In an episode of The Office:
“Dwight is opening enormous cans and jars of food such as tomatoes, cereal, mayonnaise and pickled okra. He explains, not surprisingly, that he has the best-stocked survival shelter in all of Northeastern Pennsylvania. However, everything has a shelf life, so he must eat and replace all the food before it expires. He’s sitting at a table in the break room during lunch, surrounded by his enormous containers, eating tomatoes right out of the can and grossing out his co-workers.
As they chastise him for eating 8-year-old tomatoes, Dwight reprimands them for their lack of emergency preparedness and describes what would happen to each of them in the event of an apocalypse: Kevin will be eaten, Pam will be taken slave, Jim would be made a warlord’s jester, but Meredith would do ok, all because Dwight wouldn’t let them into his shelter, not because of the sign that says, No Pounding, No Begging, but because they laughed at him… “
Some people use humor as a weapon to avoid facing heavy subjects. I have learned that when I start making too many jokes, it’s usually a sign that I am hiding behind comedy. Just last night I started teasing the Professor.
“You know, I am going to start serving you all that emergency food you bought so we don’t have to move it back to La Jolla this summer.”
“What? We need that food!”
“It’s almost four years old, it weighs hundreds of pounds. It’s not worth it.”
“Well, check the expiration dates to be sure because I am just going to have to go out and buy it all again.”
“Maybe you’ll think twice about what you buy after you’ve had cold Dinty Moore Beef Stew out of a 5 lb can for three days straight.”
He laughed and we joked around about how this reminded us of Dwight and it was all very funny until I realized what I was doing. It was time to face the crisis in Japan. In many respects, it feels as horrible and saddening as the aftermath of 9-11. Some of my friends have been sending out good information on where we can donate*, which, even if only a drop in the bucket, is something. When I heard that others I know are going to special prayer meetings at their churches this weekend, I wanted to make jokes about how lighting a candle isn’t going help with nuclear reaction, but then, there I would go again.
Time for me to be serious. What are you going to do?
*Relief Efforts for the March 11 Earthquake and Tsunami in Japan, as recommended by my friend’s (former Professor at Harvard) colleagues in Japan:
American Red Cross
AmeriCares
http:www.americares.org/
Donate via PayPal
Give2Asia
Global Giving
InterAction
JEN (Japan Emergency NGO’s)
