'Til it Hurts

It was the fall of... um, 1999. November, maybe. My friend Jason and I went up to New York City for the weekend. It was my first time in the city. More accurately, it was my first time in the city without my parents. But being 19 and traveling to a place like that without any supervision is such an adventure in itself... it was my first time in the city.

We met up with Jason's friend on Friday night. She was interning at one of the many companies located in the World Trade Center. Jason and I stood outside and waited for her. While we waited, a pigeon crapped on his coat.

The three of us made our way to Chinatown for dinner. Jason's friend (Kristen? Katherine? I only met her once and have unfortunately long since forgotten her name) was great, and the three of us cracked jokes left and right. Things came to a head at dinner, where a combination of sarcastic banter, aggressive waiters snatching away our plates and an obscene joke involving Santa Claus drove us over the edge. I laughed so hard I couldn't breathe. Tears streamed down Jason's cheeks. We were completely incapacitated for a good 5 minutes.

* * *

August 2002. I had just entered the world of work, and went out to Seattle for my first-ever business trip. It was a total thrill. Seattle had always fascinated me, and seeing it in person was even better than I had imagined. The work was great too - we were distributing 250,000 books to area nonprofits that worked with children from low-income families. The combination of working with my hands and doing this enormous "good deed" gave me a very wholesome buzz.

A coworker was along with me on this trip, as was her husband. He was a great guy, and his sense of humor matched up perfectly with mine. The three of us had a great few days, and in the car on the way to the airport the joke planets aligned perfectly. I don't remember exactly how the banter went, but I do remember holding my sides and wanting to die because if heaven was this funny, I needed to get there right away.

* * *

Late August 2008. We went up to Algonquin Provincial Park to meet up with friends from Canada. After canoeing to our campsite we promptly cracked open a few bottles of wine to celebrate. A glass here, a glass there and before anyone realized it the sun was beginning to set and we were done for.

The evening that followed might have been one of the greatest of my life. I laughed so hard, for so long, that I started to make this serpent-hissing sound. Someone else laughed until she fell off the log she was sitting on. Our alpha male got up at one point, stuck a 6-foot-long branch into the fire, then ran down to the lake where he beat his chest and doused the flame in the water. We all knew - at that precise moment - that nothing in the history of time had ever been, or would ever be, so hilarious.

* * *

Do I laugh every day? I don't keep track, but I hope so.