Humor

At salon, we talked about humor: how important is it?

When I was a little girl, my cousins, brother and I all stood in the doorway of the kitchen laughing--not because of a joke, but because our mothers were doubled over in laughter--again!  We had no clue what they were laughing about and they couldn't catch their breaths to tell us anyway, but seeing them laugh hysterically was funnier than whatever it was! Still, to this day, those two can laugh harder than anyone I know.

Humor is contagious.

Last night, each person told what makes them laugh and why--while we ate delicious food and giggled at lame and not-so-lame jokes. Then Janet O. went into Janet P's kitchen and we all heard her howling! Someone had put fake kitty poop on her beautiful Pavlova dessert.

Will cracks me up telling me about practical jokes the firefighters play on each other.  Betty makes me laugh recalling the "material" of our childhood that wasn't funny fifty years ago, but is now.  Doc Martin makes me laugh.  Friends who say outrageous or unexpected things are way funnier than sitcoms or slapstick.

I read somewhere that little kids laugh three hundred times a day--and that might be accurate.  As we were riding to the pool, Nathan asked, "Yenna, can you make inappropriate sounds with your mouth?" My efforts brought peals of laughter from the back seat--and the seventh time was just as funny as the first.  Bodily functions--especially poop-and-pee-and-gas ones--are hysterical to them.

"Does it tickle your bottom when you pee?" Nathan asked Elena.  "Cause it does for me."

"Nathan is so funny!" Elena said.

I'm not especially funny--except to a two-year-old and a seven-year-old, but, hey, I take my audiences where I can!