\u201cMajor Tom is stuck under the fence!\u201d My father used to regale us kids with stories of his adventures with his cousin Jim, and this is one of my favorites: the two boys were acquainted with an old gentleman of the retired military sort, who often came to tea and had nothing whatever to do with ground control. Major Tom was florid, jowly and big bellied, and for some reason my dad and Jim imagined him trying to crawl under a fence and getting stuck. How he would roar, and how his jowls would quake! It didn\u2019t take much for them to immerse themselves in this scenario. Once, they almost got thrown out of a movie because of it. Allow me to elaborate: they were watching a movie about a ship fighting its way through far-northern waters in the days before such things as sonar and radar. The method used in searching for icebergs ahead was for someone to climb up to the crow\u2019s nest and periodically emit a prodigious roar. If there should happen to be an iceberg dead ahead, the sound waves would echo back and raise the alert. Anyway, the boys were watching the movie, and the audience was breathlessly silent during this scene of gliding through the darkness in fear of ship-killing icebergs, with the tension occasionally heightened by the bellowing of the lookout. . . \u201cMajor Tom is under the fence!\u201d hissed Jim, and they were helpless with laughter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And then there was that time in Howard Johnson\u2019s in the seventies, when my sister and I went there with our boyfriends, and I found disproportionate amusement in the presence of a small cookie clinging to the side of every dessert. Imagine my helplessness when my own dessert, a milkshake, finally arrived with a cookie perched forlornly on the plate next to the glass. . . A shade (or two) darker, or course, is finding oneself laughing when someone else is hurting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cHysteria\u201d is derived from a Greek word meaning, I kid you not, \u201cuterus.\u201d OK, I get the concept of \u201chysterectomy,\u201d but \u201chysteria\u201d? That\u2019s just rude. That dark, wavering line between healthy laughter and the near escape of something primeval exists in all of us. And whatever it is that wants out might do better with regular, moderate exercise. I suggest each of us strive to have at least one belly laugh per week. Maybe that way, when the beastie comes calling it won\u2019t have grown to the level of something that will get us kicked out of polite society.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
For your further edification:<\/p>\n\n\n\n