Laughing Fits
Everyone knows what a laughing a laughing fit is-It’s a state when you start laughing like crazy for absolutely no reason. It’s when you roll on the floor laughing with no hint of stopping (mostly over something that others around you may not find so funny). You want to stop-your stomach aches, your sides ache, your face aches-but you just can’t stop- once you get it, anything and everything seems funny. I say without much regret that I’m a frequent victim of such laughing fits. Here are some of those as I remember them. But remember, they may not seem even remotely funny to you (as is the nature of a laughing fit). But here goes! –
I’ve had my biggest, longest and most dangerous laughing fit when I was at summer camp once with my best friend and her sister. It was our last day at camp and we had returned from the longest hike possible, wanting to just collapse in a heap in our sleeping bags and hope that our aching bodies were just a nightmare. But being the last night at camp, there was a dance party at the KPRD hall ( Khana Peena Rona Dhona hall. Don’t ask me why it’s called that- we just had khana and peena there.). So we partied with whatever energy we had left in us (which was reserved for the Herculean task of opening our sleeping bags and crashing into it) and left the hall wanting to hibernate for the next 10 years, only to find a rain storm outside, sounds of which had been drowned by our music and howling. About half of our tents were blown away and we were asked (by our insensitive, overbearing counselors- no less) to “share and sleep in the remaining tents”.
Put 9 really, REALLY tired, cranky, dripping wet teenagers in one soggy, dirty tent; throw in some cold, wet sleeping bags, a few mosquitoes, and you get the most pleasant night you can imagine-complete with kicking and shoving, swearing under the breath and cursing out loud. It was then that came the laughing fit (thought I’d forgotten about that?)
I can’t remember what and who exactly started it, but my friend’s sister and I just started laughing. The others asked us what the matter was- and we laughed. They asked us again- and we laughed. They warned us to stop- and we laughed. They swore they’d break every bone in our bodies once they could gather the energy to get up- and we laughed clutching our stomachs. They begged and pleaded us to stop- and we laughed wiping the tears streaming down our faces. They shut up and let us be ( cursing all the while)- and we laughed gasping for breath. They somehow went to sleep (now subsiding to quieter swearing under the breath)- and we laughed, begging each other to stop.
I don’t know when it happened, but thankfully, the torturous fit finally ended and the two drained out victims (poor us) drifted off to sleep.
We woke up the next morning sleep deprived and zombie like…..and found last night’s survivors talking about us and having a laughing fit of their own! And this time, we were the ones left swearing and cursing, begging them to shut up and let us sleep.
Most laughing fits happen when you have someone else, a “laughing buddy’’ to laugh with. My partner in crime is one of my closest friends, Appuchi. We have had so many uncontrollable laughing fits that our friends are scared that if we even look at each other, we’ll start yet another one. One such laughing fit almost landed us in deep trouble. Our school’s Principal or “Princi’’ as we call him, was in our class for offering his weekly dose of shouts (“stupid idiot useless’’), warnings (“I’m telling you, you will regret’’) and threats (“I’ll kick you out of the school’’) to no one in particular, when some other poor soul unsuccessfully tried to stifle a giggle. This was enough for Princi and he grabbed the huge protractor from the teacher’s table and started yelling the oh- so- familiar “Laughinga? I’ll break your bones. Idiote. I’ll kick you out of the schoole.’’ The sight of Princi, a rather funny looking man, with a huge protractor in his raised hand, shouting in heavily accented English was more than enough for Appuchi to feel a laughing fit coming up. She pleaded with her eyes, begging me not to start. I nodded and put a finger on my lips. The next thing I knew, Appuchi was covering her mouth to stop laughing, and in the effort, producing weird unrecognizable sounds. It took me only a second to join in and soon the weird unrecognizable sounds became louder. One look from Princi and we both simultaneously turned them into coughs, a technique mastered after years of practice. Thankfully, he didn’t start on us, because we wouldn’t have been able to control our laughter any longer! To this day, just the mention of it gets me and Appuchi laughing again. But it has also made our other friends label us a dangerous combitnation!
