When I was in college I took a class taught by the writers of Berkeley’s humor magazine, The Heuristic Squelch. I had been a major source of humor in my high school’s literary magazine, and I was sure that it was because I was incredibly funny. (In reality, it was because all of the other contributors were experiencing a great deal of teen angst, and there were almost no humorous submissions from which to choose.) I entered the first class confidently.

The instructors were high-ranking editors of the Squelch and, as such, were on-campus celebrities. Although they were not yet 23 years old, they were the most accomplished humorists I had ever had the pleasure of meeting. I was pretty excited by the prospect of their tutelage, and was practically leaning forward in my seat by the time they had finished their introductions.

It quickly became clear that I was not in the right place.

They gave us some assignments that struck my fancy (“Write a hilarious news flash in the style of The Onion,”), but a great many more that did not (“Write a piece using as many racial slurs as you can.”). It was starting to confuse me. I found the magazine funny—outside of the occasional, unreasonably offensive bits, of course—so why wasn’t I enjoying the class? I slugged away at the various projects, failing miserably each time. The instructors were not impressed.

Finally, we were given the chance to spread our wings in whatever manner we chose. I felt immense relief. It was our last assignment, and I intended to write something that would make up for every piece that had not passed muster in the preceding months. So began my folly.

I tried too hard. I was in my element of humorous personal narrative, but I tried so hard that I squeezed every piece of potential humor out of the text. The result was too embarrassing even to reprint in part. Suffice to say that it involved a smoothie, a library, and some very ill-advised instances of the word “gastroenterology.”

I read it aloud, and the look the instructor gave me was one of such heartfelt concern that I almost cried. Had he not taken such pity on my clear inability to function in a world of written words, I probably would not remember this as such a distressing time in my life. He gave me a “Keep trying,” pep talk, mentioned some authors I could try to emulate, and went on to the next person in the circle.

I had failed again. I passed the class. That was that.

As sophomoric as they were, I sometimes wonder how those man-boy instructors would rate my current work. I did keep trying, after all. Just not as hard.

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