Muscles And Madness

I don’t think of myself as amusing. Or funny. I’m not a joke teller particularly. On the odd occasion, I do nail one. But there are too many moments when I forget the punchline or have to return to a bit I’ve missed. Then if anyone ends up laughing it’s usually at how awful my telling of the joke was.

Having said that I have been known to reduce people to laughter and I’m always highly amused whenever my anecdotes or musings have this effect.

Most of the time this occurs from my embarrassing moments.

Once I get over the embarrassment I usually find myself sharing the tales with others and I suppose laughing at yourself is at least not laughing at someone else. People, for some reason, like it when you take the piss out of yourself.

So for me trying to be funny doesn’t really work. It just sort of happens. Or not.

I don’t go around deliberately sharing embarrassing moments or anything like that but if I find myself in company and the mood is light-hearted I kind of can’t help myself. There’s usually a certain amount of drink involved. Though not always. Like now.

It’s never malicious. Well, how can it be if you’re laughing at yourself? I just think that some things deserve to be shared and then people share all sorts of wonderful things about their embarrassing moments and I get to piss myself laughing at them. At their behest.

I was trying to think back to some recent moments of embarrassment and I suppose the worst would be when I accidentally twooted my leg, in the bath, to WordPress and Twitter. I deleted it, of course, so don’t go looking. But I was mortified. Then I shared it with my sister who has a knack for making me laugh at everything and anything. By the time I had told her and had a marvellous Facebook chat with her I was doubled at my own stupidity and, I admit, I maybe did leak a bit from the nether regions.

The reason for this I think is because genuine laughter makes you lose muscular control. Why else would my face crease into contortions I have no ability to control? Why else would tears run down my cheeks? Why else would I fall from chairs? Or pee my pants? It can’t just be because I’ve had seven kids. That wouldn’t affect my face or my gravity.

No there is definitely a lack of all muscular control when you are genuinely amused to the point of pissdom.

I think back now to my earliest memories of pissing myself with laughter and no children had been birthed. In fact I was pretty much no more than a child myself. Maybe about 12.

The first I recollect was organising a show in my dad’s garden hut with my best friend at the time. We rigged up a curtain, created some seats for our audience and charged some of our friends 10pence for the privilege of listening to us sing. There was diluted juice and homemade fairy cakes too. We knew how to take care of our guests. Unfortunately, my friend was no singer despite believing she was.

When it was her turn to sing she belted out a rendition of some song that was about a being a conductor on a bus. From behind the makeshift curtain I could see our audience raising their eyebrows and nudging one another as if to say, ‘WTF! We paid for this?’

I couldn’t help it. I began to laugh. You know the shoulder-shaking kind that you can’t get under control? And I felt awful for laughing at my best friend’s attempts to wow her audience. X-factor take note. I couldn’t. I tried all the usual things. Biting my lip. Thinking sad thoughts. I just couldn’t. And the more I tried the worse it got. Until. I pissed myself. There behind the curtain. Then I saw a new look dawn on the faces of our audience!

Dis-fucking-belief! They couldn’t believe it. I couldn’t believe it! With a puddle at my feet I had certainly managed to take the bad look off my friend. Without even trying. Not my best debut.

Another occasion I pissed myself was trying on clothes in a local boutique when I was in my early teens. Why does no one tell you that you should always wear sanitary protection regardless of age? How is anyone meant to know when the giggles will erupt?

This little boutique welcomed my sister and I most weekends because my mum had an account there and whenever we ‘needed’ a new item of clothing we could go in and fend for ourselves and try things on to our hearts’ content. No stalking shop assistant checking to see if we were stuffing clothes down our knickers. If I’d known what was to occur I would have stuffed something down my knickers. Anything. Well, anything absorbent.

Sis accompanied me into a tiny cubicle while I tried on a dress. Now I had taken the correct size but for some reason I appeared to have grown two arses and a second set of boobs. So I struggled to get it on. Quite a bit. But I was determined. We giggled at my efforts and once it was on my sister told me, as only sisters can, ‘Nah. It looks shite on you.’ I laughed and agreed. And then it happened. I couldn’t get the fecker back off. V. started making all sorts of comments about having to wear it forever. Or having to go and pay for it while still wearing it. In fact, I think now that I might have tried it on on top of my clothes. That would account for the tight fit, I suppose.

The more comments she whispered the worse I got until I could feel my facial muscles lose all control. I heard a rip. And then those other muscles lost some measure of control. You know the ones. The ones that pelvic floor exercises help keep strong for just such occasions and for other ones that I won’t go into here.

But who the hell needs pelvic floor exercises at 13 or 14? No. Laughter definitely releases more than just pent up emotions.

Now I have many more such anecdotes but I think I’ll save those for individual posts. Except perhaps to say that if you purchase a little accoutrement from an online sex shop that attaches to the top of an electric toothbrush be sure to remove it before charging said toothbrush. And before a child asks what sort of toothbrush is that? And before you can only think to say, ‘It’s a gum massager.’ I didn’t laugh then. I blushed. Hubby, standing behind 12 year old, might just have peed his pants though. At least going by the tears running down his face. True story. And very good value for money btw. Comes highly recommended.

Now the purpose of this post is that Ali has created a new award called The Damp Laundry Award. And she nominated me and two others. The proviso was that I wrote a humorous post and nominated three others to do the same. Now Ali has something of the bawdy in her humour. Which I so get. Not my fault. Three brothers you see. And two sisters who share the same delicious humour.

So. Did you at least dampen the crotch area slightly? Or have my efforts been in vain?

And now to my nominees.

Being The Memoirs Of Helena Hann-Basquiat

Peace, Love and Patchouli

Gingerfightback

And now I get to post this.

 Thank you, Ali!