Mine is actually from last night, and it's kind of a long story. Y'see, a very dear friend of mine died on Sunday, and it's been a big bundle of tension at work (she and I were teachers at the same school). Last night, while at rehearsal for a play I'm in, another friend of mine told me her grandfather is dying. Neither of us were exactly in a good place. Plus, it was the first night we were off-book for Act II, which meant lots of screw-ups, lots of flubs, and lots of problems. Frankly, everybody was a big bundle of tension. And as the night wore on, it just got worse.
Then came the party scene, where I make a crack about being mixed up with someone else and getting his “meat bills and phone messages.”
Only that wasn’t what I said. On this — one line that I usually don’t flub – I blurted out, “I kept getting all his phone bills and meat messages!”
I know, it’s not that funny right now, reading it, but that’s not really the point. I chuckled when I realized what I said, as we often do when we flub. But then after that first chuckle, I heard everyone else laughing and… something happened. It was like a floodgate opened. I started to laugh and I just couldn’t stop.Then my friend, the one worried about her grandfather, started to laugh too. Then it was like a chain reaction — everyone was laughing, faces were turning red, my buddy Paul leapt to his feet and started doing a routine about taking a phone call from a T-bone steak… it was a good five minutes before everybody could compose themselves and get back to work. I was the last one to stop laughing.
But after that… things were better. It wasn’t a huge thing, it didn’t actually fix any of the things we’re all worried about… but that release was like manna to us. Just getting all that emotion, all that tension out of our system, had such a huge impact that suddenly, just for a few minutes, things were better, and we could get through the rest of the night.
I’ve never before seen such a perfect illustration of the healing power of laughter.