Laughter Attacks

Welcome back to My Wayward Musings.

This blog is taken from my personal notes, typed sometime ago.

I was sure I’d never post it for anyone to read.
You’ll understand why in a moment…

Here we go:

Have you ever had a full-blown laughter attack? I mean the real kind—where logic, timing, and social norms take a backseat and your body takes over like a possessed hyena on an amusement park joyride??!

I get these rare...but ridiculously intense...sessions of uncontrollable laughter. The reason??...Honestly, irrelevant. ..Could be a stupid joke, a weird sound, or sometimes… just an eye contact with the wrong (or the right) person at the wrong time. Once triggered, it’s chaos. I laugh. I wheeze. I take five-second breaks to inhale some oxygen, only to exhale it all instantly through bursts of mad laughter. It’s cardio, folks. No gym needed.

My partners-in-gigglecrime? A few very close friends, and my ultimate laughter soulmate—my sister. 

When my sister had just gotten married, my brother -in-law entered the room during the final stage of a laughter attack—where your body is tired, there’s no sound, just tears and heavy breathing. He thought we were crying. “Are you both okay? Anything serious?” he asked, deeply concerned. That broke us. We both fell off the sofa. Literally. At that moment he probably considered returning his wife back to the shop.

The Sleepover with Ludo

Once, along with my husband and son, we had a sleepover at our dear friends’, the Menons’ home. Post-kids-bedtime, we adults sat brainstorming about what to do next. Movies? Nah. Games? Maybe. The kids had conveniently left their Ludo game on the table, so we—four sensible grown-ups—decided to play.

And Ludo comes with its own hazards—violent pawn killing, hardcore competitiveness, and guaranteed hyper-activeness. As we began slaying each other’s tokens/pawns/gotis, something triggered between us two women, —and that was enough. The husbands initially laughed too (still not sure if they laughed because we were laughing or because they understood the joke)… but they’re amateurs. They fizzled out. We didn’t.

Every word, every eye-roll, every pawn move triggered more laughter. We spoke in half sentences, finished each other’s thoughts, and then laughed harder just because we understood each other. The guys looked at us like we were malfunctioning robots.

 

Silent Night – Not Quiet

And when it’s with my sister? Oh, God help the world. These laughter attacks are not regular. They’re like full solar eclipses—rare, unpredictable, but impossible to ignore. When they happen, the rest of the room freezes.

Christmas Eve Mass was about to begin. Pin-drop silence in the church ground. My sister and I sat quietly like well-behaved women of faith. And then, something triggered—maybe a word, maybe a look—and suddenly two grown, married women with kids were battling a full-blown laughter attack in a place where even throat-clearing echoes.

Do you know what happens when your entire body wants to burst out laughing and you try to suppress it?

You sound like a squeaky toy being sat on. Or a mid-asthma attack. I bit my lips so hard I nearly self-injured to distract myself. It wasn’t of much use. People in front turned. People behind stared. Aunty in the next row raised her eyebrow. We couldn’t even look at each other without risking complete collapse.

Eventually, like two schoolgirls caught cheating, we tiptoed to the back of the church ground and attended the rest of the Mass like punished backbenchers. Luckily, since we had not got a place to sit together as a family, our husbands, parents, and children were seated far away. God is merciful.

The Train “Rat” Catastrophe

Not all my episodes give me laughter attacks. Sometimes, they become laughter triggers for everyone else… while I’m left with just a ‘not sure how to express this’ expression.. Like the one that took place in ladies compartment when I was travelling to work one day.

The compartment was full but calm—ladies seated, bags tucked, everyone minding their own business. I had a comfortable window seat, my bag slung on my shoulder, and the soothing movement of the train put me into a deep, blissful sleep.

Somewhere between dreamland and reality, I felt something brush against my elbow.

I woke up with the reflexes of a Bruce Lee and screamed:

“RAT! RAT! RAT!!!!!!!”

In a ladies’ compartment, this is basically equivalent to shouting “FIRE!” in a cinema hall.

Instant stampede energy.

Women screamed.
Some jumped onto their seats like Olympic gymnasts.
Some bent down, investigating the train cushions and  floor with the seriousness of crime scene officers.
A few even added to the drama: “Yes yes, I think I felt something running!”

Meanwhile, I fully woke up… and realised…

It was my mobile  cloth cover.
Hanging from my own bag.
Swinging because the train was moving.
Not. A. Rat.

I had no guts to confess that the entire compartment had gone crazy because of my dream-induced overreaction to my phone cover. I sat there, pretending to be equally concerned, nodding along like, “Yes yes, very scary situation indeed…”

But when I reached work and narrated the whole scene?

My colleagues had their laughter attack for the week and my humiliation became the day’s unofficial team-building activity. Can’t blame them—I would’ve laughed too.

The Solo Laughter Disaster

And then, the wildest one—because it was solo, not social.

This happened early in my career. I was out with my boss for a client meeting at Seepz in Andheri. Post-meeting, we stopped for a quick bite of dabeli at a famous roadside stall.

Now here’s the visual:
My boss—6'4", milk-white skin, wearing a maroon shirt and beige pants. Please remember the beige.

As we stood with our plates, he began one of his serious talks. “Sharon,” he said looking serious, “you need to control your expressions. Clients can read your face. It’s very obvious when you disagree.”

I nodded obediently.

And then… the universe struck..

Someone bumped my elbow.
My dabeli did a slow-motion somersault…
And landed exactly on the beige pants.
In the most unfortunate… zone.

A perfect bullseye of spicy chutney and peanuts.

My boss turned tomato red. His shirt and face matched. I apologised a hundred times. But the scene was so tragically funny my brain had already started buffering laughter.

He sighed and said, “You can laugh, Sharon. I know you want to.”

I exploded—hands on my mouth, giggling like an idiot.

He shook his head, muttered, “Now I can’t go to work,” and took an auto home.

I sat in my own auto, trying not to choke on giggles that came in instalments. The driver kept staring in the mirror, unsure if I was crying or possessed.

If there were gym points for laughter-induced cardio… I’d be bench-pressing 200 kilos by now.

Sharon Lasrado,
Certified Laughter Athlete