What was the most tragicomic thing to happen to you last year?

"In December 2019, I got a once-in-a-lifetime offer to perform at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival for a full month, March-April 2020. At the time, I was living with my husband and child — barely 2 years old — in an apartment in Jakarta. Because I was supposed to go abroad for a while, we decided to go back to our kampung in Java to spend time with relatives. Just a few days after I arrived, boom, pandemic, gig canceled. I was stuck in my kampung, and to make matters worse, my apartment's rent would be due in two weeks. I had to [hire someone] to clean up my apartment for me, and I have no idea why, but the entire time I thought: 'What if I had left my new underwear at my apartment and that guy had to pack it up?' I was mortified."

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Sakdiyah Ma'ruf, standup comedian.

What was the strangest behavior you saw in 2020?

"I think people have been acting sufficiently strange. Consider the plight of the common person who neglects to wear their mask or wash their hands. It's not as if they don't take the pandemic seriously. Maybe a few months ago, they wore masks religiously and kept their distance from everyone, but eventually, they got desperate. I mean, I don't get what the government means when they call it the transitional social-distancing period. Transition to what? The afterlife?"

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