People love it when we laugh. Or do they?

When I was 9 or 10, I laughed out loud at Mrs. Shaefer's silly-looking Easter hat during a church service. Father Adamowski pulled me aside and told me I would go to hell if I did not respect the solemnity of the cross, and I said, "huh?"He quoted Jesus in a passage from Luke in the Bible. "Woe unto you who laugh now, for you shall mourn and weep." After his intense scolding, I walked home quickly that day, with my eyes to the sky waiting for a lightning bolt sent from God to strike me dead.Some years ago, In Woodbridge, New Jersey, pallbearers were carrying a casket with Helen Blake's remains down the funeral parlor stairs toward a hearse when the bottom of the casket dropped out. There went Helen's body tumbling down each step onto the pavement below.Everyone present was horrified, of course, but now that I told you this story, I bet you're trying to hold back a chuckle.Then we have those people who laugh almost all the time. They add a "ha ha" at the end of every sentence they speak. In a room full of people, they will say, "If I knew it would be this crowded I would have taken a shower, ha ha." I often think that people who try to make everything funny are covering a deep sadness inside. If so, perhaps we should call this the "Robin Williams syndrome."On a talk show, three women said, "he has to make me laugh" as a desirable quality in a man they would seek to marry. Not bad, I think. When the wife's complaining there's no money in the ATM, the kids are sick and the boss is threatening layoffs, well guys, do what you have to do. Make her laugh!When I went to see the movie "The Exorcist," I was so scared I slept with the light on that night. Then I went to see it again. Unlike the first time, people in the audience laughed at the scary scenes. I guess I'm different. I don't want to laugh when I'm scared. What fun is that?Medical science claims that laughter is good medicine and will help keep us healthy by bringing more oxygen into the body. I'll have to remember that the next time I lose my breath carrying groceries up the stairs. Laughing also burns calories, which I find ironic because many plus-sized people I know seem to laugh all the time.But laughter can be no laughing matter. We all have used the expression, "I nearly died laughing." Now, according to a study published in the British Medical Journal, you really can.Laughter can cause cardiac rupture of a blood vessel, and if you're walking around with an aneurysm in your brain, a single laugh can cause the aneurysm to rupture, causing immediate death.On a less-fatal note, a good laugh can make an existing hernia protrude, collapse a lung or dislocate a jaw. Yay!How about those annoying laughs that make us feel like we're having triple root canal? In the crazy cartoon Beavis and Butt-Head, Beavis would end every statement with a "heh heh," and after five minutes, you wanted to throw a rock through your TV screen.Actress Cameron Diaz's laugh sounds like a dying animal gasping for air while actor Seth Rogen's guffaws, which he emits after every other statement, come at us like the sounds of machine gun fire.With technology, the sound of laughter has now become silent. Cellphone texting has become a laughathon. When people text "LOL" after every send, are they really laughing out loud? Maybe we need a laugh track sound effect every time those three letters appear on our phones. Then again, who wants to transform our text messages into silly sitcoms?Nevertheless, living a life without laughing is probably not worth living.Michael Pritchard once wrote, "You don't stop laughing because you grow old, you grow old because you stop laughing." I'm laughing right now. Can you hear me? LOL.