This Is About Uncontrollable Laughter.....

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

…and how good it feels! Today I was in a staff meeting where we were “in-serviced” on a new piece of ER equpment called an LMA (“laryngeal mask airway”). Without getting too technical let me just describe it as another way of emergency intubation (for assisted breathing) when the conventional way has failed for one or more reasons.

Okay. The guy demonstrating this airway takes it out of its bag and we see the mask part of it is flesh-colored. One of the therapists sitting next to me whispered over to his friend, “Man, that thing looks like an ear!”

The other guy looks and says, “Naw man, it looks like a pussy on a stick to me!”

Well that’s all it took for me to lose it, and I guess it must have been infectious because they started snorting and shaking accompanying my giggling, and the more we tried to stop, the worse it got, until we were forced to excuse ourselves and the three of us staggered out of the room giggling all the way down the hall. Of course this was the optimal time for the hospital adminstrator (himself a former RT) to come down the hall and ask what the hell was going on. Of course when we tried to explain, we lost it even worse, and he just waddled on down the hall shaking his head.

So yeah: Ya had to be there, but I gotta tell y’all, I haven’t laughed so hard in ages and it felt really good. I’m convinced there’s a “mechanism” in the brain similar to the “sigh” or “yawn” that determines the need for laughter and triggers the response.
Am I full of shit, or what? :smiley:

No, we didn’t go back in. My ER doc is going to go through it all again tonight. Wonder if I’ll exhibit the conditioned response?

Oh, God! I really needed that!

:D:D:D

Q

2

Laughing like that DOES feel great. Sadly, it can also get you into trouble.

One night, not too long ago, I was in the car with my good friend Irene. She was telling me about her troubles with her cell phone. The problem? She has no voice mail. But her phone doesn’t know that. It tells callers that it can take messages, but she can’t read them. Thus, they just accumulate and never go away. She had, at the time, seven new messages.
She summed up her dilemma in a way that sounded very Zen to me. Something like “I have voicemail, because I have these messages, but I can’t hear them because I don’t have voicemail.”
I replied “My consciousness has either been expanded, or it’s quit and gone home for a beer.”

Maybe that was only funny if you were there, but she started laughing so hard she momentarily stopped the car. In an intersection. :eek:

3

I still remember a certain morning in 1988.

Chum of mine and I were in Houston, working on some stuff. We worked like hell all night, got the project done about six in the morning, and debated whether or not to go home – a four hour drive – or seek lodgings. We elected to have breakfast and determine how we felt afterwards before making that decision.

It is important to note, by the way, that neither of us had had any alcohol to drink, nor were we partaking of any drugs. We were just tired, that’s all.

We wound up in a local shopping mall, where there was a pancake house. We ate, and then got lost trying to find our way out of the mall.

We remembered there was this drugstore that had one door feeding into the mall, and the other end feeding into the parking lot. We decided to leave through the drugstore.

…and we found ourselves walking through the toy section, right?

“Masters Of The Universe” toys were big, back then. This particular drugstore had all these Mexican MOTU knockoff toys. One of them was a wizard, complete with pointy hat. Due to some imperfection in the painting process, he was crosseyed.

Well, for some reason, this struck us funny.

We had to stop and see if there was another wizard in the little wire bin, for comparison’s sake. There was. He was crosseyed, too. We eventually dug out some twelve wizards, all equally crosseyed.

…and this had us giggling like idiots.

…and then… he pulled out this barbarian figure, blister-carded. Muscles on his muscles. Big axe. Big sword.

He read the barbarian’s name aloud, off the card. “MAGOON,” he said.

And we both cracked up laughing. I had to see this for myself. I took the figure away from him, and read the card. Sure enough, his name was Magoon. “Ma-GOON,” I said.

We cracked up laughing again. My chum adopted his best bass voice, with a slight tremolo at the end. “Mah-GOOOOOOOOONNNN,” he rumbled.

And I about died laughing. This had him laughing. Pretty soon, both of us were hunched over, laughing uncontrollably, unable to get our breath, we were laughing so hard. He actually fell on the floor, still clutching one of those crosseyed wizards. I thought this was even funnier, and I continued to laugh, maniacally.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the elderly pharmacist. He was watching us. He seemed a bit nervous.

