The Art of Making Sh!t Up

Chapter 23The Ambassador and the Bathroom

I have a finely tuned bathroom radar. I can sense a bathroom within 360 degrees of my location a hundred yards out. This skill has evolved over many years of finding myself in bodily function emergency situations. These scenarios are typically self‐induced, mostly driven by my obsession with spicy food and love of street meats. The sweat beading on my forehead and a general feeling in my entire body of the sudden need to evacuate whatever has been recently put inside it is a common experience. I live in a constant state of low‐level dysentery.

Speaking of low‐level dysentery, I found myself in Washington, DC. I was here for a meeting with an NGO followed by an invitation to the Irish Embassy for an event in the evening. In 20 years in the entertainment, comedy, and improv training world, I have been pitched all kinds of strange concepts. A Russian billionaire wanted my company to supply actors dressed as bunnies playing improv games at their wedding (I passed on that one, and in hindsight, I definitely should have taken this gig. The stories would have lasted for years). I have done improv with Special Forces soldiers, conducted role plays where we acted as douchebag managers at Harvard Business School, and have written bad jokes for robots. I've done some weird stuff. When I was contacted by an international NGO and asked if I would be interested in meeting to discuss how our improv techniques might be employed in negotiations with ...