Category Archives: laughter
the stories that make me laugh out loud every time
LOL – pancakes & cream
a weekend trip with my brother reminded me of this story from The List. it’s good for a giggle at least. i’m afraid the laugh-out-loud factor might have a you-had-to-be-there quality, but i suppose i’ll let you decide:
IHOP is a sort of unofficial meeting place for family. it’s my dad’s favorite place to eat, so i’m sure the tradition started when my siblings and i were too small to have any say in the matter, but it’s become a familiar familial setting for us. for as long as I can remember we’ve stopped in on family road trips, saturday morning breakfasts, and countless other occasions. we even stole away to the pancake house for a precious hour the day of my wedding. suffice it to say that i have plenty of memories under the big blue roof in cities far and wide.
on one such outing we were seated and waiting to place our order (menus are barely needed). while we chatted my sister absentmindedly fiddled with one of the mini coffee creamer cups from the 
shallow bowl on the table, pressing on the sides to create a rhythmic “pop-pop, pop-pop, pop-pop” sound. i don’t think any of us really noticed, save for the distracted directive from my mother of “don’t play with that.”
“pop-pop, pop-pop, pop-SPLOOSH.”
there was a moment of silence at the table as we all took in the scene: my sister’s wide-eyed face splattered with white cream, not to mention the spray on her hair, clothes, and surrounding table, seat, and window.
in an instant our booth erupted in howls and hoots at my sister’s comical condition — oh, if only i had a photo of her frozen there with the burst creamer container still suspended between her fingers.
we had just finally composed ourselves and starting mopping kel up when we were rewarded with a fresh round of laughter. while we were wiping away sprinkles of cream around our table, an unsuspecting window washer had made his way around the perimeter of the restaurant to our pane. his methodical broad strokes across the glass soon turned to vigorous scrubbing concentrated on the little white dots that wouldn’t budge.
safe inside the tinted windows, we all rolled and roared, wiping away tears as he eventually abandoned his futile task and ambled to the next window. quite a lot of entertainment packed into that tiny plastic vessel!
LOL – communication FAIL
here’s a short and sweet story from the LOL list.
my parents have been married for almost 37 years, and as you might imagine, they often understand each other’s thoughts without needing to express them. like many couples who’ve been together for decades, they’ve developed an intuitive sense for each other that surpasses words.
and then there are the times that words seem to be the barrier to communication.
several years ago my mother was packing some clothes into a garment bag and realized she could not hold the bag and reach the zipper to close it at the same time. so she did what any wife would do in that situation. no, not hang it from a door frame…borrow your husband’s arm, of course!
“honey, would you please hold this?” she asked, and my dad reached out to oblige.
“high,” my mother instructed, trying to straighten out the zipper at the bottom of the bag so it would slide upward. she was surprised when he didn’t lift the bag higher, and so mom said again, “high!” still, the bag remained at the same level.
what changed was the expression on my father’s face: from slightly confused to completely bewildered. still bent down and fighting with the zipper, my mom was becoming impatient. “HIGH!!” she insisted more emphatically, thinking he must not have heard the simple request. when there was still no upward shift of the garment bag, mom looked up to see an obviously baffled man.
dad, realizing that she was not talking to herself and he had no choice but to respond, said simply, “hi.”
LOL – frisbee fiasco
okay, okay, here’s another laugh-out-loud story from The List! almost all of my anecdotes are memories of something i personally witnessed, but this one is an exception. occasionally the retelling of an incident is so hysterical that my visualization is just as funny, if not funnier than, the actual events. the only rule for inclusion on The List is that it must make me laugh again on the second, third, and subsequent recollections. this doozie definitely fit the bill.
my mom had me in stitches (literally gasping for breath) as she relayed the details to me. i am already laughing again thinking about it. it involves my cousin aaron, who is a year older than me and one of my best friends. we were housemates for a few years before i got married, so i’m pretty familiar with his mannerisms. which is probably why i was able to visualize the situation so vividly and found it so funny. (a bit of a disclaimer, there.)