My chum noticed this too. He looked at me. He then sat up on the floor, looked at the pharmacist, looked at me, looked back at the pharmacist, and then pointed at the toy display. “Mah-GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOONNNN!” he shouted.

I couldn’t believe he did that. I also couldn’t believe it when I began laughing again, and could NOT stop. I laughed so hard, I cried. I dropped Magoon on the floor, and narrowly avoided crushing him when I fell to my knees, I was laughing so hard.

The pharmacist shifted from “nervous” to “frightened.” Plainly, these two assholes were on some SERIOUS drugs… and here he was, ALONE IN THE STORE WITH THEM! He picked up a phone and began dialing.

I grabbed my chum, dragged him to his feet, and together, still laughing maniacally, we staggered towards the outer door. We then had to stop and put the crosseyed wizard friend of Magoon back, but we lammed out. The elderly man was still on the phone, still looking frankly worried.

We ran to his truck, leaped in, and fled.

There were cops all over the interstate. We were quite certain they were all looking for us. We didn’t dare check into a motel, so we drove, weaving, all the way back to central Texas, and home.

…and whenever he seemed a little droopy at the wheel, I’d scream, “MAGOON, you asshole, MAGOOOOOOOON!!!”

…and we’d both start laughing like loons, and he’d have to pull over while we got control of ourselves.

But at least he never quite fell asleep at the wheel…

4

Hell, I wasn’t there, but I laughed all the way through thatpost myself! But them I may be still in my Magoon phase from this afternoon! :smiley:

Nicely written.
Q

5

Unlike the previous, un-previewed post! :wink:

Q

6

wang-ka, great post. i have frighten the cats and my mother. i can now go to sleep.

7

I was in ACLS class last week and I thought the exact same thing, being from Labor and Delivery.
Pussy On A Stick–where ever toys are sold!
[Margaret Cho] Pussy may contain latex! [/Margaret Cho]

8

I finally dragged my husband to his first Episcipal church service in a rather expansive gothic setting. Lots of robes and ritual and holiness.

During Communion, the priest lifted the bread and broke it and, quoting Jesus, said, “This is my body. Take. Eat.”

My husband turned to me, lifted his eyebrow, leered at me and said, “Hubba, hubba!”

He knew it was going to break me up and he looked on in triumph as I began to lose it. That sort of thing feeds on itself. What started out as just an amusing comment just took on a life of its own.

There is nothing more hopeless than attempts to muffle wild, abandoned hysteria at such a quiet and sacred moment.
Burying my face in my hands, I tried to stifle it, but my composure slipped away entirely. My face was burning, the bench was shaking and snot and tears escaped through my fingers.

We left the sanctuary shortly after that. I know I snorted and wobbled all the way outside.

He never had to go back to church with me again.

9

Cheers to you, Marley23! Cheers to you!

I have a theory on laughter: it is as necessary to human sanity as sex is to human survival. Otherwise, a good belly laugh wouldn’t feel quite so much like the afterglow.

10

Uncontrollable laughing is one of the best things on earth. When your stomach is still sore the next day because you just laughed that dam long and hard, and every time you notice the soreness it reminds you of whatever silliness set you off in the first place and you start doing that giggle ow giggle ow thing? That rocks!

