Two more times I cried, from laughing
The other day I wrote about the Times I Cried. Those times were occasions of loss or sadness. I had also thought of I time I laughed so hard I cried.
I went back and forth about including it but decided against it. I could have included it since it fit the category and the contrast might illuminate. I decided against it because I didn’t think I could convey the humor. Telling why something is funny is usually a sign it isn’t.
The recent time I cried from laughing so hard
Then a couple days later, for the first time in years, I found myself laughing so hard I cried. The muscles for smiling hurt from being unable to stop smiling while laughing.
It happened during a phone call. The person I shared the moment with picked up, saying, “I’m about to walk into a meeting. I only have two minutes to talk. What’s up?” I shared the thing that I thought was funny.
For a second he didn’t get it. Then he did. Next thing we knew, he was laughing, I was laughing, we kept riffing on the joke, and he was in serious trouble of not being able to walk into the meeting room ready for business. Naturally, that risk made us laugh even more. Come to think of it, I haven’t asked him since how the meeting went.
Later that day I called another friend to describe the exchange. I tried to describe the joke but she didn’t get it so I’ll refrain from trying to explain it here and ruining it for you.
Another time
An earlier time was about a decade ago, with a girl I was dating when I was taking acting lessons. We were spending the day in Central Park and the incident happened while we sat by the lake with the boathouse, people-watching, especially people in the boats.
We were on the north side, in the bramble, in a relatively private space where few could see or hear us, not this spot, but like it:
I don’t pretend to be skilled in impersonations or impressions, but the acting lessons got me observing people. I started doing impressions of people based on their behavior and appearance. The more I did, the more she liked it and started joining in. We started laughing from the fun.
One person in a boat I nailed. I don’t know how close I got to how he behaved in real life, but I hit on a caricature that was perfectly consistent with how he looked and acted. My girlfriend lost it laughing, which prompted me both to laugh and to amp up the caricature and do it more.
Next thing you know, we’re egging each other on to laugh more and act more. From my eyes downward my entire face was wet with tears. We went on for minutes, maybe longer.
Man, that was a life moment. I know I’ve laughed to tears many other times, probably more when I was younger and more of life was newer, but these two times resonate.
Was it an accident that I laughed so hard I cried within two days of declining to write about it?
Retry later