The Mystery of the Shell

           You know those embarrassing stories that leave you doubled over, tears welling out of your eyes, from laughing so hard? The stories that never get old and that everyone finds just as hilarious as you do? This was one of those stories - or so I thought.

            To make a long story short, on my 8th grade trip to France I confused the nauseating stench that had been emanating from my backpack for a week as my dirty socks (I'll admit, I even feared it was my underwear!) rather than from a pink, innocuous-looking shell that happened to contain a fermenting dead animal. When I used to tell the full version of the story, wit a much larger buildup, as well as twists and turns and minute details about my every emotion and thought during the ordeal, it was always met with uncontrollable laughter. That's why I couldn't understand why I failed to elicit even a sympathetic chuckle when I told it to my FOOT group this past August. To tackle this issue (almost more embarrassing than my story itself), it's necessary to understand what causes laughter.

            Many theories attempt to describe laughter as arising from incongruity, superiority, relief, or even a corrective for rigidity, but the most applicable theory to this situation is John Morreall's idea that "laughter is an expression of pleasure at a psychological shift." In this case, the psychological shift arises from a state of curiosity, uncertainty, and suspense – due to not knowing what was causing the putrid odor – to a state of relief and understanding – from realizing what the actual culprit was. This shift was pleasant because not only is it comforting to know that dirty clothes don't give off a reek comparable to that of a rotting animal, but also because it's entertaining to realize how ridiculous I could have been for even considering that my clothes could smell so badly.

            This explanation seems to make sense - so the question becomes why did people stop laughing at my story? When I recounted my story to my FOOT group, I prefaced it by describing how I had found a shell on a beach in Saint Malo and put it in my bag. My FOOT group admitted they figured out what my story would be about as soon as I shared this detail. Using Morreall's terms, because of this no psychological shift occurred - there was no initial phase of mystery and curiosity - therefore, no one laughed.

            I guess the moral of the story is a pretty obvious one: don't give away the punch line before you even start your story if you hope to get some laughs!