One of my most memorable instances was senior year science class. Last period of the day, all the pent-up craziness just came spilling out. I nearly failed the first cardmarking because my two friends and I would be making each other crack up the entire hour.
My best girlfriends gym class was the previous hour, all the way at the other end of the campus, and the science lab was up three flights of stairs. She’d arrive red-faced and breathless every day, sliding in just as the bell rang. The resulting adreniline rush from her maniacal jaunt helped make her half hysterical and my boyfriend and I would try and see who could be first to make her lose it.
The ever so solemn teacher was a real bear about being tardy and would dock your grades in addition to the normal school attendance policy, this was a Very Serious class where fear reigned.
One day my girlfriend comes flying in the door looking all disheveled, hair streaming wet, eyes frantic as she barely gets a toe over the threshold when the bell sounds. The showers had broken in the gym, when full of sudsy teenagers, causing those still with soap and shampoo everywhere to plunge back into the pool just to get it off. Trying to work out the logistics of getting everyone rinsed and keeping the genders separate caused quite a traffic backup, which made my girlfriend (almost) late.
The teacher, in a rare moment of pity, gives her just a frosty glare instead of the expected lecture. Truly amazing, maybe she heard about the gym thing on some secret teacher radar or something.
As my girlfriend is relating the details of the hubbub in the athletic building, we start giggling about who saw who’s what and the sizes and shapes thereof. We are treated to another frosty look, but heedless of the dangers keep right on whispering.
Right about where the story should have wound up, my girlfriend mentions in her haste to get re-dressed, she’d foregone underwear. Then looks at right at me and clasps her forearms to her chest and says “Now I know what you mean about those stairs!!” She was rather slender and small busted, I was neither, and I complained about the pounding going on as I rushed to class every day.
My boyfriend agreed with her, commenting “By the time this year is up, they’ll be flapping in the breeze behind her!” I got this immediate visual in my head of an old lady with breasts halfway down her thighs, cavalierly flopping them over her shoulder when enjoying the breeze while driving in her convertible and I just about died.
I actually clapped my hand over my mouth and nose, trying to cut off the air supplying the laughter, I think I snorted out my ears at one point. Naturally the teacher was appalled and in her best attempt to embarrass me into submission stalked all the way to my desk to tower over me and inquire “Do you need to leave the room?” but of course the way she said it just made me laugh harder.
All I could manage was a nod, I squeezed past her toward the door, shoulders shaking, face flaming, tears running down my face, and made it to the safety of the hallway and collapsed against the wall. Know how pneumatic doors sometimes don’t close right away? Yeah, I didn’t realize that then. The entire class was of course watching the spectacle and the teacher had just started speaking again when I busted out cackling in the hall. Everyone lost it then, even though I wasn’t in the room.

Fifteen years past high school and my girlfriend and I don’t see each other as often as we’d like, but when we do, the greeting is always something about “how ya hanging?” and we laugh our butts off. Embarasses the living daylights out of the kids. :smiley:

11

Thanks muchly, Sinshine. And hey, we both survived.

My understanding is that laughter and sex can be very similar, at least in terms of release. I can’t think of any two other things that feel that good.

Now, laughter DURING sex, that’s perfection.

12

Freshman year in college I was in English 101…even though there were 30,000 +kids at my school, it was a small class with about 15-20 people. So we used to sit in a sort of semi-circle and our teacher was this youngish little short guy who looked like a little boy in sort of a cute way. So one class there we are, talking about who knows what and he (teacher) moves his legs I guess to get more comfortable, and out comes this huge burst of gas and almost 1 sec after he says ‘Excuse me’ and was done with it. Well there we are, a bunch of freshman sitting in a semi-circle, staring at each other and all it took was one person that couldn’t hold it in and the rest of us were finished! Then I got it, that feeling when you literally cannot control your laughter, and man is that the best feeling in the world… There was only 10 minutes left in class but boy, it was the most painful (but in a good way) 10 minutes of my life!

So 4 years later, its Homecoming and there we were boozing it up on campus at 3 in the afternoon and we happend to stumble into the student store. I walk in and I see this guy that looks familar but I can’t place him, I say “hi” and he says, “Hey! You were one of the girls in Mr. Steinberg’s class when he tore ass!”

4 years later and that’s the first thing out of his mouth. The whole store was dying…and seeing as how a good percentage of us were drunk…well, I had that awesome wonderful laughing attack that lasted a while. Sheesh, its been 8 years since that class and I’m still sitting here laughing about it!

13

I had this happen to me a couple of days ago at work. I answer the emergency calls for our local ambulance service, so laughs are few and far between. We had a caller who was obviously speaking with their mouth too close to the phone so sounded as if they were talking through a muffler. We couldnt understand them, they got very annoyed and hung up. So another call comes in and one of the other girls says ‘oh God, I hope its not Mrs Muffler again’. Another pipes up ’ or her daughter, Mini Muffler’, another says ‘or son, Maxi Muffler’. By this point I’m giggling pretty hard when the manager says ‘What are they, a family of sanitary towels?’ That just about finished me off, I was crying for ages!

