ON STRESSFUL SITUATIONS:

I tend to make stupid jokes when I am in a stressful situation. For example, in my youth, a group of us spent the night at a friend's house. In the morning, we all walked his paper route with him. Well, we had one paper left - between the eight of us - and a police car pulled up. The officer asked us what we were doing and we explained ourselves, and then I chimed in with a "It's kind of his birthday present!" It was all I could do not to burst into tears at the officer's glare. After he "asked" us to go back to the friend's house, my friends laid into me about making a joke in a situation like that.

I find it odd that I respond to stress in that manner. Laughter itself is weird - I think Bill Watterson described it as a physiological reaction to absurdity - but to do it in a situation like that - well, that just doesn't make any sense. Other people sweat, bite their nails, pass out - all of those make sense to me. I make stupid jokes. That doesn't.

In grad school, I went with a friend to support her as she donated blood for the first time. I was excited for her (and for the opportunity to hold her hand), but she said she probably wouldn't need it. So I sat next to her for the whole procedure, chattering away like a chipmunk with ADD, and it was the paper route cop all over again. The same glare coming from a different face. I did not make things easier for her, or better. But my terrible, terrible jokes weren't really for her, now that I think about it. She did fine, held up like a champ. Me? Chump.

I guess the moral of this is that if you're in a stressful situation, take a deep breath, look around, and hope against hope that I'm not with you.