Boo! | 642 Things

What was the most recent incident in your life that made you laugh?

     Half the time I’m probably laughing at something on a TV show or a YouTube video or silly meme or something of the sort. But that doesn’t seem like the most interesting thing to write about just now. So what about actual incidents in my life, things that have happened to me or I’ve witnessed. Again, there’s probably been a bunch of little things recently – at least I hope there has been – but I can’t remember every single one. There is a specific incident from a couple of days ago though that made me properly laugh out loud for a good couple of minutes, and sticks out in my mind now.

     In case you’re new to this corner of the internet, I work as a walking tour guide around Edinburgh city centre. I enjoy my job in many ways, and one aspect is our little community of guides. I know most of the other guides from the other companies, to varying degrees. We spend most of our work time with our customers, so it’s nice to see each other as we’re going around, and smile and wave and even have brief chats along the way.

    One of the downsides of my job is it’s repetitive. I recite the same tours every day. I make small talk with the customers, which is usually about the same stuff all the time. Half the time I’m talking, my brain is thinking about something else. So what else do I do when I’m getting bored? Distract everyone else of course!

     Only with the guides I know well though. Whenever I’m walking between my stops and one of them is in the middle of talking, I try to catch their eye, pull faces, and make them laugh. Sometimes it works better than others, and of course I never do it to the extent where it’ll interfere with the tour. My favourite person to do this to is one of the guys I work with – he actually co-owns the company, and we hang out a lot as friends outside of work too. He actually avoids making eye contact with me now when he’s talking on his tour, since he knows what I’m up to!

     I switched things up the other day though. I was mid-tour, walking between stops, and the route circles back past our start point. The two owners were both still there, talking to each other while holding the umbrellas and handing out flyers. He had his back to me, and his umbrella blocked me from the other guy’s line of vision. So I did what any other reasonable, normal, sane person would do – I tried to give him a fright.

     Now this is hardly the first time I’ve tried this. Frankly, I’ll try it any chance I get, usually when I’m arriving to work, but he always turns around in time, or the other guy gives me away, or he can just tell I’m coming. He pretty much knows to expect this sort of thing from me now.

     Not this time though. The street was fairly busy, and he was fully caught up in his conversation. He didn’t turn or notice me at all. So when I grabbed his arms from behind and shouted ‘Boo!’ – while my tour group were still trailing behind me watching! – he shit himself.

     It took me a second to notice if it had worked, as I kept walking past at the same time. But when I turned back to look, he had hand on his heart, eyes wide, he got a proper jump scare! I was bloody delighted. It never normally works that well, and doing it mid-tour just made it even funnier to me. I immediately cracked up laughing at him, as did the other guy, while he just shook his head at me. I was still giggling to myself about it all the way to the next stop of the tour, while my customers seemed slightly bemused but somewhat entertained by the whole exchange.

     It was such a simple little incident, but it garnered a much stronger reaction from him than I had been expecting, which just made it so much more amusing than on every other occasion I’ve tried it. We don’t always need comedy routines or witty remarks or big moments to make us laugh. Sometimes it’s these small, everyday interactions that just make us smile and brighten our mood. The rest of that day was pretty average, so this event, brief and silly as it was, stood out in the middle of my usual routine.

    So yeah, it wasn’t a huge, hilarious, out-of-the-ordinary event… but it was ‘the most recent’ thing that made me laugh!

Let me know in the comments what the last thing to make you laugh was!

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