All About Laugh

We all love to laugh. But at times I get restive seeing some people laugh. I am talking of that class of people who you will find rolling in splits at something amusing - but reactive, angry and even vindictive when the joke is on them. I just do not like people who are like this. Most of us, however, would wait till the tide dies down when we are at the receiving end. And then - there is a small group who would laugh the loudest when in a similar situation. Laughing at myself - I have to admit - makes me happiest.

I have a very good friend who shares this trait. We rarely met after college- but whenver we talked over the phone, a great deal of talktime used to be spent on our recent 'achievements'. This done, we would move on to what others did - and conversations hardly went out of hilarious accounts/experiences. He came to the USA recently and we are having a rollicking time during the weekends when he comes over. We met for lunch today at a chinese joint near my office. Just as he picked up his fork to gorge on his chicken and rice, the man behind the counter came hurriedly and picked up his plate and went back. He apologised - saying that he had given him someone else's food by mistake. I could have given anything for the perplexed look on his face, the still down-pointing fork reflecting his state of mind. We had a good laugh over the incident and it made up for the disappointment over the overly sweet General Tso's chicken which he could manage to just half-eat.

He had come to my office after work a few days back and we had a very simple plan - pick up the one of my teammates from his Broadway office in our cab and go home. The friend would get a missed call and come out on the streets - and I assured him that my call would be so sweetly timed that he would come out to our braking taxi. I was, throughout, telling my friend about cabs since that was his first cab ride - how you stop one, rates, routes, tips, etc. It was all going well. But just as I picked up the phone, I realised that I did not have any minutes left on my cell. I tried to make my brain work beyond its capacity - and it retaliated brutally. As our street touched Broadway, I told him to take a right - on a one-way going left! He looked at the mirror and taught me a new meaning of 'if looks could kill' altogether. Then, why I don't know, I dialed my cell again. Failing at that too, I told him to wait at that junction till I walk down a few blocks, make a call from the building reception to my waiting friend, come back with him when he was down from the 13th floor. The cabbie said many things, which were supposed to bring a lot of curses on my being, but ended up in rumbling sounds at the most. I came to my senses and did the only thing I could do - settled the bill, with a 25% tip. As we were leaving the car, he finally got his speech back. "I don't know what kind of a passenger you are" is all we could hear.

I end here, and I hope I could bring home the point I started this post with.