Two years ago, my sister was about to turn 50 and I called her spouse to see what he was getting her. He rattled off a number of ideas so catastrophically bad that I was silenced, unable to find the words for how badly he’d erred. He’d booked her a number of short courses, and got her flute repaired so that she could start playing again, having given up in the late 80s. There are two things that my sister absolutely hates, to the point of phobia: one is slugs, and the other is self-improvement. I genuinely thought she might leave him, but figured 50 was young enough for a second act.
It turned out he was right and I was wrong: she is now a member of an orchestra. Running the numbers, he’s lived with her for almost twice as long as I did (they were teenage sweethearts), so I should have considered the possibility that he knew a thing or two. A standup comedy course was even more successful than the flute. She really liked it. She still does it. She’s very funny and, more to the point, incredibly agile. All her material is savage about people she knows well, so if, for instance, she looks out and sees her Mr in the audience, she has to ditch that set immediately and revert to the one in which she destroys her own children.
