Stand-up comedian and Conan writer Laurie Kilmartin is currently grieving her mom, who died recently after a stay at a nursing home where she was infected with COVID-19. Kilmartin was livetweeting jokes about the entire experience right up through and after the moment her mother died, so during last night’s Conan, she had a chat with her late-night boss about it and how she’s handling things. Kilmartin is not new to the concept of livetweeting a parent’s death; she did the same thing while her dad was dying of lung cancer in 2014, which led to a comedy special titled 45 Jokes About My Dead Dad as well as a book titled Dead People Suck: A Guide for Survivors of the Newly Departed. So she is speaking as a true expert when she tells O’Brien that the coronavirus is a terrible and unnecessary way to die. “A lot of the attitude has been, ‘Well, everyone’s old anyway, so who cares?’ Well, first of all, they’re not all old — a lot of young people are dying,†she told O’Brien. “And old people don’t deserve to go out this way. It’s awful! It’s not fair to them, and so much of it is unnecessary.â€
“God forbid anything should befall me sometime in the near future, do you have jokes ready to go for the death of Conan O’Brien?†O’Brien asked Kilmartin later in the discussion. “Oh, yeah. The whole writing staff, we contribute to a Google doc every single day. We’re so ready for you to die, Conan.†Kilmartin said. “It’s a shame you’re still here, because the country really needs our jokes.†The chat ends with O’Brien offering Kilmartin some well-wishes with her sense of humor in mind: “I’m really sorry that you lost your mom, and in this way that frankly just is terrible. You know you’re one of my favorite people. You’re one of my favorite comedy minds, and also, you’re such a good person that you didn’t deserve this, your mom didn’t deserve this, but you have a lot of people around you, as you know, that love you, and we care about you, and you’re fired.â€