What makes you laugh?

When I was a little kid, Soupy Sales, Allan Sherman and The First Family comedy albums made me laugh. As a grown-up, I tend to still like the silly stuff. My kids can make me laugh. My husband knows what cracks me up. But I'd have to say that the person I can laugh with the most, the one who gets me laughing about stuff so hard that tears come to my eyes and my stomach hurts and I can't breathe, is my sister, Sarah. That's one of the things that hurts about living so far away from her and her family. Whenever we get together, it's as if I remember who I am. But that's another story.

So last night I got home from work and Amanda had something on the internet she wanted me to hear. So the three of us, Marc, Amanda and I, sat around the computer and listened to this broadcast from a local morning radio show. And I had one of those moments. I guess you have to be in just the right mood, or be with the people you love, or the people you have fun with the most, or both, in order for it to hit you just right. I must have really needed it, because it felt so good to laugh hysterically. It was a gloriously silly moment. So silly, in fact, that I sneakily listened to it again at work today, and spent the afternoon breaking out in fits of occasional giggles. Last night in the few minutes before I finally fell asleep in bed, I kept trying to stifle giggles with little success.

Oh dear, now I've probably oversold it before I've even told you what it is. It's a broadcast on a morning radio show (Kevin and Bean) where they have a (scripted) telephone conversation with (not really) Bob Dylan, based on the premise that no one can understand a word he says. Oh my, I'm giggling already. Here it is:

http://kroq.wmod.llnwd.net/a168/o1/kbaudio/bob_dylan_5707.asf

My dad was good at laughing. One of my memories of him is hearing him down the hallway in the den laughing at Johnny Carson long after I had gone to bed. If something was funny, he had a great laugh. And if something was really funny, his laugh pitch got higher and he had this great giggle. I can hear him now in my head. Laughing is good.