List #4 Five Times I Couldn't Stop Laughing

1. It's my 6th birthday at Crandon Park Zoo in Key Biscayne, Florida. I'm at the head of a long rectangular outdoor table. Midway through the Happy Birthday song, my friends switch it up to a version I may have been hearing for the first time. "Happy birthday to you, You live in the zoo, You look like a monkey, And you smell like one too" I think its the funniest damn thing I've ever heard in my life. I'm giggling so much, I can't blow out the candles on my pretty pink cake.

2. Dr. H, the music and drama teacher has organized a 6th grade field trip to see The Viennese Boys Choir, because, you know, students had been clamoring for it (uh, no). Dr. H had a grey pageboy toupee with bangs, and always wore slightly too short, flared pants so skintight one could glimpse the floral pattern of his underwear. My friend Suzie and I were enduring the Boys Choir performance when suddenly a young uber tenor boy began a glass-shattering solo. Suzie and I looked at each other and lost it. We were laughing and snorting so hard, an infuriated Dr. H came over and ordered us into the lobby. His drama king face looked hilarious, which did not help the giggle loop situation.

3. I'm 14, my first time in Vancouver, BC. My family is walking around downtown. My mom starts to say something, and most have been switching over to a different thought- or something- because what comes out of her mouth sounds like a quiet, sleepy, lion's roar. My sister (15 months older than me) and I look at each other and begin a stream of laughter that does not abate for at least 10 minutes. Vancouver: the city where mom roared. was part of our family's lore for many years.

4. My friend Julie and I are stoned and can't stop laughing. It's Senior Prom, and we're in my boyfriend Kenny's car. Our dresses are askew from making out with our boyfriends shortly before. We're the kind of stoned where the world is made of candy and cartoons. We're not laughing about anything in particular, we're just in the laughiverse and don't want to leave. It's a gorgeous memory.

5. My dad and I are at a Victor Borge concert in Aspen, Colorado. Borge had a well-known schtick of pretending to fall off his piano bench when the opera singer next to him began her song. After falling off the bench, he then opens the lid of the bench, pulls out the two straps of a seatbelt, and buckles himself in. Whether it's beause the act was perfectly well timed and executed, or...who knows what reason, my dad and I are laughing way too hard. We're still laughing after everyone else has stopped. My sense of humor has always been much like my dad's. He and I didn't always see eye to eye, but we sure did that day.

My closest friend, Adam, and I used to have many laughter-filled late night conversations. I used to routinely burst out laughing during long tennis volleys because my mind would always wander to something funny.  I once had a group of coworkers I laughed so much with, I stopped wearing mascara to work.

Here's to many laughs ahead for all of us. Hopefully not in quiet, public places.