Your Laughter Does Not Amuse Me

I recently went to see a live taping (yes, I know -- why must I have so many literary friends who taunt my turn of phrase?!?!) of a Comedy Central special for Mike Birbiglia. For those of you who follow comedy, he's the Olive Garden Italian. For those of you who don't, he's ...um, yeah, I've got nothing. He *IS* a very good stand up comedian though, and, for my money, his secret public journal is the highlight of my week. Every week. God, I need a man. But I digress. Mike was, as ever, hilarious, and, though he rehashed bits form old acts, he had the great good taste (stop it! You can too say that!) to put a new twist on it (My favorite line was "Kenny G., even I don't like your music. And I'm your friend. This is an intervention").

None of this matters though, because I had the good bad luck of being sat next to the annoying laughter girl (Let's call her ALG, which is coincidentally also the sound my body made after a particularly bad bout of her giggles prompted a wave of dry heaves). Actually, I guess it's not fair to call her laugh annoying. Positively and disgustingly wretched is much more accurate. Or even a triple threat of maniacal laughter mixed with a machine gun richochet and just a soupcon of wheezing that really just tied the whole package together. If they had sent this girl to Iraq, Saddam would have come running out of his cave, begging for a landmine to step on. The whole time I just kept thinking, "Seriously, God? You sat me next to this person? What did I ever do to you???? Oh, yes, I remember now...."

In the end, despite my pounding headache and clenched fists, I did feel sorry for her, because there is NO way that she can be oblivious to just how completely annoying her verbal shrapnel of a laugh can be. I just hope that she can one day find happiness with someone with a man who truly loves her as she is -- and is physically incapable of making humorous comments. After all, he may love her, but why should the rest of us suffer?

PHOTO: One day my maniacal laughter and BFA from Tisch shall allow me to overthrow Castle Grayskull and rule all of Eternia! Until then, you can catch me on the night shift at McDonald's on Broadway.