The Art of Giggling

I decided to google "giggle". Why? Because I have been doing a bunch of it lately. No, not googling, giggling. Stay with me here.

So as I glided my google to "giggle" I was greeted with generalities geared towards guys and girls with no great gumption for getting to the nitty gritty.

Ok, all alliteration aside (oops...), I found several online dictionaries and they all basically said the same thing.

giggle: to laugh with repeated short catches of the breath...

It can be a noun or a verb. And it is probably of imitative origin...

What does that mean? It means that thousands of years ago or something, someone somewhere at sometime in the past started to laugh and then, thought that maybe they shouldn't. But they couldn't help it as little high pitched noises and long streams of air began escaping from between their lips. They tried to stop the short spurts and snorts by covering their mouth but it only led to spasmodic shaking. Some liquid probably spewed from their nose or something. They tried with all their might to stop the rising laughter that was building up pressure like a steam boiler running in the red... which brought them dangerously close to releasing pressure and sounds from other places.... which would cause them to laugh more.

And in the middle of it all, some one said, "Be still and stop making that 'giggling' noise". And the rest is history.

I have played with the thought that "giggle" may be a combination of the word gas and jiggle. Because when I see people really trying to restrain a laugh, there are hints of an explosion building. Contents under pressure.

But that's the art of giggling. Contents under pressure if opened too fast, can explode, which would be embarrassing and painful. (Shake that soda can!) To safely extract the contents, you need a release valve. That's where giggling comes in. Restrained laughter. Not all at once, but a slight hissing sound as pressure escapes from under your cap. Come to think of it, maybe that's why I've been giggling a lot lately. Letting it out a little at a time. Slowly releasing the pressures of life. I haven't had a lot of time to laugh lately. And I haven't had a lot reasons to do so either. But in the middle of it all, someone sends me a joke or thought, and I take a moment to read it... And I hear the hiss as a little bit of the daily pressure evaporates into the atmosphere.

So take a moment to day and giggle. Laughter does good like a medicine. So take two giggles and call me in the morning.