 Drama: May 24, 2017 Issue [#8299] |
  Drama
This week: Drama in the anti-climax Edited by: THANKFUL SONALI Library Class!  
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| "Oh, but nothing happened!" is usually a disappointment. Let's see if it can be made in to a memorable, dramatic moment. |
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Dear Reader.
I was narrating this long-ago incident to a friend recently, and I got thinking about why I remember it so well.
I realised that the reason for its memorability is -- it's a climax in an anti-climax. So it makes for good telling and remembering.
Here's what happened:
This was in the year 1990, I think, and my birthday fell on a weekday. I distributed pastries to my colleagues in office, and, when the closest ones asked for a treat, I replied that I'd treat them over the weekend, since managing everyone's work schedules on a weekday would make for a hasty visit to any restaurant.
Three of them disagreed. My birthday treat, they insisted, had to be on my birthday, and if I wouldn't treat, they would. Not only that, they would get me to drink -- as in, imbibe alcohol, something I wasn't used to doing.
I did what every girl does in this situation. I phoned my father.
"Dad, we're heading for --- pub, will you come and pick me up from there later?" "Sure."
So, the four of us -- two male colleagues, one female colleague and I -- headed to the pub, from office. They ordered their drinks, I sat nursing (and enjoying) a gin fizz, one through the evening. Mini-snacks appeared, disappeared, and re-appeared on the table.
They must've been on their third (or fourth, who was counting?) round when Dad appeared. He was popular among my colleagues, so they greeted him with loud cries of 'join us', which he did.
When it was time to pay, I winked at Dad. In whispers and gestures, I asked if he had enough money to treat. He glanced quickly at the stuff on the table and whispered back, 'yes'.
The waiter arrived with the bill (check, I think you guys call it. The thingie that tells you how much you have to pay.) He was heading for one of my male colleagues, who was gesturing for it.
Dad got all dramatic.
He stood up, marched the few steps between the approaching waiter and our table, grabbed the waiter in a mock-wrestling hold, and wrenched the bill from his fingers.
My colleagues shouted in protest. This was to have been their treat, they said. Heads turned at other tables. People were looking at us.
Dad pulled out his wallet.
Now.
---
This is the moment when the 'dramatic' thing to have happened would have been that he pulled out the money with a flourish, waved it about and majestically paid for his daughter's birthday feast.
Instead.
--
What happened was ... Dad looked at the bill (check), gave an embarrassed laugh, took his money out of his pocket, and found, as he had expected, that he had too little.
My colleagues were rolling with laughter. In a show of great chivalry, the two guys split the bill between them, they didn't even allow Dad to contribute.
The explanation, in case you're interested, was that Dad has estimated the cost of what he could see on the table at the time. He didn't count the rounds of which the evidence had already been cleared away.
An anti-climax, perhaps.
But memorable, and dramatic, I guess, because it was humorous, and it was totally human.
Here's another example.
At a poetry meet-up this evening, one of the poets introduced himself thus:
"I grew up near a lake, so I like to say that I could swim before I walked. That's untrue, actually, I still can't swim. Anyway, I wrote this poem about swimming, because I like to pretend that I could swim before I could walk .."
He then pulled his mobile phone out of his pocket.
He had kept the poem on the screen, apparently, ready for the moment, but it had disappeared.
He couldn't find the swimming poem. He read out another one, totally unconnected. I think it was about sitting at the table and asking your wife to pass the ketchup while she's trying to talk romantic.
Two real-life anti-climaxes, I've related here. Both have their own drama, somehow, A unique beat or rhythm, if you will. In our own way, all of us have been there, done that, or been there, seen someone else do that. I'm sure that, as you read the anti-climaxes, they triggered memories in your mind of 'yeah, one time my brother-in-law ...' or something like that.
And that's what drama is about, isn't it, finally, creating drama in the reader's head?
Thanks for listening!
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My last Drama Newsletter was "Drama Newsletter (January 25, 2017)" .
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