Best Cases of Laughter Are Highly Contagious

My mother refers to my yearly gyn exam as a pap shmeer.  “It’s pap smear, Ma.  It’s a doctor, not a deli,” I said before leaving for my appointment.

Once there, while lying around on the examining table, I figured I’d might as well read something.  The packet stated, “You may resume all normal activity after this procedure, including sexual intercourse.” 

Well Yippie!.  That’s just what I had in mind.  Nothing puts me in the mood more than a glass of wine and a pelvic exam.  When my doctor merely mentions ‘ovaries’, my fantasies fly to Denzel Washington, sitting on my bed, lounging in a white terrycloth bathrobe, saying, “Hi there, honey.  Any problems with your menstrual cycle?” 

An hour later, I was sitting in the waiting room, about to have my routine ultrasound (an imaging technique that shows your lower innards on a screen).  The catch is, you have to drink seven million gallons of water so your full bladder somehow makes things easier to see.  Now, I’m a passive person, but they were forty minutes late and I was seeing yellow.  I said to my husband Bob, who comes to all my appointments because I’m very immature, “I have to go to the bathroom.”

“I know.”

“That’s it?”  I crossed my legs.

“Don’t think about it.”  He picked up his People magazine.  I ripped it out of his hand.

“HOW DARE YOU READ A MAGAZINE WHEN I HAVE TO GO TO THE BATHROOM!” 

All the other patients moved a seat away.

Finally, I waddled into the office.  I held Bob’s hand, about to say “thank you” for always being there.

“Yo, Captain Ahab! A whale sighting!” he yelled, making fun of my  water-filled belly.  Funny?  No. 

The nurse held a wand to my stomach and we looked at my insides on a screen.  “Hey,” Bob peered, “there’re those house keys I’ve been looking for.”  And the giggling began.

I have this embarrassing history, which started in Hebrew school, of getting kicked out of places because I can’t stop laughing.  Recently, we had to leave a theater because I had a cold, and a sneeze exploded simultaneously with a mouthful of popcorn, which I decided was the funniest thing a human could possibly experience.  I’m an adult child.  (Not of an alcoholic, or anything.)  Bob has, sadly, caught my disease.  Last week, I was given nitrous oxide (a.k.a. laughing gas) to relax at the dentist’s.  The rubber dispenser goes over your nose, which reminded Bob of the pig nose he wore while oinking the Gettysburg Address (with a Lincoln hat) for America’s Funniest Home Videos.  When the dentist came, I was nearly throwing up from laughter.  Bob had his head between his knees.  His shoulders were shaking convulsively.  The dentist kicked him out and told him he could never come back.

“I can’t do this exam,” my ultrasound nurse admonished, “with you jiggling.”  And that’s all we needed.  Bob flung himself out of the room. I laid there, like a five-year-old repeating dirty words for body parts, laughing my head off. The nurse was annoyed.  “Didn’t it say in your chart you have a psychotherapy practice?” 

“Uh, yes.” And thankfully, the exam was over. I took a deep breath, which didn’t help in the bladder department.

“I think it’s time you . . . ,” she said.  Then I saw the wand quivering in her hand.

“Time I . .?”  And I watched her pretend to cough, while the bubbling of her own giggling began.

Without bothering to tie the back of my johnny, I sprinted to the bathroom, maniacally laughing, while nervous patients scooted away.

When I came out, I heard my nurse calling me.  “Hey,” she said, her head tilted back as she reveled in her newly found laughter, “Thanks.”