Fifteen Days of Gratitude 15.5: LMAO (See also: I'll Pee Your Pants)

"Sometimes I laugh so hard the tears run down my leg." -My mom

A good laugh and a long sleep are the best cures in the doctor's book. ~Irish Proverb

Dad always thought laughter was the best medicine, which I guess is why several of us died of tuberculosis. ~Jack Handey, "Deep Thoughts," Saturday Night Live

**This post is going to be a lot less writing, and a lot more laughing (for me, anyway). I know, you're heartbroken... you really wanted to read a 6 paragraph essay on my theology behind laughter. Well... you can't have it.**

Make me laugh, I will love you forever. That's how much I love to laugh. When I was in high school, my mom and I went to Applebee's. As we were leaving, she got distracted by something and fell down the stairs. I was still a ways behind her, so I couldn't see anything except for her feet flying up in the air. The entire restaurant got quiet, and people peered out from their tables to see if she was okay. You would've been able to hear a pin drop, except that I was laying down in the booth, laughing so hard I was crying.

I already know I'm a bad person. But before you feel too sorry for her, just know that watching people fall down is her favorite, and it's her fault that I am this way.

My coworker (hi Tom Lake!) fell down once (well probably more than once... but I saw it this time). He tripped over someone who was crouched in front of the refrigerator, and when he tripped, he did these three long, intense lunges down the kitchen walkway trying to catch himself before lurching headfirst toward the wall, where he caught himself and slowly slid down with his fingertips gripping the flat surface, almost like a cat. The fingerprints were there the rest of the night. I had to sit down, and eventually I was laughing so hard I couldn't breathe and had to hide in the walk-in. (I had to take a break while writing this part, because I started to tear up as I laughed. Kind of like these reporters:)

I don't know of anything else besides yawning that is as contagious as laughing, except for maybe shingles, or HPV, or rampant abuse of the word "epic." And it isn't that hard to make me laugh, because I already want to. No, I really do. I don't get people who withhold laughter. What is that? Is it like a power trip? Why waste time trying to not laugh? What are you proving? That your sense of humor is more refined? Because it probably is. But if we're laughing, we're winning.

Now, I don't know if you knew this about me, but... I only have funny friends. That's my rule. And when you find a person that laughs with you, at you, all the time, at all the same things that you do... you keep them. In a jar. Because they're rare. 

My friend Anne, for one example, is this kind of friend. There is literally nothing that we can't laugh about. You name it, we laugh about it... Emotional trauma, divorce, breakups, people who get worked up over The Shack, (our many) errors in judgment.. imaginary pets (hamster Phil, guinea pig Douglas and panda Nicholas), knippy slippies, the stalkers handbook, Fire Marshall Bill, picking gate locks with your gate keys (its more of a challenge, we're all about growth), photo shopping her head onto Phil Mickelson's wife's body

I could keep going, but this will turn into a high school yearbook entry really quickly. We had a few tricks up our sleeves for amusing ourselves at work to make the night go by more quickly (I share these to encourage shenanigans and tomfoolery with you and your friends):

*doing lunges aggressively down the aisle of the restaurant until we were asked to stop

*singing loudly and definitely on key... like this

But looking like this. That's me. I put my shoes on one foot at a tiiiiime....

*dancing... really well

*And for a while we made a pact that every week, we'd bring horrifying and gaudy earrings that the other person had to wear for exactly three hours. No excuses. These are a tame example:

People who can laugh easily with you, they are a gift. Unless you're not into laughter and happiness, then they're annoying, and you also might be an angry pregnant troll. In my opinion, if we are laughing, we are succeeding (or failing... with style). And if people around us are embarrassed on our behalf, we have succeeded even harder. 

You heard the girl. Everyone... is a pony.

Here are some relatively clean clips from two of my all time favorite movies. No reason other than that I like them and you have to like them too.

Now it's your turn! Tell me a story.