Sometimes, writing a humor column is asking too much of a person.

This is the first column I have written since the massacre in Connecticut that took the lives of six adults and 20 children.

Two days before the second-worst school shooting in U.S. history, I was sitting on my couch, watching live coverage of two gunmen on Cal State Fullerton’s campus. The anchorman was on the phone with a female student who, along with her classmates and teacher, had barricaded the door to her classroom with desks, had turned off the lights and was huddled in the corner, trying not to attract the attention of the gunmen. The student spoke in a whisper, her phone cutting in and out as she provided a play-by-play. Frustrated with their patchy conversation, the anchorman asked the student to either move to a spot with better reception or speak up.