This world is a chaotic place. Often I find myself sitting on a bench in Central Park, people watching busy passersby. I’m willing to bet that I could sit all day long and see at least a thousand people without repeating a single person. If I can ignore the head-spinning hum of ringing cell phones, business lunches, snotty-nosed, screaming school children, and even the bottoms of runner’s shoes hitting the pavement accompanied with their iPod speakers up too loud, I’m able to analyze people and their current states of mind very quickly. I look at their body language, the inflection in their voice, the way they walk, run or say, “hello”. What I’ve found is simply astonishing.
Living in a city changes people in different ways. However, the disappointing true fact that I’ve discovered is that it also changes different people in one particularly similar way. I dissect each person simply by looking at them and determine that they’re all missing the exact same something; but not a something to take lightly. In fact, if these people could take things lightly, that may solve or at least help the situation entirely. No, this “something” is an entity which, I believe, we are all born with and dependant on our life’s experiences, mostly negative, it is either stripped away from us or gradually fades without our knowing it.
I fight for the existence of a sense of humor. Such a limited number of people possess this quality in New York City alone. I wish I was kidding, one reason being because everyone knows that is my single favorite thing to do; another reason being because everyone seems so unhappy without it. I’ve always had a sense of humor. In fact, I acquired this amazing power simply just by having one.
It was last summer, late July, when she said it. My best friend of twelve years told the funniest joke I had ever heard in my life. When the punch line traveled from her lips to my ears, I immediately began laughing. I laughed so hard, I peed my pants and to this day I swear I lost at least five pounds (I made sure to publish this is New York’s weekly “Tame the Tummy” magazine). I did not stop laughing for three days straight. The only reason I stopped was because my lungs stopped breathing. I remember feeling like I was suffocating; like someone had taken the air in my body hostage. The room started spinning; then the walls began closing in. It was a bad dream. I don’t remember falling asleep, I just remember waking up. I felt energized, happy; with a pleased sense of heart, like I had just played a harmless joke on someone.
I walked outside that day and suddenly, I could see everything. I had acquired an amazing talent to quickly analyze these cell phone worshipping people. However, it does not end there. My power goes beyond a super power any snotty-nosed kid could ever wish to have in their life. I can erase people’s minds completely of everything within the last ten seconds of its occurrence, as long as the occurrence sparks a laugh.
When I go to work and stand face to face with my unhappy, stress hoarding, balding and slightly ill-tempered boss, I make sure to bust a dance move by purposely invading his bubble; stomping my feet, slapping my thighs, with jazz hands stretched out under his nose. The more obnoxious the better; all for the purpose of seeing his raging, wide-eyed, infuriated, reaction. Then, after my ten seconds of glory is up, I stand still, precisely the way I was before the magnificent mayhem began, close my eyes and wish it away. When I open my eyes, my boss’ ears are still steaming, arms crossed and brow furrowed; but suddenly, he can’t remember what he was going to “loudly communicate” to me about. He is overcome with an intense feeling of wanting something; a something he hasn’t felt in a long time; the feeling of wanting to laugh. He doubles over in his unexplainable merriment, shaking from laughter; and we both walk away with a smile. Then, the entire rest of the day, my giggly boss is now empowered with my talent. He learns how to have a sense of humor all over again without even experiencing the lesson. The good news is that once a New Yorker has experienced a day full of laughter and joy, like any human; even one who’s lost their sense of humor, do everything in their power to keep it. One day out of the normal, especially for a high-stress Wall Street journalist, speaks wonders to their heart and teaches them how to love life again. It is truly an amazing job I have.
If you’re ever reading the paper and hear about an incomprehensible phenomenon happening in New York City involving extensive amounts of unexplainable laughter, it’s probably me, Giggle Pants, out to save the world, one side-splitting laughter at a time.
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