I wasn't sure why. She gets that way sometimes.
Finally . . . after I asked what was so funny and she started and stopped several times because she was laughing so hard . . . she told me.
"I said 'OK, smoker,’ ” she said. Then she started laughing again. Uncontrollably.
That's what was so funny. I was getting over a cold, so when I had a raspy cough in the middle of a conversation, she called me a "smoker."
Which is hilarious. To Mrs. Brad. Who couldn't stop laughing.
How much she appreciates her own sense of humor is one of Mrs. Brad's most charming characteristics. She's not alone: There are plenty of people who tickle themselves when they say or do things that (they think) are funny. Mrs. Brad? She really laughs hard at some of her gags. Really hard.
It's nothing new – she's done it since we started dating, as teenagers.
Not often. Just intensely.
Mrs. Brad is pretty funny. While I get most of the comedy credit in our family because of my imagination and love of the spotlight, Mrs. Brad can do spot-on impersonations and frequently makes observations that make me laugh out loud. However, nothing is as funny to her as when she's funny – particularly if I'm the target.
Take, for instance, the great "spoon-in-chocolate-milk caper." We were dating and she mixed a glass of chocolate milk (we were still young, so I drank chocolate milk and she made it for me!), but . . . and here's the hilarious part . . . she left the spoon in it, just below milk level.
She thought I was going to have the spoon bang against my front tooth, leaving me sputtering and stammering!
It didn't happen.
That's because when she handed me the glass, she was laughing so hard she could barely breathe. For about five minutes. Because the spoon was going to hit me in the tooth!
I immediately laughed, even though I didn't know why. It's contagious that way. After about 10 explanation false starts, I finally found out why – there was a spoon hidden in the glass! – that was it – just a spoon, hilariously waiting to strike my mouth.
There have been other memorable incidents over the years that brought her uncontrollable laughter – the time she shoved me down the hill while we were walking at Veterans Memorial Park on Fairfield Avenue, the time she hit me in the eye with the plastic nose of a stuffed animal, the times she hid a plastic Jack-in-the-Box doll under the bed sheets or in my car, waiting for me to find it. Also, anytime I choke or throw up.
Invariably, the incidents end the same way: With me asking what's so funny and Mrs. Brad starting to tell me, then laughing so hard she has to stop, start again, and so on.
When she finally gets to the "punch line," I laugh.
Not because it's so funny – after all, calling someone "smoker," pushing them down a hill or hitting them in the eye with a stuffed animal's plastic nose isn't that funny – but because she's laughing so hard.
And her memories of such events often bring back the laughter.
Don't believe it? When she reads this, she'll laugh the entire time about when she put the spoon in the chocolate milk.
That was hilarious!
Brad Stanhope is a former Daily Republic editor. Reach him at bradstanhope@hotmail.com.
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