To Giggle or not to Giggle..

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• I'd like to talk about the art of Giggling, the only area of expertise that I have mastered over my years. In fact, if there was an Olympic sport of Giggling then I'd probably have a few Gold medals planted proudly on my neck. At it is, It isn't and I don't and I can but dream..

• But should I have grown out of it by now? My resounding answer is NO. The very nature of it, as read above from the above definition from dictionary.com implies that it is a childish thing- note the word 'juvenile' in its explanation.

• I hold a responsible role in a full-time job, I relax on Mediterranean Cruises, I enjoy dinner party's with my friends and I sip cocktails in a bar. Juvenile?! Me?! Surely not..

• Today alone, I have collapsed into a fit of giggles on four separate occasions; tears streaming down my cheeks at the slightest of provocations. Reasons range from friends who unwittingly land themselves in trouble, to the unfortunate names of some of the people I encounter, from Internet jokes that leave little to the imagination, to slips of the tongue that tickle my mind- I simply lose the plot and fall down in a merry heap of laughter and tears. Is there really so much wrong with that?!

• You see, I have always giggled. Always. Back in school it was my 'thing.' You could usually count on me, especially on a Friday afternoon, to be silently chuckling away on the back row. This normally built up until BOOM it all escaped with a loud explosion of laughter that inevitably led to detention. During Mass at school I had to sit by the 'Head of year' because something the priest said, or did, was guaranteed to set me off. I was actually banned from Media classes because a teacher in a foul mood insisted on silence during registration. The slightest noise during it led to a torrent of shouting by him, echoed by a torrent of laughing by myself. 'Out' he screamed, purple faced with anger.

• My transition into work didn't change a thing. My first part-time job involved phone calls, with me desperately taking orders whilst I could stop laughing at a funny surname, or something my provoking colleague would do. Full time work didn't cure it either- Again phone calls where I mistook an old lady for a man, 'Sorry Madam, please find it in your self to forgive me' were followed by my responses, in between by the now mandatory stifled laughter of course. The hundred of hilarious phone calls I've had in my time alone would fill up my blog for a year, but you get my point.

• My argument is, as a kind of self justification, that my hilarious outlook on life will forever keep me young. Laughter is medicine and all that stuff. I like to see the funny things in life around me, because it's what makes this world interesting. It means I don't take myself too seriously, and that kind of draws people in- I can take the mick out of myself as much as the next wanna-be comedian all day long, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. I'm comfortable with my flaws, and so can exploit them as cheap entertainment to attract a swarm of people around me- you can't go wrong!

• The definition above is almost correct. My giggles are high-pitched. They are ill-concealed. Short, repeated gasps and titters interrupt them. (I once giggled so hard I couldn't actually breathe) And they are normally out of amusement or embarrassment. But juvenile? I don't think so. Giggling is an expression of enjoyment, and what is life if we cannot enjoy it?