After graduating from UNC, I was seriously trying to make it in TV when life threw comedy at me instead.

Dad had a friend in the business in California. But I planned to move to NYC, where we knew no one. There was one caveat to my plan: I needed a job first.

Seriously? So I pulled out all the creativity I could muster to pursue my dream of getting a real job. I bought a business suit and created my logo for my business stationery.

I wore that very red linen suit with a cropped jacket and gold buttons to my interview, which secured the Comedy Central job.

And I used my business stationery with my very own logo of little me falling off the page with my Charlie Chaplin hat extended in the air.

It’s not like I wanted a job at Comedy Central. I wanted to get noticed by any popular television or cable station.

I wasn’t too snobby about which one like some other journalism graduates who had to work at CNN. But I wasn’t going to a start-up cable station, either.

My college professor didn’t want me to go into TV, anyway. “It will kill your creativity.” He recommended instead that I get a job as a waitress and write on my off-hours.

Seriously? The only waitressing I’d ever done was at Bob’s Big Boy back in high school.

I’d bring the silverware when the customers had already snatched it from the other table, forget the drinks entirely and try to get off by saying it was my first night. Only the regulars caught on pretty quick.

They dismissed me to the ice cream bar. On a good day, I’d get a customer who’d leave me a lousy 5 cent tip. So I quit one weekend when they wanted me to work and went to the shore instead.

That’s when I swore I’d never wear polyester or a hairnet again.

I had higher aspirations—sorry college professor. Comedy Central, though not my first choice, would hire me.

So I found a better life. I registered at a roach-infested, women’s-only hotel. We shared a hallway bathroom, and I had a simple room with a twin size bed, a sink big enough to spit in, and a closet.

By night you’d hear the respirator’s going, and by day you’d share the elevator ride with a little old woman with makeup plastered on so thick you didn’t want to say hello for fear that she might speak and literally “crack up.”

I was almost living the life–one week of paid employment in NYC. Who cares that no one had ever heard of Comedy Central. Plus, I soon learned that when you said, “we’re half-owned by HBO,” people got it.

When I got to work that first day, there were many other production assistants like me. They’d sit in the lounge and crack jokes until someone needed them.

No way I’d join that crowd, so I stood in the hallway in front of two cubicles. Those women seemed to be extremely busy. I told them if they needed anything, I’d be right there.

The guy who turned out to be my boss passed me and asked why I wasn’t goofing off with the others.

I told him I was there if anyone needed anything.

He said, “Come with me. You’re going to be my assistant.”

And that’s how I figured out what my boss was up to. He was the Executive Producer and writer of Comedy Central’s two-hour news coverage of the Democratic Convention. (A few weeks later, he asked me to return at his assistant as we did the same thing for the Republicans).

I knew nothing about comedy or The Harvard Lampoon. I rarely watched SNL and Al Franken, our on air-personality; well, I didn’t find him particularly funny when he walked down the hall, cracking jokes trying to get everybody to laugh.

Everybody did laugh because he was Al Franken. I didn’t because he wasn’t funny.

I was serious, yes, but not about comedy. But because my boss liked me, everybody else had to as well. My boss assigned me to work with the script PA; she was swamped, making last-minute corrections to the script and needed a ton of help photocopying.

The writers then wrote me into three skits with Al Franken, even though I had no business being on camera. I could do anything but act. No way! I’d embarrass myself. But they talked me into it. “Just this once. No acting required.”

Plus, it was harmless enough. Al Franken would make a paid political ad. All I had to do was jog down the street at the appropriate time. Al Franken would say what he had to say and then check me out I didn’t even have to look at him.

Phew! Then I got back to the office and told the script PA it wasn’t so bad.

Skit two was a bit more involved. I had to wear a dress and pretend to be a Vanna White type game-show character. But again, no talking, no actions required. I just had to smile when the stagehand said, “Live in three, two, one.”

I went back to the script PA, and we chuckled and got back to work. Her job was difficult because we were running script changes back and forth throughout the live show. She didn’t appreciate the writers taking me away from her. She never stopped to watch the show.

Skit three was LIVE, too. This time we were Republicans. There wasn’t much briefing. They put me in a red dress and did my makeup and told me to stand next to Al Franken. The stage guy said, “when the ticker tape and balloons fall, the two of you dance.”

No matter how much of a joke this might have been, I took this 5-second moment way too seriously. My sober mind had me in a bar with my friends, having fun. I’d look cool. If nothing else, people would be telling me what a great dancer I am.

So when the stagehand said, “Live in three, two, one,” I conjured up some music; only there was silence in the room and my brain. I tried to move my body, but I was like a swimmer frozen on the block, waiting for the gun to go off.

There was a similar lag between my brain and my legs, and the arms. A little sway. A snap and a dip.

They cut. It was over, and I was relieved, actually feeling pretty proud that I had pulled it off.

I was replaying how it had progressed in my head. Feeling like I wasn’t the best dancer, okay, that’s pushing it, but at least, they’d say I had some rhythm.

I was getting high-fives alright. And then the script PA–but of course, it was the finale so she saw it–she ran over and hugged me. “You were hysterical. You danced just like a stiff republican.”

But that was the catch; I wasn’t trying to be a…oh, never mind.

Al Franken wanted me fired anyway. Not because of my dancing, but because I didn’t laugh at his jokes. I was his worst nightmare–the straight face that made him feel uncomfortable.

How ironic that my boss loved me for that very reason. “Everyone around here laughs because I’m supposed to be funny. When you laugh,” he said, “I know it’s funny.”

So I didn’t laugh at Al Franken’s jokes. I’ve had a lifetime to learn how to lighten up since my days at Comedy Central. But whenever I fall in that trap where I want to take things too seriously, life throws comedy at me instead.