(Over)Laughter is not the best medicine

Have you guys encountered the over-laugher? You’ve seen them right? When someone makes a joke that’s mildly humorous, you know, something your uncle might say at Thanksgiving, and they laugh both (a) way too loud for something that isn’t that funny and (b) way too long…that’s an over-laugher.

Like in church, when the pastor references a funny story from his past to further illustrate his point, and after it’s delivered you always notice that one person who carries the laughter a little past the “no-laughing point.” That’s the point a joke reaches once it’s carried out its mission, usually 1 or 2 seconds, maybe 2.5 seconds…but no more than that, then it just becomes almost a pity laugh. And sometimes, the over-laugher has a partner that tries to OUT LAUGH the over-laugher!!! At that point, you kindly stand up and pretend like you’ve been paged by the Children’s ministry to retrieve your rabid child and you find another seat….far away from the over-laugher.

The funny thing (no pun intended) about an over-laugher, is that they are only classified an over-laugher because they are usually laughing, with the intensity of someone who has been at a comedy club all night, in a non-comedy-club setting, ie church. Some of the best over-laughers around can be found at business leadership conferences, or strategic business seminars….or any other conglomeration of “business” and a get-together. See, an over-laugher gets his/her encouragement from said business conference because he/she knows that it’s not a place designated for humor. So if a joke is told or an interesting quip is shared, their “comedy-club” laughter would totally dominate the rest of the laughter, thus making the over-laugher feel like his/her over-laughing is appreciated. Which in turn gives them justification to continue on in their over-laughing ways.

What they don’t know is that someone in that business conference seminar meeting is an observationalist and is going to write about thier over-laughing in a witty, yet “you-know-what-I’m-talking-about” way.