Laughter is the best antidote

Sometimes it really is OK to just laugh

I love laughing right out loud until my eyes water and my stomach hurts. I love it when I wake up in the morning and my cheeks still ache.

But sometimes I wonder if it’s OK to laugh.

Of course there is always a time and place for humour. There are times when you just want to be giddy and silly; and times that you turn on the seriousness. There are also those ambiguous moments when you've no control over whether you laugh, become conciliatory or mimic everyone else's behaviour.

Like after returning from holiday, having gotten used to baking in 40 degrees of sun, faced with the sudden onslaught of autumnal briskness. It is the first day back on the job. You join a conference call, still rolling inside from a week of sun, fun and rum. Everyone else is so sombre. But you're still bursting with jubilance.

The usual roll call is taken. The obligatory questions are asked, "How are you? How was the holiday?" It is times like that when you just can't resist responding with something along these lines: "Well, I’m wearing clothes for the first time in 10 days."

Of course, you don't at that point know there is a new member of the team on the call that morning, or a guest speaker - some executive, someone perhaps not so familiar with your style of professional etiquette. Well they get brought up to speed pretty quickly, don't they!


Then there are other times when you receive the pleading, bolster-me-up-I'm-drowning email from a frazzled mum (kindred spirit really). These beseeching emails often read something like this:

I took my daughter to the dentist today. When I went to the toilet, dropped car keys down the loo! After washing them in the sink, they inevitably failed to open the car using the central locking control fob. When I used the key to manually unlock the car, the alarm went off and wouldn't stop. I tried to call boyfriend, but he wasn't available so I had to drive home with the alarm blaring and the hazard lights flashing. Fortunately, got hold of boyfriend just as I arrived home and he was able to talk me through deactivating the siren, so I won't have any neighbours banging at my door at least.

Or the time when another friend is recounting the long list of whack-a-mole like challenges from her week that sound like this:

- no privacy from kids, they’re driving me crazy

- exam results in… enough said

- dog sat on bee, got stung

- daughter announces on FB how much her day sucked (due to altercation with mother)

- boyfriends, or other friends, inundating house at all hours

- supplies of milk, sugar, tea, hot cocoa depleted – and no one says anything

- laundry piled so high downstairs loo is impassable

- where have all the tea cups gone?

- working from home, dogs barking at non-stop visiting kids’ friends, postman, community newsletter, religious prophets, and anyone else that stops by

- surprise mid-year review (due to misreading invitation while on different call)

- lack of sleep or interrupted sleep due to role as midnight doorman for kids’ who’ve misplaced keys

That’s when you awaken from your stupor to hear yourself filling in the blanks with similar catastrophes.

Comparatively speaking, the lists are remarkably similar, usually including choice embarrassing items like these:

- finally get long deserved bath, serenade myself with new songs on ipod

- while singing away in tub, do not realise several people have arrived to visit daughter

- exiting bathroom, nearly naked, walk by bedroom which thought was empty (it is not)

- while getting dressed, remember leaving essential item of clothing downstairs near the iron (probably left on)

At some point during the roster, inevitably you fixate on something that you have to giggle at because it has happened to you before (or it is just so ridiculous, you cannot help it).

For example:

- bravely venture out of bedroom to check if runway is clear

- suddenly pyjama trousers, pulled on too quickly without tying draw string, fall down

- runway not clear, son’s friend or daughter’s boyfriend is at very moment walking down hallway with two cups of tea

- wearing very little underneath pyjamas

How can we not laugh at this kind of misery? Doesn't it somehow make us feel better about all the stupid things that happen to us daily?

Really, it is a wonder any of us have friends.

You just can’t take life, or each other, too seriously.