I Believe in Laughter

I Believe in Laughter

I believe in laughter, especially when you can laugh at yourself. Almost everyone has

experienced some sort of pain or embarrassment in their life. As for myself, being able to laugh in these

situations helps to relieve some of the pain or embarrassment.

I remember in the eighth grade, I was a member of my middle school drama club, which led

me to a roll in the school play. After endless rehearsals it was finally opening night, and the auditorium

was filled with a rumbling audience. Little did I know I was getting ready to face my worst nightmare.

With my first appearance on the stage I tripped, crashing to the stage floor. I recall a few seconds of my

mind racing,I felt my face starting to glow red and was ultimately humiliated. It seamed as-though time

had stopped and paused everyone around me. The audience was silent, a numbing stillness throughout

the auditorium. As I raised myself up off the floor, I caught a glance of my fellow cast members faces

and busted out laughing. I lost it! Followed be the audience filling the auditorium with echos of

laughter. As I fought to regain composure my lines fell out of my mouth, and the play continued . I

faced a nightmare of humiliation, and by laughing at it I was a little less embarrassed..

When I was fifteen, I found humor in the aftermath of a ATV four-wheeler accident. Myself,

along with my brother and a few other friends had gathered at my grandparents farm for a day of trail

riding. As we were finishing our ride or the day, we rode into the backyard area of my grandparents

house, I noticed a huge mound of dirt, where my grandparents were having a storm cellar installed. I

couldn’t resist the opportunity to jump the mound. So, here I go, wide open, jumping the fresh mound

of dirt and crashing right down into my grandmothers chicken coop. Crash! I was on the ground and

my ATV hanging half out of the small coop, chickens running everywhere, and my friends running

toward me. I remember looking up at my friends and them asking if I was alright. My grandmothers

face was red and she was mad as a wet hen, coming at me. My pain would not let me run so, I started

laughing. As my grandmother reached me, asking if I was injured and fussing about her destroyed coop

and all the chickens running everywhere, my laughter incited her, and and she started laughing as well

as everyone else. To my surprise my laughter lighten my pain and the trouble I was in for destroying

the chicken coop at least for the moment.

A few years later I found myself laughing, again, at pain that was somewhat self-inflicted.

My cousin and I was raking leaves out of my grandmothers yard. She had brought out some glasses of

cold lemon aid and left them on the porch. We dropped our rakes and raced to the porch to quench

our thirst and take a little break from raking the endless amounts of leaves. After a ten or

fifteen minute break , my cousin gathered the glasses to return them into the house to my grandmother,

and I started walking back toward an large pile of leaves we had raked up. Smack! The handle of the

rake,I had accidentally stepped on ,stood strait up and busted me square in the face. I felt the blood to

start to pour from my nose and started to panic. As I looked up I noticed my grandmother laughing at

me from her kitchen window and my cousin returning from taking the glasses into the house. He raced

towards my wanting to know what happen and if I was alright. As I told him that I had stepped on my

rake and it hit me, my grandmother stepped out with towels to aid my bleeding nose, I remember her

still laughing and said“I told you not to lay the rake down in the leaves,or this would happen”. I started

to laugh , the new found pain lost my attention. Later that night as I was looking into a mirror at my

black eye and swollen nose , I heard my grandmother describing what had happen to my grandfather.

Her story sounded like a cartoon story, and I started to laugh again. Although my accident had left me

bruised, my laughter eased the pain.

For me being able to laugh at yourself is a great gift. This gift, makes life’s embarrassing and

painful circumstances seem a little less hurtful. I feel that everyone should have a vice to turn in their

own situations that causes pain or embarrassment. I think being able to laugh at yourself in painful or

embarrassing situations eases the shock of the moment.