Laughter Is the Best Medicine

My friend Maria had a birthday last week. For her birthday, several friends pitched in to buy her dinner and take her to a show. We decided to have dinner at Carmines, which is a story itself, and then we went to see "13".

Have you ever been in a situation where you get tickled about something at an inappropriate moment and start laughing? The harder you try not to laugh, the harder you laugh. There is a very serious moment near the end of the show when one of the characters yells something at another character like, "You're stupid!" The man beside Albert. one of my friends says, in a not very quiet voice, "Ooooooooo, not nice." All five of us begin to laugh. Fortunately we are not laughing hard enough for the actors to hear us, but the patrons around us certainly could. As I am just getting over a sore throat, this throws me into a coughing fit. After what feels like a good 5 minutes, Maria takes the bottle of water from me and kind of shakes it in my face. After emptying the bottle, I am finally able to stop. Then another actor blurts out another unkind comment. Again, "Ooooooooo, not nice." That was it. I couldn't stop laughing and coughing and Eric was laughing so hard he hard tears streaming down his face. After about ten minutes with my head throbbing and my side feeling like it was in a vice, the laughing subsided.

As miserable as we were at the time, when we left the theater, we were all in the best mood. I can't remember when I have laughed that hard or for that long. But afterwards it felt good. Laughter really is the best medicine.