I was on my way to my father’s home in Boyceville, WI last week and stopped in Amery to pick up a few groceries. As I pulled into the parking lot I saw something I have never seen before – an SUV wrapped in shrink wrap. Someone clearly was playing a joke.
I love practical jokes; the kind of pranks that don’t hurt anyone physically or emotionally but make everyone laugh. Maybe it started when I was growing up and my mother smoked; my father used to put cigarette loads in her cigarettes and laugh uproariously when they “exploded”. He thought it was a whole lot funnier than she did.
Jokes have been part of my work life too: plastic vomit, remote controlled fart machines, gum that turned teeth and tongue black, dead fish duct-taped under desk drawers and on and on and on.
As I look back on my career, the supervisors I most enjoyed working for encouraged laughter and interaction among the employees. They knew that happy employees didn’t quit, they were more engaged and they enjoyed working together.
Laughing together is just plain fun, as is evidenced by the many laughing clubs being started in England, India and the United States.
If you haven’t laughed yet today, go out and find something funny – you’re already 17 laughs behind the average adult.