Giggle Fits

Last night I had one of those uncontrollable giggle fits that makes no sense to anyone else—the ultimate "you had to be there" situation where "there" is inside my head—triggered by a sentence I was about to say that suddenly struck me as so funny I couldn't speak. After a few minutes of giggling, wheezing, and snorting, I finally had to write it down (see photo) so my husband could find out what I had been trying to say. Even now, 15 hours later, I start to laugh when I think about saying those words out loud. Why? Who knows. Because I never say things like that. Because I have never before in my life spoken the phrase "took a big crap." Because potty humor still makes that ever-present Junior High me collapse into fits of giggles.

Some bird really did take a big crap on our bedroom window. Probably one of those prehistoric crows that's been hanging around lately. And my husband still doesn't understand why that makes me laugh so hard. The crap itself doesn't make me laugh—actually, that pisses me off because the bedroom window is hard to reach from outside, so it's going to be a major project to wash. But the image of a giant bird shooting a giant crap at our window while flying by, or while perched on the tree nearby… That makes me laugh! And the image of Good Little Girl me, taught to speak properly and politely, using such a crude (yet unsurpassably descriptive, which is why I wanted to say it in the first place) phrase triggers another whole level of giggles.

I once made a tape while driving 4 hours to visit a friend from college with whom I had a long history of giggle fits, recounting all the various giggle fits I'd had in my life that I could think of. I got laughing so hard again my eyes started to water and I had to turn off the tape and recover myself so I could drive. When I got to her place and she listened to the tape, she and I both belly-laughed our way through it one more time. The fit I remember best that Martha and I shared was one day in the student union having lunch together. We had both just noticed that someone had dropped a ketchup packet on the floor when someone else came along right then and stepped on it, causing ketchup to squirt out all over my jeans. The timing was perfect.

Q. What's the secret to a good joke?

My propensity to giggle fits has gotten me in trouble. Besides driving my father nuts when my mom and sisters would all get going so hard we'd be crying, while he had absolutely no idea what we were all laughing about and knew better than to have us try to explain because it for sure wouldn't seem that funny to him—besides that fairly regular occurrence, I once made a friend so angry he refused to speak to me for a while afterwards. On a mid-semester break in seminary, three friends and I traveled to Quebec City together. Sitting in one of those "booths" on the train where two bench seats face each other, snacking on trail mix and peanuts, I looked over and saw something peeking out of the top corner of Peter's pocket. Completely innocently, I intended to ask him, "Is that a peanut in your pocket?" But before I could get it out of my mouth, my brain heard it and thought, "What a ridiculously funny thing to say!" So I started giggling before I managed to produce any words, although I had managed to point at Peter's pocket. Peter said, "What?" and I just kept giggling. Every time I tried to get the words out, they'd strike me as unutterably funny again, and I'd collapse in laughter. Since Peter was sure I was laughing at him, he got more and more upset, which of course just made the whole thing funnier and funnier to me. I'm not sure I ever managed to explain it to him. It turned out to be his train ticket in his pocket, not a peanut. "Is that a ticket in your pocket?" probably wouldn't have made me laugh so hard.

A. Timing

On that same trip, my overcoat was on the rack above our seats and at one point the train heeled around a curve and my coat came flying out, sleeves spread wide, looking just like a person in distress, and landed on Dave's head. Another giggle fit. This time it was the image that got me. I can still see it. It still makes me laugh.

As I mentioned, this sort of thing runs in my family, at least among the women. In that Facebook thing where you list "25 Random Things" about yourself, my sister Wendy wrote:

15. There's nothing more refreshing than a good giggle fit - the kind that make you cry. I once had a giggle fit after Mick [her husband, musician Miché Fambro] hit a ping pong ball that went up into the basement rafters and finally fell out and bounced off my head - the fit lasted so long that he went upstairs, practiced, and came back down to find me still laughing.

My sister Sandy made us all break down one time after looking out the window and saying indignantly, "That bird has its back to me!" She wasn't actually indignant, apparently—it just came out that way. I wonder if she remembers that.

One of my favorite things about Christmas Eve when I was a kid was watching my mom and her two sisters get into giggle fits together while playing trios on the piano. Obviously it comes from my mother's side!

On a stormy day in London, my husband's umbrella flipped up inside out and turned into a bedraggled mass of spikes and nylon. I laughed so hard for so long I fell over.