Yukking It Up

We walked in together and quickly grabbed the last available seats in the row of bleachers in the small performance space. He was good looking--in his 40s--with dark graying hair. 'Oh, this might be interesting,' I thought to myself. We didn't know each other, but we were both here for the same reason -- to prove our "good parent" bonafides by sitting through two hours of middle school dances just to see our kids on stage for five minutes of it. The bleacher seats were made for elementary school kids, so after ten minutes, we were all ready to unfold ourselves and stretch out. I'm short, and this was the first time in my life I've ever had an issue with leg space.

"Now I know what Lebron James feels like stuffed in the back of a Mini Cooper," I said to the "lucky" bleacher people within my proximity. I got a few laughs from that, then I thought of something better. Same joke, new variation. "I feel like I'm one of those clowns stuck in a clown car," I said to my new BFFs stuck in the bleachers with me. And that's when I heard it. WTH? I thought. It sounded like a cross between an out-of-breath high-pitched wheeze and a theremin, that eerie music in creepy old movies about ghosts. But not just a theremin -- a theremin that sounded slightly off, like an old music box that has gone out of tune after you've opened and played it ten thousand times. (Although really, how can you tell the difference between a theremin that is in tune and one that is not?)

I turned my head and stared at Handsome 40s next to me. He was laughing, not having the asthma attack I feared. I tried to pretend I hadn't heard that disconcerting, awful sound, as the next dance started. When the lights came up and the group of dancers were taking their bows, I cracked another joke, in part because I just couldn't let a good joke die inside me without it being uttered publicly. But I also wanted to find out what Handsome 40s's real laugh sounded like. I was disappointed to realize that the dying asthmatic theremin *was* his real laugh. I quit making jokes after that. But some of the dances had wonderful comic moments, and so I was treated to interludes of the dying asthmatic theremin all evening. 

I wondered if he had ever gotten laid with a "laugh" like that. (Sure, he was a parent, but his kid could have been adopted.) Though it may be as capricious as a Seinfeld episode, crossing a guy off your dateable list just because he doesn't have an acceptable laugh seems perfectly acceptable to me. A laugh is something that signifies momentary pure joy -- an unexpected small gift from the Universe -- so if you can't let loose with a big hearty guffaw when you are rewarded with something funny, I am suspicious of your ability to *ever* let loose and momentarily enjoy life. While some people use a handshake to quickly size up a person's character, I use laughter.