Tittering

A couple of the nephews are heading out tomorrow for homecoming. Apparently, homecoming is quite the affair these days. I was hoping to witness the spectacle by seeing off the nephew that lives in the area, but was told by his mother, Sibling #3, that it “wasn’t a good idea”. In other words, the nephew didn’t want me there, even though I’m the cool aunt, despite what Sibling #4 may think. I could understand if he didn’t want his mother there. After all, his mother's prone to sudden, maniacal outbursts of laughter.

In fact I believe his mother was one of the siblings laughing maniacally when my junior prom date fell down our front steps many years ago. As if the whole affair isn’t already cringingly awkward when you’re fifteen, but then the date had to go and fall down the stairs! As I expected, I heard Mother first. It was the deep and guttural laugh that escapes when she is doing her best not to laugh. I should add that her best attempt at not laughing at someone else’s misfortune is a joke in and of itself, but I’m afraid we’re all afflicted with this particular evil. In the time it took for the poor date’s face to turn as farmer’s market tomato red as mine, Mother had lost all control and was simply erupting in side-splitting, tears running down her face, bellowing laughter. Need I add that whichever siblings were lurking behind the door watching us were quick to follow with their own raucous bellows? And so began our evening.

I was dressed in a 1920s flapper dress that Mother had bought for herself at a garage sale many years prior. It was very short and not at all the style at the time which was all long, puffy gowns. My hair was, well, like it always is - - a frizzy, bulbous mass. My face was a shocking red, not just because of the horrid behavior of the family, but because I had spent the entire day at a track meet, running all of the four hundred meter races for the team. I had to run all of the races, even though I was not exactly a stellar track athlete, because the good runners that were supposed to be running them left the meet early to prepare for the prom. As I had no idea how one was supposed to prepare aside from showering and getting dressed, I played the part of the loyal teammate and was almost roasted alive because of it. Incidentally, I still haven’t figured out the mysterious ritual preparations one is supposed to undertake prior to an event of any magnitude.

Perhaps that would explain the caliber of my own homecoming date sophomore year. After the dance, the date would call me up and talk endlessly about absolutely nothing. Mind you, this was when the only phone in the house was in the kitchen where the whole family would suddenly decide to gather while your extraordinarily boring date prattled on about nothing. As the week after the dance wore on, I became increasingly agitated with these phone calls and ever more disgusted by the memory of his sweaty, fleshy hand trying to hold mine. When he said in all seriousness during what became our last phone conversation, “I bet my mother makes better pasta than yours,” I knew I had no choice but to end it. One would think, considering the state of my hair at the time and utter lack of beauty school skills, that I might be a little more tolerant. I’m afraid tolerance for people is not something we lunatics do well. Laughing at completely inappropriate things, however, is something that Mother, at least, has elevated to an art form.

The first time I threw out my back, I was barely able to walk with a bent over stance, let alone in proper biped form. When Mother saw this, she literally collapsed onto a chair, crying a river with tears of laughter. Hoping to silence her by demonstrating the agony I was in, I showed her how my torso was no longer positioned directly over my hips as it should have been. “Look,” I cried, “I’m crooked.” Had I not been in such a pain induced mental fog, I would have realized this would only entertain her even more. She took one look at my circus freak crooked alignment, and laughed so hard that no sound came out of her, like when a baby cries so hard it is momentarily silent. Eventually, she managed to gasp a wholly unconvincing, “oh, that’s terrible!” while wiping at the stream of tears flowing furiously down her cheeks.

Another time, I arrived home to find Father sitting at the dinner table dabbing at a profusely bleeding gash in his head. “What happened to you?” I asked him as I took my place at the table. He was only a few sentences into his explanation of how he managed, yet again, to whack his head on the exposed screw on the interior roof of the van, when he was drowned out by Mother’s peals of laughter. Actually, it was less peal and more howl. Laughter is contagious so soon whatever siblings happened to be there also were in hysterics. The situation would be made all the more funny by the fact that this wasn’t the first time Father had almost scalped himself on the van. We’d laugh each time his scarred and banged up head was dripping with blood from the screw in the van. Usually, Father would look at Mother and say, “Fucking Bitch Woman” and then begin laughing himself, which wasn’t the best way to get a giant gash to clot. It never actually occurred to any of us to go out to the van and tape a bit of padding over the exposed screw.

Just the other day, I found myself fighting back a terrible fit of the titters. The Daughter and I were at church, when I realized that a woman was kneeling on the floor directly behind us. We were in the last pew in case we had to flee should the demons that sometimes possess the Daughter make an appearance. Perhaps the kneeling supplicant sensed the demons, or my sorely lacking parenting skills, and that is why, despite the fact that all the other pews at the back of the church were empty, the woman decided to fervently pray on her knees mere inches from the backs of our heads. Naturally, my first reaction was to laugh out loud at the woman. Evil of me, I know, as the woman could have been in the midst of any number of crushingly horrible crises. But I simply couldn’t help it. At least I managed to catch myself before the laugh escaped, but I had a hell of a time keeping it in.

Of course, the kneeling woman reminded me of a different kneeling woman that would have the siblings and I crying at church in our youth. She was an elderly, yet very flexible, woman that just showed up at our church one day and she seemingly never failed to sit anywhere but behind us. That is, when she finally made it to the pew. It would take her a while as she would spend a large amount of time lying prostrate in the aisle behind us. We siblings couldn’t so much as look at each other or all would have been lost. As it was, we were shaking so much that one might think we were in the earthquake pew. Things only got worse as the mass progressed. By the time communion came around, we were all so giddy Mother would be throwing elbows as fast as she could while trying to hold in her own titters every time she looked at the woman lying in the aisle. The woman would slowly sort of crawl her way up to the priest and lie before him for quite some time before she finally raised herself up enough to receive communion. As if that wasn’t funny enough, the priest would be shifting legs impatiently and letting out audible sighs of disgust which only added to our mirth. Eventually, the prostrate woman would painstakingly begin the long journey back to the pew and take her place behind us, unaware that her antics were absolutely killing us. It didn’t help that in the midst of all this, Sibling # 6 would emit a retching noise so loud that it echoed throughout the church. (She no longer makes this noise, but it literally took her years to overcome her intense dislike for the taste of the host). Fortunately, mass would be just about over at this point as we would now be tittering uncontrollably. (Tittering, of course, is Motherspeak for the giggles.)

I know we’re all lunatics, but as I learned in sophomore year religion class, “Laughter doeth good like medicine, but a depressed spirit dries up the bones.” So maybe we’re not so crazy after all. Just don’t make the mistake of tripping in our presence. Or lying prostrate in church. Or hurting yourself. Or having your lip swell up from a bee sting. Or. . .