They say laughter is the best medicine and I'm here to tell you that is not always true.
If you are an inappropriate laughter like I am it can be embarrassing at least and mortifying at worst.
Just the other day a friend of my son said he laughed at a man in a wheelchair in public because it seemed he knocked something down. His wife chastised him and he felt "evil". Well, he isn't. He's actually a great guy. But I know what he means and so I am sharing this story partly for him and partly for myself.
I was asked to go to a wedding that one of my students was in. It was in a tiny chapel and the bride's dad and another woman sang a country song with a karaoke machine playing.
I cracked up(silently, at least) and then I couldn't stop. Normally, I would have just got up and got out but it was a tiny little chapel and there was no place to go. Everyone would have seen me and I'm pretty sure the bride and groom and minister couldn't hear me.
Too many people did though and I made a hurried exit when it was done and when Monday came I made an awkward comment about how nice a wedding it was and was met with stone silence. Those folks never spoke to me again so I couldn't even apologize. It is one of the most shameful time of my lives. So, I'm sorry--really sorry.
Wow! That feels a lot better.
Anyway, inappropriate laughing is not an uncommon occurrence. Remember the old Mary Tyler Moore show and Chuckles, the clown's funeral? She couldn't stop laughing either.
I have a long history of it too. John Wayne made a movie called The Cowboys back in the day and the bad guy was a young Bruce Dern.
He was so bad that the Cowboys in the movie(who were all young kids by the way) tied him to his horse and he got dragged around in crazy circles until he was...well, dead. I got hysterical laughing. I am starting to laugh just typing this. I just thought it was the funniest thing I ever saw.
Sometimes inappropriate laughing can be shared though. Then it is the best medicine. Case in point, my sis and I were driving and she told me a story that had us both howling. She could barely drive. I laughed until the tears streamed down my face. It was totally inappropriate to laugh about and we just kept adding on to it and laughing harder.
So the next time you hear someone laugh inappropriately, don't judge them. Sometimes we just can't help ourselves !
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