Laughter is the best medicine

So on my way home last Friday I was riding the shuttlebus to my main bus home. It had been a long day - I was tired and grumpy. I noticed a couple across the aisle laughing to each other. . . .they'd stop, look secretively at me, then they'd start laughing again. I was sure that on top of my tired day . . .I was now being laughed at. My Ipod was playing in my ears, but I had no music I really felt like listening to, so I turned it off (with the buds still in my ears so no one would make the potentially fatal mistake of talking to me).

Then I noticed a strange noise from behind me. I turned and there were two larger women, sitting at the back of the bus, breathless from laughter. They were silent for a few seconds, and then one of them snorted with a non-too-successful attempt at holding back more laughter, and the other one shrieked with delight before they started laughing again. They giggled, they sighed, they were silent for a few seconds, and then they'd squeal and start hysterically laughing again. It was absolutely ridiculous, two grown women probably in their 50's, laughing like they were 4. A smile started to creep across my face, and I glanced back at the couple who previously I thought were laughing at me. The girl pointed with a 'you see?!' sort of motion at me. And I got it. They were laughing at the women behind me.

I'm not sure what the women were laughing about. Every minute or so one would try to catch her breath to say something. . . but whatever she was trying to say became unintelligible as the other started giggling, snorting, the sentence ended in some high-pitched noise, and they'd both start laughing again.

For almost 10 blocks we went like this, and I saw every new person who got on the bus got through the same line of thought that I did. First "why is everyone laughing at me?" and then "Oh! Those women are ridiculous" as they started to smile too.

Pretty soon I was giggling with the couple across from me, and a few other strangers started laughing as well. The two women thought this was even funnier. . . and, if possible, laughed even harder, with less control. I thought they would be the first known cases to die from laughter. . .there was no oxygen going to those dear brains.

By the end of the ride, we were all infected with what these two women had.

Joy.

I had to think that it had been a while since I had laughed that hard and how ironic it was that two complete strangers without really saying a word to me, were able to lift my spirits so high.