Therapeutic Laughter

 

Four friends walked into a pub…

How long had it been?

That was the question four friends asked upon sitting down for dinner in a restaurant on Greenwich Ave. last night.

Me? On the Avenue? In this economy?

Well, yeah. But it was worth it.

The best answer we could figure out was 12 years. So it was that Lindth, Tawm, Oy, and Rawb were together again.

The four of us worked in a network radio office beginning in 2007. I’d known Lindsey and Joy longer than that but 2007 was when I first met Tom. In the insanity of broadcasting offices, we became a unit.

More to the point, they became family to me during those horrible years.

If you don’t know, this is when my marriage was in full nosedive mode. It felt like every day brought a new challenge that I was learning about.

My job at the time was to do the morning sports from home and then come to the office to do traffic duties, meaning I was programming the commercials and other elements for the outlets in question. On some days, I was waking up at 5:30 am, recording the reports, taking care of Sean, then driving to Stamford, working there, going and calling a game, and returning to the office after the game.

If you’re keeping track, there were some 18-hour days.

There were a lot of days when I just drove to work in a mental fog.

But Lindsey, Joy, and Tom were there and I was there for them. The truth is, I normally just wanted to walk in, put music on at my desk, do my job, and go home. I didn’t want to be antisocial but, well, that’s not how it went.

We laughed. Daily. Especially out front where Linds, Joy, and I formed a wall against the utter insanity, narcissism, and other activities of that office.

It drove *them* nuts.

*Them.* Always.

And who bore the brunt? This guy. We all agree upon that. Why? Because I took the attention of the females away from the people who wanted it.

Toxic. Oh, was it ever.

In truth, some days I wasn’t even trying. As Lindsey reminded me last night, simply telling a story would have her cracking up.

Of course, as I love a good gag, I also had sound effects and one-liners at my disposal. A request from the other side of the sliding window would be a Woody Woodpecker laugh.

Hence in the middle of the toxicity, our humor was needed to stay sane.

Eventually, I got nudged out and, eventually, so did *they.*

The networks that we worked for would go out of business.

We laughed about all of it last night. Every impression, every insane moment, every curve in the road of life.

Oh, we were serious at times also, detailing some of the heartbreak and drama we’ve dealt with in the years since. We remembered those lost and recalled faces and stories long forgotten.

And the quotes. So many of them. In-jokes that wouldn’t make sense to anyone else.

Joy and I both still work for WGCH. Lindsey is still around Greenwich. Tom is in the City and, as we planned dinner, I shot him a text out of the dark. He was thrilled to join us.

We bonded over lunches at a place in Stamford back then, allowing us to laugh and blow off steam about the insanity around us.

We gathered last night over drinks and appetizers, older and wiser. And grateful for each other.

I walked to dinner and after it was over, I started walking home.

The night air was so comfortable and there were pleasant smells in the air of various flowers.

You don’t survive what we dealt with during that time without support. Sometimes it’s that you’re a great working team and there was truth to all of that.

*They* badmouthed all of us at one time or another, usually behind our backs.

But in our case, it was more than our teamwork. It was the need to laugh, even when the stories were sort of sad.

One that still cracks Lindsey and Joy up involved me at home one night. Even now.

I was leaning back in an old office chair that I had. I bought it when I worked at Kraft Foods back in the 90s and the metal had weakened on the frame.

And it snapped.

And down I went, hitting my head on the hardwood floor of my house at the time.

I stared at the ceiling for a moment, slightly dazed but more so astounded. Just stunned at the hell I was in at that time.

And yet — yes, I was still married — nobody came in to check on me.

To be clear, I was fine (save for whatever brain cells I likely further damaged and a wounded pride) but I guess the way I told the story — a la Tommy DeVito in Goodfellas — made them both laugh.

How could I not also laugh at the ridiculousness of it all?

And so I walked home under the streetlights of Greenwich, feeling pretty safe I might add.

Feeling like things were OK.

Hopeful that it won’t be 12 years before we do that again.