L.O.L.

While wandering through the Internet one day, I came across an author discussing books that had literally made her laugh out loud.

This made me wonder - how common a thing, really, is it that we come across something SO funny that we HAVE to laugh? I'm a pretty fun-loving person, but I still would assume that it would be pretty rare. After all, laughing is exertion and we humans are notoriously lazy. Furthermore, as we perhaps learned from being exposed to our sullen, too cool, impossible to impress peers/friends/enemies somewhere between the age of 6 and 16, laughing out loud is dangerous for one's reputation. It can be interpreted as annoying, juvenile, immature, self-absorbed, sucking up, and over-the-top. Over time, we train ourselves to respond to humor with a slight, low chuckle, a raised eyebrow, or a clever half-smile of appreciation. But secretly, I think most of us miss and long for those moments that result in our laughing out loud. I know I do. Here's the result of me racking my brains to recall what has actually made me laugh out loud:

 Peter Pan

I watched this movie a ton when I was little, but don't recall anything special about it until I was 15ish... Then, for some reason, I saw this scene and burst into a fit of raucous laughter. I couldn't control myself for a good five minutes. From that day, even thinking about that scene - particularly the part where Hook comes out of the water and pulls his hair out of his face... is enough to give me a case of the giggles.

Summer of the Monkeys

I first read this book when I was 14, in the basement of our first small rented home in Orem. I had already read and been brought to tears by Wilson Rawls' Where the Red Fern Grows, but his Summer of the Monkeys had  me in tears even quicker and for much longer. The basic plot is about a boy who discovers a lot of monkeys hiding in his woods, and he sets out to capture and bring them in for a much-needed cash reward. However, things get complicated for the boy when the leader of the monkeys turns out to be a rather formidable opponent. Reading about how one of the boy's schemes backfired on him in an extremely embarrassing way, I can remember rolling over, laughing helplessly, trying but failing to read past a certain page without collapsing again into another fit. This book is amazingly funny, but also very touching - I talked my mom into reading this book to the rest of the kids at lunch, and the finale is really a (non-funny) tearjerker. Seriously. Read this book if you haven't.

Eric D. Snider

I was introduced to Eric D. Snider in 2005 when he came to my TMA 101 college class at BYU to talk about writing movie reviews. I looked him up online, found his website (www.ericdsnider.com), and have relied on him ever since for funny links, great writing, excellent movie reviews which I typically agree with, and of course, to make me laugh hard enough to snort milk out of my nose. I can still remember the very first column of his that made me laugh - it's a little piece called "I've Been Weight-lifting for a Girl Like You," and it's hilarious. I had to read it to myself at least three times before I could calm down enough to be able to read it out loud to whoever was in my house at the time.

When I'm trying my hardest not to laugh

It never fails. You're in a situation where laughter would be inappropriate. There are probably a lot of people there, being reverent or quiet or respectful. And then... something funny happens. At first, you try to stifle your reaction. You put up a valiant struggle, but your mind will go back to the incident and it is just SOOOO FUNNY. Then, inevitably, someone next to you will be fighting the same battle, and either you or your friend loses it for a second. Immediately, the contagion spreads -one tiny explosion leads to another one - until you know you're fighting a losing battle. You get scolded by someone - a leader or parent - but that only makes it worse because you really are trying your hardest to stop, but at the same time, the knowledge that you CAN'T laugh out loud makes you need to do it more than ever. This is pretty much exactly what happened to me during a flag-raising ceremony at Camp Shalom when I was a 4th-year. I don't even remember what happened, but I do remember sitting next to Marie Gerke, both of us trying as hard as we could to rein in the little explosions of laughter until the ceremony finished. We failed. And we were scolded.

My sister Hannah

All of my siblings are capable of making me laugh, but no one can match Hannah for pure comedic value. Those of you who haven't seen this side of her yet (it's more difficult now because she's 17 and she's super-sophisticated and mature and all-knowing when it comes to hair, makeup, fashion, and boys, yada yada yada) are MISSING OUT. Because my sister Hannah is absolutely freaking crazy funny. Like "have her own comedian show" funny. The characters, the voices, the faces, the quotes, the memories... aaah, there's just too much about her to tell that has sent me into hysterics for the past 17 years. But a few pictures might help you catch the vision:

Anybody else got any memories of laugh-out-loud moments? I wanna hear 'em!