the setting: aaron and his red heeler, rusty, were visiting our titu (lebanese for grandmother) at my parent’s home one weekend. the weather was pleasant, so they were outside with my folk’s dogs, tossing a frisbee around. rusty is quite good at catching and fetching, and mom’s yorkie, beckham, is good at chasing rusty, chasing the frisbee. (if you’ve met my dad’s golden retriever, shadow, you know he is good at laying and watching all the running.)
so aaron was conscientiously aiming the frisbee away from the pond, which was rather low and swamp-like after a dry spell, knowing that rusty would dive right in after it. (he did have to put the dog back in his car for drive home, after all.) i’m sure you can see where this is headed. maybe it was a gust of wind, maybe it was an ill-placed throw, but the disk flew right over the crater where the pond usually sits and dropped out of sight. followed promptly by two panting pets, while a dismayed “nooooooooooo!!!!” echoed across the yard. aaron began moving quickly toward the certain disaster as the pups disappeared over the ledge. mom, observing from the back porch, was puzzled when aaron’s calls did not bring the dogs right back, and watched as he reached the edge of the pond. in an instant, aaron’s demeanor turned from agitation to panic. he spun around and bolted back toward the house, hollering, “get in the house, get in the house, NOW!”
now, my cousin is active, but i don’t think even he would describe himself as athletic. what i’m saying is: he’s been known to run a few miles for a good cause, but i have never seen him sprint. which is why the image of him clipping along at top speed, all while frantically waving and screaming at mom to take cover, is so darn funny to me. mom glanced past aaron to see what had provoked his horror, and saw two entirely mud-blackened pooches racing toward them. aaron, knowing that his inevitable fate would be be a shellac of sludgy pawprints, was desperate to make it to the safe haven indoors before the dogs caught up with him. mom, realizing that the danger was dirt and not death, couldn’t move because she was doubled over with laughter.
i need to stop and compose myself now, because i’m already laughing so hard that i’m having difficulty seeing the computer screen through my scrunched up, welling up eyes. and that’s only part of the story.
later that afternoon, the original hazard avoided and a fresh game of fetch initiated, aaron was wisely throwing the frisbee in the opposite direction so as to ensure no mishaps. the plan seemed to be working as the dogs plunged repeatedly into the brush to recover the frisbee, effectively knocking much of the dried muck from their coats. however, upon one return trip rusty felt an urge he could not ignore, and put his flying saucer down in order to relive himself. again, mom was in a position that blocked her view to the dogs, but not aaron. she heard, “no, don’t poop in your frisbee!!” and then, with the same wild alarm in his eyes, aaron sprang into action and fled toward mom, yelling, “get in the house, get in the house!!” mom was again unable to heed his warning, paralyzed with laughter as rusty closed in on aaron, cheerfully wielding his dripping, crap-covered toy.
oh my goodness, i’m spent.
LOL – dueling ring tones
as promised, here is the first installment from the “laugh out loud” list, for your amusement:
if you’re like so many of us in this mobile-media-device driven era we live in, you depend on your cell phone for many functions, including the role of alarm clock. my husband and i both rely on our phones to stir us from slumber each morning. (we each set our own and snooze individually, even when we are getting up at the same time.) there are certain drawbacks to assigning your phone wake-up duty (oops* i left my phone on silent after that meeting yesterday and didn’t hear the alarm this morning…), causing us to repeatedly vow to buy a real alarm clock – which has yet to happen.
a few months after we were married, we both got new phones to replace the archaic models we had been carrying for so long. this was followed by the natural adjustment period while we learned the new menus and operations, as well as tried out all the possible rings for calls, mail, messages, and of course, alarms. it seemed like we each had a different alarm sound each morning, because all the ring tones are so horrible that either one or the other of us could not stand the racket in our first waking moments. (“that’s the worst sound ever, you have to change that.”) the trouble with frequently changing ring tones is that neither of us could recognize our own alarm. each morning our bedroom was a cacophony of polyphonic screeching and cries of “turn that off already!” followed by “that’s your alarm!”
