The Laughter Fit

It was very, very scary

Travis and Tawni were newlyweds. They had been married for less than two months. Their relationship was one of those love at first sight kind of relationships. They were soulmates. They were a perfect match. They finished each other’s sentences and they were filled with joy whenever they were together. A strong sign of their perfect love was that they were always making each other laugh.

How can two people in love not be constantly laughing? How can two people constantly laughing not be in love?

Their humor seemed to spring from the same mind, the same heart. They were like a dream comedy team from comedy heaven. They simply could not be more in sync.

They could barely stop laughing long enough to make love.

Then came that horrible scary day when it seemed like everything would come to an end…

Travis and Tawni were in the kitchen of their tiny efficiency apartment. They both were wearing aprons and cooking dinner together. Travis’ apron read, Hers, and Tawni’s apron read, His. The aprons were a wedding gift from Tawni’s sister Tanya.

They were laughing hysterically as usual when suddenly Travis said something that was so radically funny that Tawni fell to the floor and went into what appeared to be some kind of seizure. She flopped uncontrollably on the kitchen floor like some freshly-caught epileptic trout.

Alarmed, Travis quickly turned off the burners on the stove and got down on the floor to be with his wife. He thought he knew everything about her but was not aware of any medical condition that would induce seizures. She seemed to have no control whatsoever over her body.

As Travis sank into panic and fear, he quickly reviewed in his mind everything he knew about seizures. Did epileptics laugh when they were having a seizure? Travis had never witnessed anyone having an epileptic fit so he did not know.

This, by the way, occurred before cell phones were in common use and Travis and Tawni did not have either a cell phone or a land line. They were poor newlyweds. He could not call for help or google, ‘What to do with a hysterical laughing woman having a seizure.’

Remembering his CPR training from eleven years before, Travis’ first impulse was to pry her mouth open to see if she had swallowed her tongue. But how can you pry someone’s mouth open when they are laughing so hard? Furthermore, how can anyone have swallowed their tongue and continue to laugh so hard?

Travis mentally reviewed his training in mouth-to-mouth resuscitation and chest pumping but these techniques were useless in dealing with an epileptic seizure — or whatever kind of seizure this was. Instinctively, he laid down on the kitchen floor wrapping his arms around her and he held her tightly in his arms.

He held her and held her until her laughter finally subsided and her body finally relaxed.

He then let go of his grip and looked into her beautiful green eyes and said, “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. Please be okay. Relax. I’m sorry for whatever I said. Just relax. It’s going to be okay. I’ll help you. I promise.”

This, of course, was the wrong thing to say. She only started to laugh even harder. After another short bout of seizure she finally relaxed again and they got up off the floor.

Tawni excused herself to go to the bathroom, saying something about laughing so hard that she wet herself.

Travis turned the stove burners back on and resumed cooking dinner. Looking up at the ceiling he vowed to not make her laugh so hard again. It was just too scary.

Copyright by White Feather. All Rights Reserved. This is a work of fiction very, very loosely based on actual events.

Speaking of laughter…