posted
I'm one of those people who are prone to the occasional bout of hysterical laughter.
It happened today, while I was browsing the archives of that "xkcd" strip.
I laughed so hard that I literally couldn't draw in a breath.
This was followed by a couple minutes of extreme confusion, fear, and paralysis.
What was I doing at my desk? Why was I having so much trouble breathing? Why couldn't I move? Was there a man standing behind me, looking at me? AAAAGGH!
Then I snapped out of it, dazed and shaking the mild-yet-frightening hallucination away.
Thank you, Hatrack. Normally my Saturday afternoon web-surfing isn't so dramatic.
Posts: 6689 | Registered: Jan 2005
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I've had that happen two or three times in my entire life. The one that sticks out the most was during my junior year of high school. My friend Kevin and I, both known for our writing abilities, had talked a big game about what a brilliant short story we were going to write for the literary magazine contest. Naturally, we then forgot about it until the night before it was due.
After stopping at the convenience store for copious supplies of Laffy Taffy and Dr. Pepper, we adjourned to his house to work on a story. An hour later, we had nothing, and we were starting to get a little loopy on caffeine, sugar, desperation, and Impending Deadline Syndrome.
Then the phone rang.
Now, as a loquacious and gregarious kid from a good, middle-class Mormon background, Kevin had a number of practical social pleasantries/duties memorized. You know what I mean: saying prayers, doing formal introductions, answering the telephone spiels, saying "here" when you hear your name called, etc.
In other words, the kind of things that lead to mild amusement when they're confused, like when you call Mrs. Jones "Mom" in the third grade (come to think of it, Kevin also did that, one time. Except it was in sixth grade. And we had a male teacher).
So the phone rings, and Kevin--completely distracted by our task at hand--picks up the phone and, instead of saying something like, "Smith residence," or "Hello, this is Kevin," puts his mouth to the receiver and says, "Dear Father in Heaven..."
Now, that's funny enough as it is, but the reason it turned into a side-ache-inducing laugh attack was the look on his face the instant he realized what he had said. I've never seen anything else like it. It was the most amazing combination of shock and humiliation but also a hint of amusement and possibly the most bemused, unguarded expression of horrible self-realization I've ever seen. It was like a brilliantly performed climax of a "recognition scene," if the scene were in a work that combined the most grandiose Greek tragedy and the most absurd Roman farce.
P.S. For those who require closure on their anecdotes, it was their bishop calling, so he just laughed, and Kevin was spared further social trauma. Well, except every time I tell the story.
Oh, and our short story won first place. Posts: 100 | Registered: Jun 2006
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That reminds me of the time when I was in the MTC (Missionary Training Center), we had been taking calls in the RTC for several hours and when we adjourned for dinner, I was asked to give a closing prayer. Since I had gotten extremely used to saying hello when someone called, I immediately started praying by saying hello and waited for a response. Shortly afterwards we were all laughing, several people literally rolling on the floor.
Posts: 2489 | Registered: Jan 2002
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<grin> That's happened to me. There was a thread here on Hatrack a few years back that introduced us all to the bash qDB (back when the top quotes were all worksafe).
Our family had a lot of hamsters. One or two at a time, but with five children and two or three each, it adds up. At this time, we were on the last hamster of a round.
A family friend was over, and she and my mother got to chatting about how her daughter wanted a hamster, but they couldn't afford the supplies. My mom told her how my sister's hamster was on it's last legs and offered to give her the cage. The lady was very grateful, and shortly after, her daughter called.
Mrs. P talked for a short while, and then very excitedly said "Guess what, the Purnells have a hamster and a cage and when it dies, you can have it!"
Sherri, completely serious, replied "What would I do with a dead hamster?"
Well, Mrs. P laughed so hard she couldn't breathe. She fell against the wall and slid down it until she was lying on her side on the floor, laughing. Poor Sherri must have been very confused.
When my mother heard what the ruckus was about, her response was: "Put it in the freezer, with the cat." (Mrs. P had been in the hospital a little while before it, and the cat had died while she was there, so the family put it in the freezer until she could come home and bury it.)
Posts: 2849 | Registered: Feb 2002
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