When he was younger, my son, Jesse, and I always kept a pair of Groucho
glasses in the car—you know, the kind with the giant nose and bushy, black
eyebrows and mustache. My son entertained himself and other people who pulled
up alongside us on the freeway. His responses delighted me. One day he said,
“Business people are too serious!” I said in mock defensiveness, “Well, I’m a
business person!” He replied, “But, Mom, you’re a business person who does fun
for a living.”
In my humor work, I urge grown-ups
to use funny glasses, too. When I find myself behind a bus or a station wagon
with young people waving their hands or making faces, I don a pair of goofy
glasses and watch their reaction. Shaking up young people’s expectations of who
we are as adults is a hoot! In addition, it makes my long drives seem shorter.
How many times do children laugh
each day? I have seen a variety of answers to that question: 146, 200, 300, and
400. My hunch is that the number goes down as our age goes up. The number
quoted most often for how many times adults laugh is a dozen times a day. I
have an accounting friend, Jill, who keeps track. She is above average. For
example, while previewing this book, she reported laughing out loud twenty-nine
times.
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