to laugh or not to laugh

           Knowing when to laugh can be very complicated . Sometimes I accidentally laugh in the middle of family prayer. Other times, I will drift off in my thoughts and laugh out loud in the grocery store checkout line. The mentally ill and I get similar looks. Really, who laughs out loud without company? Lunatics, that's who. If you are still laughing about a situation days later...you have a wonderful life and it's well worth the "crazy" label. The most notorious laughter is cracking up when a person is telling a tragic story.  I think to myself "laughing would be the worst thing you could do right now, don't freaking laugh". What naturally happens when you try not to do something?.....you do it. You become a huge insensitive ass. I laugh in uncomfortable situations because I don't know what else to do or say, it's a coping mechanism. If you fall , there is a 99.9% chance that I will laugh. It's not because you're hurt, it's the way you looked while getting hurt.

      I have a friend that roars with laughter during violent movies. It makes him creepy and me  uncomfortable. There are two situations that will never appear in my life's comic strip.
          1. Anyone being  blown away
                          and
          2. Self inflicting pain for the amusement of others.
Women agree, it's not funny. But men, don't ask me why, love to see each other act disgustingly idiotic in a painful manner(MTV Jackass). If you don't know what that is consider yourself ignorantly blessed.  Each of us have a sense of humor like our thumb print, unique. Christ taught us that imperfect people should not throw stones.You won't get a rock at your head for what I find inappropriate, but you will see me leave the theatre. I'm just too sensitive. I'll have to exchange my ticket for another flick, where zombies are blasted- not people.

      Who doesn't love to laugh? It's medicinal, it takes the edge off. You can become drunk with laughter alone. The little things make life joyful, even if they're accidental. My three year old daughter will "toot" and look directly at me because she knows I'll laugh, I always laugh. I've taught her that farts are funny, except we don't say "fart" in our house. The "f" word is not allowed. We sugarcoat unpleasant things, it's also a coping mechanism.

       "When life brings you lemons, make lemonade". I don't know who originally said this, I'm pretty sure  he or she was beaten and left for dead. Who would dare utter such phrases to a person dealing with trauma? The message remains optimistically clear however. I truly believe you can find comforting laughter in any scenario, but heed this warning- Do not repeat those words back to me if my life is unraveling...the results will be messy and frightening.

      A grandma passing away is tragic. When the cause of death is a hungry bear, it's disturbing- but it's got my attention. When grandma thinks the bears are her children, and she steps in to break up a fight, I can't ignore the humor, even though it gets the best of granny and makes me an awful person for laughing. This is a true story, I saw it on Animal Planet. It wasn't meant to be funny. The reason it's comical to me is  because I see myself in the grandma. It's like looking into a crystal ball of my future adding  years+eccentricity. Someday I will own exotic/wild animals. I have thoughts of being a falconer(seriously), but first I need to raise the children and convince the husband. Matlock and Costco are just not going to cut it. I already can't stay in the house longer than an hour. I'm apologizing right now to my children who are going to have to pry my old stubborn fingers from the car steering wheel. With my car restricted, my animals and I will begin our "walkabout". I'm going to walk directly off a cliff, straight to heaven.

      Dean and I find ourselves center stage with the kids in a lot of hilarious/ sketchy situations. When my eight year old gave himself a Dumb and Dumber haircut, I  wanted to explode with laughter just looking at him. If I did that, he would have thought his naughty actions were funny, or, he would have become extremely self conscious. It's the ultimate knockdown  when your own mother makes fun of you. So we calmly told him why we "don't cut our own hair," then, my husband and I gently shut the door and laughed our butts off at the person we had created.

     When I was in junior high, I got two words very mixed up. One word was organism. The other was the same word minus the n and i. I was telling mom about my science lesson using this wrong word and she probably wanted to laugh out loud, but she didn't. She restrained explaining, and I thank her to this very day for that. There are some things in life that are far more pleasant to find out on your own. She just said uncomfortably, "don't say that word. It's or ga nism, not asm." It took me years later to finally understand that two letters can create a significantly different meaning. I imagine my children will have many "a-ha" moments in their future.

      For Family Night Monday, we had a lesson taken straight from the book. The title was "Love is a Doing Thing". Needless to say, the jokes began flying between Dean and I until I was laughing to the point of tears and the kids were looking at us like we've lost it. We each drew names to determine which person we get to do something "nice" for. Dean got a wink and a couple of raised eyebrows when I drew his name. Sooner or later, our children will catch on and say a-ha! A light bulb will turn on and they'll curse their new knowledge. Then they'll continue the cycle of inside jokes in front of their children.

    We roll with the punches and find ways to make living fun. Life is not all about laughing and fun, but learning, love and pain need a comic companion to make it bearable.