Dec 31, 2025–What if your life were a sitcom?
SCENE: Breakfast table, cluttered with opened cereal boxes, butter dish, crumbs and coffee.
He: Good morning, dear. What are your plans for today?
She: Plans? You think I PLAN my existence. I believe in foreordained fate as espoused by the ancient Stoics.
He: Ooooookay. So you’re just going to scroll your phone while painting your toenails?
She: What about you, Mr. Change The World? Another day of writing hysterical screeds no one reads?
He: I think I’ll write a sitcom.
She: A sitcom? About what?
He: How about a couple that nags each other?
She: Oh, like every sitcom from I Love Lucy to Married with Children? What will you use for inspiration?
He: Ummm… let’s keep talking…
If my life were a sitcom, the channels would be changing about two minutes in. Most of our lives are 99% routine and repetition, with about 1% share-worthy. Sadly, that doesn’t prevent the socially precocious from posting every excruciating detail.
I finally figured out the compulsive sharers live for the hiccups and hassles of daily life. Every fight with customer service, perceived slight in the car pickup lane, or half-filled fast food French fry box gives them grist for the social media personal grievance mill. Along with a gratuitous selfie and inspirational quotes stolen from a 2017 quote-of-the-day desk calendar.
Here’s a good metric for deciding if you are living your best life in the coming year: would you watch if your life were turned into a situation comedy?
I highly doubt it. Most of us live lives of rinse and repeat. The closest I ever came to living inside a television sitcom was when it was populated by a cast of characters. As in an adult and community education program.
Every year we offered dozens of classes that attracted hundreds of adult students, characters of every stripe. We worked inside a Cheers-type setting, with a stable of cast members who had to deal with a changing cast of quirky characters in the form of students, teachers, and people like Norm who just didn’t want to go home.
Our building was a magnet for those retirees who made it a regular stop between their morning coffee table at the café and their doctor appointments. They varied from the Army Air Corps veteran who salvaged decommissioned World War II bombers, to the former farm lad who helped launch America’s first satellite.
One of my favorites was “Ed,” who showed up every day just to do handyman jobs. The guy was unstoppable. Once we mentioned we’d like to divide a classroom into two rooms, and in one week he had the wall installed. We learned never to speculate on building modifications while he was around.
There were Gilligan-worthy situations such as when the ladies in the art class were startled by a custodian napping behind the piano, or the West Texas rancher who came to learn Russian so he could speak with his imported bride, or that time Elvis showed up for lap quilting.
We could have done a whole episode on the rock mason who taught our most popular class – how to build with rock and brick. I once asked him how he managed to teach students to build such ambitious backyard projects such as fireplaces and patios. He admitted he didn’t.
“After everyone figures out how hard it is to do, they hire me to finish it. This is the best advertising I can get, and you pay me to do it.”
That money covered his semi-annual trips to Las Vegas.
I’d probably watch that show.