This post is about laughing, which is one of my favorite things to do. I have a very low threshold for things I find funny, a trait I’ve had since birth.

Case in point: My mom has retold a story about hearing what she thought was a loud old man laughing in my room when I was still a baby/toddler. She says it was a pretty deep sounding laugh, so she went into my room to see who was laughing. There was no old man in the room, just her young daughter. She said I was watching a spider trying to crawl up either the screen or the glass on my window. It would get part of the way up, then fall back down to the bottom (at which time I would start laughing madly) and start climbing back up again. To my delight, this poor spider seemed to fall several times, so I continued to laugh over and over.

As I’ve grown up, my willingness to laugh at simple things has remained. I still like to watch kids’ cartoons and reading the comics in the newspaper. The comics are great for getting going in the morning — an especially funny one can get my mood on track for the entire day.  Here are links to a few favorites of mine:

• Zits (the teenage boy bears a strong resemblance to a son of mine)
• Pearls before swine
• Calvin and Hobbes, which was unfortunately retired too soon

A recent find that has tickled my funny bone is a blog that became a book. I bought the book one morning when I arrived at the airport early. As usual, I wanted to start my day laughing if possible, so the book’s cover commanded my attention.

The drawings were crude and the subtitle contained the word ‘mayhem’, so I was sold without knowing anything else about why I was spending $18 on this book.

Here is a link to one of the stories on her blog which is also in the book, to get a feel for her humor: ‘The God of Cake’

If reading that did not make you smile, giggle or burst out laughing, well, you are in need of a laughter checkup 🙂