It’s the first day of my new job. It's important to make a good first impression since my daughter found this position for me. What is the job you ask? Well, I now work for a gaming company. My main responsibility is to supply the verbal reactions when someone beats a level. Funny job, but it pays extremely well. My honest reactions to victory are captured for the audio in order for the game to sound real while it is being played. Apparently, this is quite necessary for the monetary success of the game!
Anyway, in order to have an authentic reaction, I need to actually play the level and beat it. To do this, I must pick the one picture out of five given that a majority of people polled found to be the funniest of all the pictures. Truly, that is the entire game! On the first try, five pictures appear on my screen. I pick the one I find to be the funniest. It is not the right one and I lose the level. A sad two notes play, doo doo. A disappointed little bird character appears. I must try again.
This goes on for about four tries. On the fifth try, five new pictures appear on my screen. The one I find funniest is a picture of a man dressed in a moose costume. He is doing an extremely silly dance, every part of his body moving in crazy ways, fingers pointing up, head dashing from side to side! The headpiece is the only part of the moose costume that is not complete; instead the head of an old high school friend on mine, who I haven’t seen in years, appears! Apparently, not only do I find this hysterical, but also everyone polled found it so, too. It is the right picture. I am laughing and laughing and laughing…and I am relieved I have finally beaten the level! No sad bird appearing now!!
At this point, I wake up. Yes, this entire scenario has been a dream! There is only one problem, (assuming you don't find the weirdness of the dream alarming in itself) I find I am still laughing hysterically! I try to cover my mouth so I don’t wake my husband, but I am vibrating so hard from my laughter that he wakes up anyway; he is confused. With a bit of fear in his voice, he quietly asks, “What in the world are you doing?” Well, his question makes me laugh harder! Tears are streaming down my face. The more I think about how ridiculous this whole picture is, the more I laugh! The more I laugh, the more I laugh and all that makes me laugh more!!
I can’t stop laughing!! I go into the bathroom to put water on my face and try to calm down. Looking at myself in the mirror, with my hair askew and my eyes puffy from tears…I laugh some more! I try to gain control, but it is useless. Leaning on the counter, with my head in my hands, I just keep laughing! I look at the clock, I’ve been up, laughing, for 25 minutes!
Finally, I gain control and slowly, quietly walk back to bed. I sneak under the covers. Just as I close my eyes, my husband pokes his head up and asks again what made me so hysterical? That’s all he needed to do, the laughter takes control again, and I am lost in a vibrating heap of giggles, tears streaming down my face, wetting my pillow.
I don’t know if this has happened to anyone else, and being that I am in my early 50’s and this is the first time it has happened to me, I honestly believe it is not all that common. At this point, I was afraid to look it up on the Internet; it would probably say I have some dreaded disease.
I had forgotten all about this episode of hysterical laughing until last night. Last night, it happened again!! This time, I don’t remember the whole story of the dream as clearly as I did the first time. I only remember that once again it was my daughter who was in the dream with me. She handed me something flat, about an inch long, something that looked like it fell off a tree branch. While handing it to me, she made what was apparently a hysterically funny remark. Whatever it was she said in the dream made me belly laugh. Once again, as it did two months ago, this laughing carried over to the point where I woke up with the vibrating, guffawing that just couldn’t be stopped! I think I’m going crazy…either that, or the crazy hormones of a mid-life woman are kicking in and instead of hot flashes and night sweats, I get laughter!
Well, I just gave in and looked it up on the Internet…apparently; it’s not all that uncommon! Relief! Perhaps it’s just a way to let anxiety out, or perhaps it is hormonal…but, in any case, at least it didn’t say I had some rare lunatic disease only found in short, middle-aged women with curly hair!
Every time I think about my husband’s reactions and the visual of my face in the bathroom mirror, I laugh again! I certainly do hope laughter is the best medicine! If so, perhaps I’m cured! ~
