Lightening Up

  One reason why C and I get along so well is that we compliment each other. We're a little like the yin and yang symbol. We tend to balance each other out.
  For the last 11 years C has been on an unofficial mission. The goal is to get me to lighten up, to be silly once in awhile, to not be so serious all the time. I don't even think he realizes that he's on a mission and most like would deny it if asked. Nevertheless, he has made suble efforts towards that goal.
  Some background is in order here. When I first started working as a pharmacist it was still a very male dominated profession. There was one female pharmacist that worked at a store where I was an intern. There were a couple of female teachers that had once worked as pharmacists. I didn't know any that were my age except my classmates. I found a job in a town where no one woman had ever worked as a pharmacist before.
  This put me at a little disadvantage. Most people were taken aback to see a woman step to the counter when they asked to speak to the pharmacist. Added to this was the fact that I didn't (and some say still don't) look my age. Many times people asked to speak to the "real" pharmacist or the "man" pharmacist instead of me.
  I spent a lot of time thinking about what I could do to make these issues less of an issue. I decided that one thing I could do was be very serious. Someone who smiled or laughed would probably be thought silly and not trustworthy. I didn't want to seem like an air- head. I'm not sure if it made any difference, but things improved a bit. My serious act was working so I kept it up.
  Four years later I found myself as acting pharmacy manager. I was going to be supervising people that were older and had more experience than I had. I looked for a role model.
  I found one on Star Trek: Voyager. Her name was Captain Janeway. I watched the show so I could get some sort of guidance on how to navigate this new role I was in. I knew I needed to assume an attitude of authority, but wasn't quite sure how. I'd never been in charge of anything before.
  Taking a cue from the Captain, I pulled my hair back. I decided that looking like a girl was not going to help me. I dressed plainly with no jewelry and no make-up. I told the pharmacist who kept calling me "Young Lady" to stop. He could either call me Sophie or Miss Story. I wasn't going to answer to anything else. Most of all I made sure that I was serious at all times and in all places. Captain Janeway was always serious and it worked for her.
  I left that pharmacy and took a job at another. The atmosphere was different. My boss was friendly and cultivated a more casual style. He believed that the stiff, white coat pharmacist stereotype was a detriment to effective communication. He wanted his staff to be more human. He felt it was important to know our customers as people. It took a while, but his attitude started to rub off.
   Slowly I started to do things like smile, chuckle and wear a necklace once in awhile. Sometimes I would make an observation about something and people would laugh. I was funny. I never thought of my self as funny or even really having a sense of humour.
  Some of my attempts at humour would come at Toastmaster meetings. People would laugh at some of my speeches. I found that I liked making people smile and laugh. I even decided to enter the fall humorous speech contest. I did well.
  Despite these steps I was taking, I was still mostly serious although not quite as doggedly serious as I used to be. This was about the time that I met C.
  C likes to be silly. It took me awhile to get used to it. I was afraid people would mock him and think badly of him, but they don't. In fact he has this way of making people feel at ease around him. He doesn't know any strangers. There's just friends he has not met.
  His attitude has rubbed off on me a bit although he may not think so. I can be quite silly in very carefully chosen moments. I tend to keep these moments private as I still fear that I will be thought less of.
  I've come to derive a certain pleasure out of being "the straight man" . I sometimes think that C and I are a little like George Burns and Gracie Allen. It's like being funny without anyone realizing that I'm being funny.
  Last year C and I were asked to provide humour to end the Toastmaster meeting. We were asked twice. The first time we performed a dialog called "The Lighthouse" after something we read on Snopes. It went over pretty well. The second time we decided to be bold. We performed "Who's on First" and we nailed it. I enjoyed the applause of my fellow Toastmasters after we had finished.
  I was so encouraged by what we had done that I decided to work on the Humorous speech project book from Toastmasters. I thought it would be fun to try to be funny on purpose rather than by accident. I'm almost done. I have one speech left to do. In this project the entire speech has to be funny. I'm looking forward to the challenge.