Blue Jeans & Jelly Beans
On this page last month I shared my search for a good laugh. I was getting desperate for a book or movie that would make me lose control, helpless with laughter, the way I love to do but hadn't in a long time.
Fortunately this column reaches a thoughtful and caring community of people, and you have generously shared your knowledge with me.
Ellen Kolstee of Cupertino wrote to recommend movies with the English actor John Cleese, including "Fierce Creatures" and "A Fish Called Wanda." She also recalled a little-known Cleese film called "Clockwise." Her husband had rented it to help her healing after abdominal surgery, but she laughed so hard she had to hold a pillow over her tummy! That's the kind of laughing I'm after. I have to go find that video.
Chris Mackey of Hanford, Calif., sent me a marvelous set of instructions on how to administer a pill to a cat. Starting innocently with "cradle in left arm - pop pill into mouth," it progresses to "Retrieve pill from floor - Retrieve cat from bedroom," and then to "Check records for date of last tetanus shot" and "Ring fire brigade to retrieve cat from tree across the road." That was definitely a keeper.
Debbie Torok of Los Altos remembered watching the first "Austin Powers" movie with friends. The scene where Mike Myers has to turn a golf cart around in a narrow corridor, with about 37 backs and fills, had them all rolling on the floor.
Debbie also told me about getting hysterical playing the dictionary definition game Balderdash at a party. "You know," she said, "both times, it was the being with friends, and having a good time, more than the thing itself, that made me laugh so hard."
I think Debbie is onto something here.
Another reader seemed to be on the same track. Randi Freeman wrote from up north, "What makes me laugh as you describe is usually my sister or my mom or both. We have to be a bit tired and then something just gets us going. Wish I could tell you what. It does make one feel great."
A week or two ago I was surprised to find myself laughing in that out-of-control way. My husband was sharing with me a computer magazine's review of a game called "Extreme Snow Sports" or some such title. It was apparently so abysmally bad that the reviewer, Colin something, only gave it six out of a possible 100 points. He had subtitled his review, "Colin is pleading for the agony to end. No more!" It got sillier from there.
My husband was reading the review out loud to me. When he stopped in the middle of a sentence, I looked up to see him laughing so hard that he couldn't speak. That was when I started to laugh, too. Soon we were both convulsed with giggles. Aha.
Just the other night, I was with two other women in my writers' group, writing at a very hip coffee bar. Perhaps carried away by our Italian sodas and frozen lattes, we started talking more than writing.
As we shared more and more intimate secrets, we started to laugh and couldn't stop. We got farther and farther out of control, until the other patrons, tattooed and multiply pierced, started to raise their eyebrows at us. We just couldn't calm down. It felt wonderful. Aha again.
Thanks, everyone, for helping me figure it out. The secret is being with people I feel really comfortable with and just getting silly. That's all I need for a good laugh.
Passarelli, mother of three, plans to have a good laugh more often now that she knows the secret.