and the lesson for today is...?

my Mum (bless her) cannot, for the life of her believe, that "Who's Line Is It Anyway?" is completely spontaneous and made up on the spot.

not seen the show? for shame! but the long and the short of it is:

4 comedians are given (often insane) scenarios to play out e.g. "Colin and Ryan are two Latino doctors operating on a Chinese Salsa dancer when their European nurse, Wayne, who is madly in love with both doctors, comes in and demands a love confession out of them both."

and the comedians play out the scene. its totally unscripted and often times pure comedic gold. (those guys are geniuses i tell you! i mean, we're talking reeeeeeeeally smart guys (and girls)!) (whoa... parentheses in parentheses followed by parentheses in parentheses... (and i don't even know if i'm spelling it right!))

so anyway, i watch and laugh my head off and Mum sits on the couch reading her Chinese newspapers, furrowing her eyebrows and stroking her chin.

"(in Mandarin) Is it really that funny?"

i try to explain as best i can in halting (an understatement, i assure you) Mandarin and she pouts and shakes her head.

"The whole show? Impossible! Even the singing?"

"yah! its true! damn good, right?!"

"How can it be? They've planned it all before hand for sure!"

"but they let the audience throw in ideas!"

"Oh, my dear boy. They planted those "audience members" there. Don't be so gullible, please."

various forms of this conversation take place every morning she and i are in the living room, her with her newspapers and me giggling like a schoolgirl over milk and cereal (some of which jettison out through my nose into carpet oblivion).

she is just not (and can not) be convinced that any of it can be true. and so she sits there frowning and furrowing her brow through the entire half hour (too short... too damn short). Dad tries his hand at it, too, but she's a stubborn one that woman.

so i sit and enjoy the 22 minutes (urgh, damn commercials) and think to myself,

"man, she's missing soooo much! just coz she refuses to believe it."

and so we arrive at the point. yay.