Wanna know a secret?

When I was a kid, my biggest dream was to be on Saturday Night Live. I was fortunate that I grew up during a time when SNL was cleverly risque and I didn’t understand a lot of the nuanced inappropriate humor.  I would sit at home and watch Mike Myers do his German character “Dieter” from “Sprockets” or the infamous Gap Girls eating lunch featuring Adam Sandler, David Spade, and the much missed Chris Farley.

I guess I thought I was destined for SNL because I was so certain that I was that funny kid.  I’ve always been able to tell a good story that gets an appropriate laugh and I’m relatively quick on my feet.  I attribute any and all decent sense of humor to my parents and my brother, all three of whom are far wittier and talented than I could ever hope to be.  Not even lying, my brother is hands-down the funniest human being I know.  I wish I could write about the time that he made me laugh so hard I seriously thought I was going to die because I.could.not.breathe… but I’m afraid it would fall so flat via text.  Suffice to say, it’s truly a fabulous story.

Regardless, I just knew that I was SNL material.  This feeling was validated when my OM team made it to worlds.

Wait? What? I’m sure you’re thinking one of the following:

1. What the deuce does “OM” mean?
2. What does it mean to make it to “worlds”?
3. What does any of this have to do with you thinking you’re actually funny?

Sit tight, sweet reader, and let me explain…

OM stands for “Odyssey of the Mind” and it is baller. From wikipedia:

“Odyssey of the Mind, abbreviated OM, is a creative problem-solving program involving students from kindergarten through college. Team members work together at length to solve a predefined long-term problem and present their solution to the problem at a competition. They must also participate in the spontaneous portion of the competition by generating solutions to a problem they have not seen before. While the long-term problem solution often takes many months to complete and involves various elements of theatrical performance, construction and design, the spontaneous portion occurs the day of the competition.”

From my experience, our long-term problem was always solved via a clever skit.  In 6th grade, the overall theme was Greek mythology and connecting it to present day.  I don’t quite remember everything that we had to string along to meet the qualifications, but we told a story about Achilles and made him a 50s teen icon like Elvis?  Our background set transitioned from an amphitheater to a juke box, which the judges were so impressed by, we received a Ranatra Fusca award. (This award just means either the team or individual was outstandingly creative.)

I competed in both 6th and 7th grade due to being a student identified as “gifted and talented*.” Our 6th grade team did extremely well in regionals and even state, but failed to place in top 2 in order to move on to world finals.

By the time we were in 7th grade, we had the wonderful experience from 6th, plus a new coach who wasn’t so micromanaging, and we made it to worlds.  Again, I can’t quite remember the exact theme we had, but it was something to do with feuds and being from Arkansas, we made it about the Hatfields and the McCoys.  Our set was great, our dialogue was awesome, and we did really well at both regionals and state.

Now, it’s here that I need to go into detail on why I thought this made me a “funny” person.  Your OM team was made up of 7 people total.  5 participate in the skit or long-term problem and 5 participate in “Spontaneous” (the short-term round).  I was told by both coaches that they wanted me to solely focus on “Spontaneous” because I was “creative and quick on my feet.”  It hurt me at the time because I really wanted to perform in the skit and didn’t understand why I couldn’t just do both.  I guess I still don’t really get why I wasn’t chosen for both.  Maybe I sucked as an actress?  I don’t know.

Here’s the thing about “Spontaneous” — it’s, well, spontaneous.  You have absolutely NO way of preparing.  You’ll be given a problem or a prompt(s) or some type of stimulus to react to.  Judges were looking for wit, humor, clever perceptions, etc.  Essentially, the better you are at spontaneous, the better you are on your feet in a high pressure situation.  With that being said, I can tell you that when we walked in to the “Spontaneous” round at the State championships in Little Rock, AR in March of 1995, I had a feeling we were going to kill it.

Our prompts the year we qualified for Worlds was a series of caricature cards.  Each card had some type of cartoon person depicting a job/skill.  They would flash the card before us and we all would kind of jump in and make a statement.  It’s kind of like word association, but again, you have to be witty/clever.  The coolest thing I remember about this was that my team had worked together for two years and we knew each other’s strengths and weaknesses without really realizing it.  One of my strengths was that I paid attention to the judges from the moment we would enter the room.

In that small room in March of 1995, I noticed two of the three judges were older than my parents, but maybe by only 5-10 years. I have no idea if that’s correct or not, but I believed it to my core.  They were white, middle aged, probably middle class educators who were familiar with “youths.”

Another “strength” of mine was that I was a nerd who religiously watched Nick-at-Nite and was a fan of shows such as “Happy Days,” “The Dick Van Dyke Show,” and the ever classic “Mary Tyler Moore Show.” I knew the humor of the judges. I liked the humor of the judges. These shows were like their “Friends.”

So, going back to our prompt of the caricatures. I can’t remember each card or its details, but I remember my team being fast, perceptive, and funny.  But then… they flipped over a card of a super cheesy news anchor, at a desk, with a generic “Channel 8” image behind him.  I immediately remembered the character “Ted Baxter” from The Mary Tyler Moore show.  I honestly can’t remember what I said, but it was something about Ted Baxter.  Who knows? It could’ve been a Ted Baxter quote for all I remember. All I know is that as soon as I said it, I remember hearing the uproarious laughter from the older judges, with nods of approval and immediate writing on the score card.

I’d love to say that my comment is what pushed us into the winner’s circle and advanced us to the Worlds competition**, but we had a solid and wonderful skit/set and the other members that composed the Spontaneous team were some of the smartest and most talented people I’ve ever known, even as adults. Facebook has helped me keep tabs on their many accomplishments!

However, that nod of approval further convinced me that I was destined to be on SNL. That’s what’s truly awesome about childhood, in retrospect.  You can have big dreams and big moments that seem to validate, so concretely, your big feelings.  It’s the “clear eyes, full hearts, can’t lose” faith that you can have as a kid.

While it would have, for sure, been a trip to be on SNL, I’m very grateful and happy with where God has placed me. I’ve held my own little skits in my classroom (world history provides a plethora of content). I’ve played word association games with students as a school counselor; giving thought and a different perception to their problems and trying to find creative solutions.

:::

*I’m not sure I was ever really a “GT” kiddo, but I passed a test in 3rd grade after an actual GT friend told me to just make up a bunch of weird stuff.

**Worlds is the “elite” level and there were, quite literally, students from all over the world. I met German, Dutch, and Japanese students at the Worlds event in June 1995.  We placed like 35th out of 60 teams. Very anti-climatic finale.