this confusion was compounded by the steep learning curve involved in adapting to our new smart phones, with chat-style text messaging and applications that can send you notifications at any hour. occasionally my phone would erupt shrilly in the dead of night with an automatic update or unsolicited message and lee would express his sleepy exasperation at my inconsiderate phone etiquette. one night it was his phone that so rudely interrupted our sleep, and although i was not happy to be awake, i took small pleasure in being able to say “SEE! now it’s your phone!”
he mumbled an excuse about how it was probably important and rolled over to assess the offending message. a few key punches later we were both on our way to snoozing peacefully again. but mere seconds passed before my phone was dancing noisily across the bedside table. as lee groaned and asked in frustration “who could that possibly be?” i stared at the screen with bewilderment and indignation.
“it’s YOU!” i exclaimed, thrusting the phone in his direction so he could view the message of nonsensical gibberish he had crafted just moments before. our mutual irritation melted into delirious laughter as the full realization of what had happened sank in. and when we woke in the morning to the raucous little devices, it stirred the dreamlike memory of our nocturnal chaos, and prompted groggy giggles rather than annoyed grumbling.
we’ve both moved on to newer and fancier mobile phones since then, and have become much more cell-savvy. but we still remember the incoherent reply lee sent when he accidentally opened our text chat that night in his sleepy stupor: “il slus acid.” how eloquent.
* word choices have been softened to keep this blog family-friendly. 
no one says “oops” when they realize they’ve overslept.
LOL (Love Of Laughter)
i love to laugh. (cue the sugary mary poppins chorus) but really, who doesn’t?
hopefully each of us finds at least a brief chuckle each day, but the true pearls are the unexpected incidents that catch you off guard and provoke side-splitting, tears-streaming, pee-your-pants whoops of laughter. these valuable occasions have more merry merit than your average funny incident, because they have the power to rouse fresh peals of laughter each time they are recalled.
you know what i mean: the episode you can hardly retell without dissolving into fits of giggles; the instance that causes an involuntary snort or at least a suppressed grin as you visualize the moment again later; the perfectly-timed clever quip that seems to grow in hilarity each time it is repeated.
these are precious gems that should be archived and revisited, and milked for all their mirthful worth. to capitalize on the full comic potential of these amusing memories and squeeze out as much gleeful mileage possible, i have fastidiously kept a growing list for the past 14 years of the times i have been inspired to spontaneously laugh out loud.
it is aptly titled “laugh out loud list.” i’ve been building this list since before the swell of instant messages and prolific acronym usage, so i’m thinking of updating it to the more hip and modern “LOL list.” (although i’m sure that still leaves me appropriately behind the times for my age.)
my close friends and family know about the list, and we have gone to it on difficult or dismal days seeking a guaranteed pick-me-up, or during giddy late night laugh-fests to keep the riot rolling. quite a while back i had a request to feature some of those stories here, and i would welcome the chance to flesh out some of the details before they fade and “herding jelly tag-team style” or “bryan’s dramatic dixie chicks concussion” doesn’t bring to mind the same vivid response as it used to.
so my plan is to occasionally choose an entry from the list that isn’t too extremely “you had to be there” (lest you move from speculation to conclusion of my craziness) and describe the situation in more detail here. some of these stories may include you, so be prepared to have your humorous escapades broadcast to the world. 
(don’t worry, this blog has a following of approximately eight, so your entertaining antics are still fairly safe.)
stay tuned for the the witty remarks, oblivious faux pas, klutzy blunders, and chaotic scenes that have induced uproarious hysterics for me. i hope i can pass the laughter on, even if it’s just a slight snicker.
