A fit of laughter

Estimated reading time: 2 minutes, 59 seconds

I saw Erin laugh so hard last night that I became frightened and mildly concerned for her safety.

The object of the prolonged hilarity will sound so stupid and distracting that I hesitate to mention this vital fact at all, as it certainly won’t sound funny.

We were watching a show that in part featured a gaggle of aging hippies, spiritualist and new-agers involved in a bout of individual experimentation expressed in the form of tribal dancing. This of course took place in a nicely lit dance studio to the beat of tribal congas. Their arms flailed and legs jimmied about. They danced as if they had been overcome by either the Spirit of the Goddess or perhaps some sort of hallucinogen. One middle-aged man bounced up and down with his eyes closed and an open-mouthed smile while making motions with his hands like a basketball referee calls traveling. These people were certainly possessed by something more than a conga drum, I thought.

The cameras were mostly trained on one person, the focus of the show. But there was another man, a gray and balding fellow in baby blue linen pants and no shoes. Never quite the focal point, he would shuffle in and about the screen performing a variety of free-form movements.

One of these jigs caught us both as quite humorous, Erin in particular.

Before I go further I have to explain something for those of you not familiar with Erin's laughing habits. Erin is generally a happy and content person (a student once asked her how she was able to smile all the time). We laugh at things consistently but the laughs are not always audible and seldom last longer than your standard ha-ha. This is to say that Erin is not a giggler and does not laugh at everything all the time.

Using our digital video recording device, we re-watched the footage of the dancing man. Once. Twice. We both laugh at equal intensities. Four times. Erin is laughing harder than me. Six times. It's clear things have gotten out of hand. Eight times. I am laughing at her laughing.

As we continue to watch the man dancing on a loop, Erin's laughter begins to sound like uncontrollable wailing, like that of a mother who had just buried her young fraternal twins. I begin to wonder if something evil has overtaken her body or is at least tickling her relentlessly. I get off the couch to look out the window but more just to make sure my eternal wellbeing is not hijacked.

I start to look away in horror, glancing back every now and then to notice her face is pained, almost pleading for something to make it all stop.

Just when I thought it was over, there would be silence before the sound of tribal congas started again and Erin would go back into an uncontrollable release.

I contemplated if I needed to take action. Should I call 911? The cops? Perform the Heimlich maneuver? I began to wonder if her wailing laughter might never stop, becoming a permanent part of our lives.

The experience reminded me of the phrase “A fit of laughter” so I decided to look the word “fit” up in the dictionary. It was defined as “A sudden, violent appearance of a disease.” It used as an example the phrase “A fit of malaria.” Perhaps Erin did take on a fit of malaria, presumably after being bitten by a very humorous mosquito.

Of course the laughing did finally stop after 12 viewings, possibly more. But it made me think about spells of uncontainable laughter.

It’s not so much that the object of your laughing is so funny – whether it is a home video, a friend’s anecdote or a new age dancer on TV. You think about it an hour later and say “OK it wasn’t THAT funny.” Rather, there must be something in our brains that simply triggers an emotional release, seizing the opportunity to dump some pent-up tension, much like when people find themselves literally sobbing unforgettably over spilled milk.

The new-agers on TV were taking part in tribal dancing as a form of self expression but mainly as a release of emotional and bodily tension, to free themselves of life’s stresses and anxieties. I guess Erin was doing the same.