The other day, when writing about my sisters, I mentioned that hysteria feeds on hysteria, etc. Well, I have a good example of this. Last night I went over to my sister, Heather�s house to have dinner with her and her husband, and basically just catch up on life altogether. After dinner, we were flipping through channels on their gargantuan TV, and ended up on USANetwork, watching The Man With The Iron Mask. Now, it�s not even worth it to explain to you what we thought was so funny. In fact, this whole story might seem boring and banal to you. But this isn�t for you, is it? No, it�s for me, and so I shall continue�

A comment was made about Leo�s hair in the movie. After which, Heather and I said something about another character, same sentence, at the same time (something the two of us do quite often, we always know what we�re thinking and going to say). Whatever we said, which is irrelevant at this point, struck us both as hilarious. We began to laugh. We kept laughing. Heather�s husband, my brother-in-law, sat and stared at us. We kept laughing. We started to cry and gasp because we were laughing so hard. We could NOT stop. Our giggles kept feeding each other, each time I�d take a breath, I�d hear her do the same, at the same time, and the onslaught of relentless giggles ensued mercilessly. After 10 minutes, Sean (the husband) started to worry. At first it was funny to him.

We were laughing and laughing, holding ourselves as we cramped from the laughter, cheeks streaked with tears, faces red, Sean called our mother. Through our hysteria, we heard, �Is this normal? Are they okay? They�ve been laughing for 10 minutes, can you hear them?� We just thought that was funnier. And continued to laugh for another good 3 minutes. Finally, we slowed to a few giggles here and there, a lot of deep, deep breaths, and sat quietly. I realized we had both needed that. It felt like the greatest tension in the world had been worked out of me by an expert masseuse. I didn�t even know I had been that tense, that stressed, not until it was over. It was our natural way (our tribal way) of letting out the demons. Hysterical laughter.

I�ve done this at some point with each of my sisters. It�s scary when all four of us get caught in this �ritual�. I remember one Christmas (well, this last Christmas to be exact), we were all in the family room at my mother�s house. The 2 husbands were upstairs, shooting pool, doing what guys do when they hang at their mother-in-law�s place for a holiday � drink beers and commiserate. I don�t remember what started it. Jane said something, then Heather said something, then Jenny and I shared a look or something, and then one giggle multiplied to 2, to 10, and then suddenly, it was uncontrollable, the gasps for air, the moans of pain from stitches in sides from cramps from laughter. It was almost rhythmic, we all giggle at the same tempo, same octaves, high, low, long, short� our synchronicity just makes us laugh even harder.

The two men came running downstairs to find out what the shrieking was all about. They found the four of us, on the ground, sprawled over the couches, in the stage of coming down, breathing erratically, faces wet. They said, �We�re not even going to ask,� shared a look, and went back upstairs. It�s true, laughter is the best medicine. I never feel better than I do after one of those bouts of hysteria.

-Barbarella

previous | next