Looking back on it now, it wasnt really that funny but I guess we were all in the right mood at the right time!

14

We were at a small gathering of friends when we had our laugh-a-thon experience. We were tossing around ideas for an upcoming party game, based loosely on the game from the prior-year party. The details would mean nothing to anyone who wasn’t there, and really they weren’t very funny. But the time and place and people were exactly right for high hilarity. We were all equally witty and brilliant! I remember pounding my feet on the floor because just laughing wasn’t enough!

I also remember going home exhausted that night. It was absolutely the best time I’d ever had with that group of friends. We’ve long since moved on - I rarely see any of them any more - but that one night was amazing. Oh, and the game that we were working on never did happen. Now that I think of it, that night was our last good time as a group. I guess we just knew we couldn’t top it.

yeah, nothing like a soul-wracking, floor-stomping session of laughter…

15

About 30 years ago, my sister and I were drving from Chicago to Little Rock. In those days, at least 14 hours. There was still a lot of 2 lane, plus construction. We hit that just an hour out. And sat. And sat. I turned to her and said, "At his rate, it’s gonna take us ALL DAY!
Stupid, uncontrollable laughter all around.
Eventually we go to the Dixie truckstop in central Illinios. sat at the counter, staring down at menus. We heard a voice say, “Coffee?” and we looked over. The waitress’s head had appeared between the salt and pepper shakers. We SCREAMED with laughter. Turned out the floor behind the counter was a foot or so lower than the restaurant floor.

16

Back in the days of my youth (five years ago), when I lived in the dorms, I had a roommate, B. In retrospect, B was an excellent roommate to have, he fixed my computer many times and drove me around whenever I had to go anywhere (not owning a car at the time). But sometimes we didn’t get along.
Now, my second year in the dorm my best friend M began attending the same school as me. He lived in another dorm with a roommate he couldn’t stand, so he spent a lot of time over at my place, watching TV while B and I played Quake (we had a server in the building…the glory of a zero ping!). Now M is a little fiery.
M is also very slightly unbalanced. But he also provided what little revenge I could exact against B. With M sitting at the back of the room on the couch and B and I on our respective computers, M one day looked at B and just started laughing.
And he laughed, and he laughed. I was absolutely dumbfounded, as there was truly no provocation (M will say to this day that there was zero reason for him to laugh). And then I started laughing, seeing him hold in his sides while sitting on the ugly couch (a former drama couch - did every drama group have an ugly couch?). And we would sit there for minutes on end, laughing hysterically, like madmen, for absolutely no reason.
This did not just happen once. Just talking about these events will sometimes send us into fits of laughter.
B was not amused.

17

Church is probably the best place for this. I was at my daughter’s first communion when the priest started singing a doxology–kind of a chant. The only problem was he was singing it to the tune of the slinky toy gingle. My daughter’s semi-god father (actual godfather is my brother in law, but this guy is a very close family friend) looks at me, I look at him, and without a wodr we bust out laughing. The wife was not pleased, but when we explained it to her, the back row heard the explaination, took about two seconds to assimilate it and they too busted out laughing. It was great.

18

Nothing like a disembodied-looking head to start the giggle-box going, huh? :smiley:

I am thoroughly enjoying these anecdotes, Y’all! Thanks for sharing them and please keep 'em coming!

Mixed emotions, but as part of my OP I asked about a biological mechanism in our brains that triggers a belly laugh if we haven’t had one in a while, and I kinda would like someone to address this.

I say “mixed emotions” and “kinda”, because I really don’t give a shit what causes it. I just want it to happen more often. Women tell me my smile and my laugh are attractive (that’s something at least!:D) and I see more than my share of sadness on the job as it is

Sending guffaws chortles snorts and titters to you all, I remain

Humorously Yours,

Quadi

19

Umm, dat shud be “Quasi”!

:smiley:

Q

20

Yeah, it really is. A few months ago, I had to attend a cousin’s bar mitzvah. I sat with one of my brothers and Stardust - right behind the pretend organist (the guy was playin a cheap keyboard) and cracked jokes the whole time. I think the location helped. I think the one she laughed hardest at - late in the service - was “Why couldn’t they write ONE song in a major key?”