I once nearly wrecked a car from laughter. Phil and I were driving from the Oregon coast to Spokane, and along the way we tweaked the lyrics to the song "Memory" from Cats. It was an inside joke about and amongst friends, and the laugh won't translate, but the result of our riffing on one another's lyrics was, in fact, the biggest, most debilitating laugh of my life. Other cars backed off 1000 feet. They were that scared of my suddenly erratic driving.
Oddly, the second-biggest laugh was also at the Oregon coast. I was in our rental house, watching the annual White House Correspondents' Dinner. Don Imus was speaking. He was typically unfunny. He wasn't even trying to be funny, really. He was listing the many virtues of right-wing nutcase Pat Buchanan, and I was semi-tuning him out. And then...
"Did you know, most people don't know this, but did you know that a relative of Pat Buchanan's was killed at Auschwitz?"
I tuned back in. What?!?
"Yeah. One of his uncles fell out of a guard tower."
I completely lost control of my tear ducts. It was ten minutes before I could draw a breath. This was bloody genius, right down to the five minutes of tedium beforehand. I couldn't have been sucker-punched better.
I've shown you mine. Show me yours.