Learn 2 Laugh!

Learning is fun, so they say. Funny, no one told me that when I was in primary school ages ago; all I knew was the long end of the cane, and it wasn’t a laughing matter at that time. I had that excruciating pain ripping through my body, and so too was a burning desire to kill the mathematics teacher after school.

By the time I moved to secondary and beyond, learning, indeed, turned out to be a wonderful and fun experience shaping the way I perceived things even to this day. Someone, I think it was Mary Pettibone Poole*, who said: “He who laughs, lasts.” It is not easy, but that’s the way it has been for me ever since, laughing my life through.

The Cambridge Dictionary defines Humour as: ‘the ability to find things funny, the way in which people see that some things are funny, or the quality of being funny.’

A moment ago, I found this on my WhatsApp. It was from my sister (she is a joker!) who lives in the UK:

A man goes on vacation to Israel with his wife and mother-in-law. While in Israel, his mother-in-law died at the hotel. The people there told him:

“Sir, if you want to bury her back in the United States, it’s going to cost you $5,000 to bring back her corpse. But since she died at the hotel, we can do the funeral here in Israel for free.”

The man immediately refused and said he would pay the $5,000 fee to do the funeral back home.

When in the USA, his wife came up to him and said:

“I really love what you just did for my mom. That proves me that you actually loved my mother and you respected her.”

Man: “Babe, are you crazy?! Those Israelis are the same people who buried Jesus and three days later he came back to life. I’m not about to take that risk with your mother.”

If you are a married person with a mother-in-law (MIL) in tow, be kind to her. After all, she is your wife’s or husband’s mum, quite a handy person to have around now and then; you know, minding the home, the kids, and the rest of it. If you have to take a dig at your MIL, do it with some style, wit and charm.

I had a MIL once. When her daughter (now wife) introduced me to her on my first visit to her house, she wanted to know if I was indeed a worthy man for her daughter’s hand. She said to me: “Go make a cup of coffee for me!” What? Bah, never mind, so I made her Nescafe; she took a sip, looked at me, smiled and said: “This is the worst coffee I’ve ever tasted, but it’s khau, khau.” I guess I passed the test. And I stopped making coffee ever since then!

Here are some lines to add jest to an otherwise mundane existence:

• Did you hear about the man who threw his mother-in-law into the lion’s cage of a zoo? He’s being sued by the RSPCA for animal cruelty.
• My MIL’s other car is just a broom!
• Adam & Eve were the happiest couple in the world – because neither of them had a MIL.
• Why do they bury MIL’s 18 feet down instead of the normal 6 feet? Because deep down, they really are nice people.
• The clock fell off the wall. If it did a minute sooner, it would have hit my mother-in-law. That clock was always slow!

Laughter is the best medicine. And the most effective therapy known to man to treat all of life’s maladies. So, take a healthy daily dose and watch yourself getting better every day in every way. There are no side effects, and it is free of charge. You don’t need a diploma or degree to bring cheer to others unless you have plans to become a standup comedian or joker!

Above all else, laughter boosts your immune system, especially now in our pandemic environment, which is all gloom and doom. Don’t let it get you. Go ahead and indulge in some hearty laughter in your home; they say the family that laughs together stays happy together.

Laughter is infectious, wholesome, safe. And virus-proof!

(In 1938, *Mary Pettibone Poole, a Quote Investigator, compiled a list of adages and quotations in her book – A Glass Eye at a Keyhole. quoteinvestigator.com)