework can kill you, if done right.”
- “When a child is locked in the bathroom with water running and he says he’s doing nothing but the dog is barking, call 911.
- “Cleanliness is not next to godliness. It isn’t even in the same neighborhood. No one has ever gotten a religious experience out of removing burned-on cheese from the grill of the toaster oven.”
- “Never lend your car to anyone to whom you have given birth.
- “Written on her tombstone: ‘I told you I was sick.’”
Erma Lesson #2: Appreciate what you have.
One day, out of the blue, Erma caught the world off guard. She suddenly waxed nostalgic and sentimental that one special day, instead of delving into humor. It’s a beautiful reminder to appreciate what we have and to make the most of time. I’ve seen this mistakenly credited as being her final column but it actually ran years before she took ill and stopped her column. But before I share that column…
Erma Lesson #3: Take ’em on a ride.
There’s a reason fans remember the column I just mentioned above all her others. It’s that we didn’t expect it. We’d grown so accustomed to just laughing at and with Erma that we didn’t foresee her making us pause and consider something real and important in our own lives.
As speakers and storytellers, we benefit from varying the feelings we give people instead of all one thing. This is why I was spellbound, forty years ago, by up-and-coming Whoopi Goldberg, whose rise to fame came from her one-woman Broadway show. In it, she had audiences howling with laughter and then suddenly stunned into silence by serious moments, as her storytelling became the roller coaster we were on with her.
How does this show up in public speaking? In my keynote “Public Speaking: Get A’s, Not Zzzzzz’s!” (named after my book), most of my stories are light and funny, to make public speaking skills seem less scary. But then I put on my Erma/Whoopi hat and the final story takes an unexpected twist into sentimental and people really remember that part for the difference..
Likewise, my motivational program “We Gotta Fail…To Succeed!” starts with a story where I’m the hero of the tale; a risky move because it could look like I’m full of ego. So I close with a story where it looks like I’m going to be the hero in it…and then comes the twist where I crash and burn, allowing the audience to laugh at me and know I can, apparently, laugh at myself, too. The variety in my approach (going from funny to touching in the former and from showing off to confessing in the latter) make the programs more interesting.
We all grow and change and, even before her passing, others who have made me laugh have taken the top of my “Who I’d Like to Meet” list. I never did get to meet Erma (despite my playing with Photoshop at the top of this column), but if anyone wants to introduce me to Neil Patrick Harris instead, I wouldn’t say no to meeting my current number 1! Another actor who is equally comfortable yielding laughter (“How I Met Your Mother”) or tears (“Rent”).
I’ll let Erma herself have the last word on this topic, with her special column:
IF I HAD MY LIFE TO LIVE OVER
Someone asked me the other day if I had my life to live over would I change anything.
My answer was no, but then I thought about it and changed my mind.
- If I had my life to live over again I would have waxed less and listened more.
- Instead of wishing away nine months of pregnancy and complaining about the shadow over my feet, I’d have cherished every minute of it and realized that the wonderment growing inside me was to be my only chance in life to assist God in a miracle.
- I would never have insisted the car windows be rolled up on a summer day because my hair had just been teased and sprayed.
- I would have invited friends over to dinner even if the carpet was stained and the sofa faded.
- I would have eaten popcorn in the “good” living room and worried less about the dirt when you lit the fireplace.
- I would have taken the time to listen to my grandfather ramble about his youth.
- I would have burnt the pink candle that was sculptured like a rose before it melted while being stored.
- I would have sat cross-legged on the lawn with my children and never worried about grass stains.
- I would have cried and laughed less while watching television … and more while watching real life.
- I would have shared more of the responsibility carried by my husband which I took for granted.
- I would have eaten less cottage cheese and more ice cream.
- I would have gone to bed when I was sick, instead of pretending the Earth would go into a holding pattern if I weren’t there for a day.
- I would never have bought ANYTHING just because it was practical/wouldn’t show soil/guaranteed to last a lifetime.
- When my child kissed me impetuously, I would never have said, “Later. Now, go get washed up for dinner.”
- There would have been more I love yous … more I’m sorrys … more I’m listenings … but mostly, given another shot at life, I would seize every minute of it … look at it and really see it … try it on … live it … exhaust it … and never give that minute back until there was nothing left of it.
− The Late Great Erma Bombeck (1924-1996)
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Today’s Humor
