On Inappropriate Laughter

An ailment which has always afflicted me

On Inappropriate Laughter

An ailment which has always afflicted me

Laughter has never come easily to me. I’ve always admired and envied those from whom it erupts and rolls readily, with a chuckle rearing before a sentence is done, before the punchline is told. The condition makes watching sitcoms or movies by my side an underwhelming experience. When something is really very funny, air will expel from my nostrils with added force, but no real laughter comes out. Often, when sharing the couch with Gyan, I find myself lacking, unable to return his non-verbal confirmation that yes, that was funny. Still, the body demands homeostasis, and so my long periods of sensible exhalation are punctuated by bouts of hysterical laughter, bordering on unseemly. These attacks are, of course, reserved for the most inappropriate of situations.

Take, for example, the summer I spent in Italy. There I was, in a village near Padova, newly arrived and entirely outnumbered by a family that welcomed me into their home after a single Skype session. To them, I was a stranger. A scrawny, harmless one, but a stranger, nonetheless. A few days after my arrival, I came down the stairs to find that a beautiful table had been set. Plates composed of fresh produce from a shared garden on the family plot and a variety of other delicacies awaited me, the whole affair about as inviting and thoughtful as a young graduate student used to eating alone on a futon could hope for. It was amid this idyllic setting that horror gripped me as I felt laughter surface upon hearing the radio announce that a woman had doubled over dead at an aquafit class. Attempts at curbing the laughter only made it double, a hydra born of my pathological condition, and soon enough I was convulsing.

At this point in the story, I must defend myself, lest the reader categorize me as a monster. The news of our aquafit fanatic’s demise, you see, followed news of a man’s miraculous survival. Launched hundreds (maybe just dozens—does it really make a difference?) of metres into the air by his jet ski, the man rag dolled back down to earth hitting every possible branch of every possible tree rooted between earth and sky, breaking most bones in his body. And yet, somehow, he survived. The Italian station’s aquatic-themed broadcast, the inescapable fate befallen to each sports enthusiast and the need to seem well-adjusted in a new environment proved too much for me. After a considerable attempt to explain myself through gargled speech and tears, I managed to convince the family staring at me that I was not morbid nor sociopathic, and that this type of hysterical laughter was typically relegated to once a quarter.

This is not the only time death has brought me to tears, in all the wrong ways. My first Christmas with Gyan was memorable not because of holiday cheer nor meeting the family, but because I had a laughing fit so inappropriate, that its retelling has been a fixture of every holiday since. Inexcusable as what follows might be, I’d like to underscore that the dinner table was rife with comedic potential long before my unfortunate episode began. Days before the event, Gyan’s grandmother had suffered a stroke (no, that’s not the funny part). As a result of this, I planned my dessert menu to accommodate a frail person and ruled out any type of crunch or chewiness in my contribution. Deeming even spritz cookies too tough, I settled on a Tres Leches cake, with its pudding-like consistency, in the hopes that Nonna might partake. The corners of my mouth found themselves twitching when, after salad had been served, I saw the woman crack open a crab leg with her teeth. This only got worse when she went on a long rant, a bit in Calabrese dialect, a bit in Portuguese, and a bit in English, about the British royal family but specifically about Camilla because (and here I implore the reader to imagine Marlon Brando-esque affect) “she break famiglia.”

Through it all I remained stoic, pleasant even. But then Gyan’s father casually relayed, much like one might comment on incoming rain, that his long-time neighbour Madeline had passed. When Gyan asked for more details, his father waved his hand and replied: “Well, you know how she loved hot dogs and stuff.” Here, I nodded solemnly and bit into a roasted potato, assuming high cholesterol or some other unfortunate side effect of the delicious, delicious carcinogenic had taken dear Madeline.

“You know how she ate,” he started up again, between bits of overcooked rapini, and went on a tangent about how Madeline never needed an invitation to make herself at home, reminiscing about her preference for the biggest cuts of meat, cuts which she never finished.

“And ah, you know,” he continued, “hot dogs, sausages, they fit right in there.”

“She choked on a hot dog?” asked Gyan, putting his fork down.

“Isn’t that what I just said?”

My blood ran cold, my spine straightened. The look of genuine horror on Gyan’s face, his father’s oblivious continued rambling, his Nonna turning up CP 24 to drown us out, gnawing away on crab legs. I never had a chance. A bit of salad expelled from my mouth, and I was able to catch the rest with a napkin as I doubled over, much like the aquafit fanatic had, and convulsed over the table before peeling myself off my chair and hobbling over to the bathroom. I thought I had made a quick gateway, kept my dignity, but not so. As I met my mascara-streaked face in the bathroom mirror I overheard Nonna, woken from her CP 24 stupor ask:

“Ma perché piange la ragazza?” Why is the girl crying?

Trying to stifle my sobs and diffuse the persistent, inexplicable image of hot dogs and sausages clogging a pipe, I heard Gyan’s father reply “Allegria, natale,” Christmas, joy.

The only comfort I take in my binge laughing disorder is that it seems to, for the most part, bring others joy. Once they confirm I am indeed not in the throes of a complete breakdown, those new to it pass from incredulous to amused, sometimes partaking in a giggle or two themselves. Whether it’s with me or at me, at my state of complete helplessness and loss of composure, I really can’t say. But, given that the latest trigger was the similarities between dogs and seals, and the tragedy of them not being able to choose between a terrestrial or aquatic existence, I don’t believe I am in any position to judge.

Ailén Cruz — 997 Editing