She hardly could hobble across the stage into the limelight at the seniors’ variety show.

She was so short they had to put the microphone down about as far as it would go. She walked with a three-pronged cane, which she held with a misshapen hand at the end of a short, misshapen arm — birth defects and rheumatoid arthritis. Her legs were bowed so badly she rocked when she walked.

Then she opened her misshapen mouth and they were off to the standup comedy races — self-deprecating, dark, death, gallows humor, side-splitting, slap-your-hand-on-your-knee humor.

She said that the IRS and Social Security had determined that she had died in 1985.

It was then she realized that while she thought she had arthritis, she really had rigor mortis.

She had even died before her husband died and she never knew it. She could have spent fewer years missing him; in fact, she needn’t have missed him at all and could have avoided all that unnecessary suffering. She emphasized how he should have missed her.

She said people keep telling her how good she looks, just like what people exclaim when they look into a casket, “My, doesn’t she look good!”

Then staring beyond the light into the darkness she closed by telling everyone how good they looked.

It brought the house down.

As she hobbled off stage, the old folks roared their approval.

She had great timing and knew her audience well and the audience was glad to be alive to have heard her. She gifted them that evening. For a few moments, they all stopped complaining about their aches and pains.

Her monologue was titled “Misery Loves Company.”