Hissing for Tears

Laughter seems to be the best medicine. Or at least that’s what we’re all told.

From a very young age, I learned that I loved to make people laugh, not in the way that I would become a comedian or anything similar but in the way that when someone laughed at something I said (if it was meant to make them laugh) then I would be so overjoyed and I would usually spend the rest of my day feeling like I did something good. Making people laugh made me happy.

Whether you are intentionally trying to make people laugh or if you’re just doing something that isn’t considered to be a normal thing when you become an adult as a child it is pretty easy to get everyone in the room laughing. Wishing to be the root cause of everyone’s laughs I set out to find the funniest thing I could do. I found that doing an impression of the creepiest character (in my opinion) from “The Lord of the Rings”, Gollum was a great way to make people laugh. But I did not just know how to do this voice it required extensive practice, during my attempt to perfect my “Gollum voice”, I watched the scene where he says “My precious.” on repeat until I deemed my voice perfect. I sounded just like I smoked fifteen packs of cigarettes a day, exactly what I wanted. Having perfected my scratchy voice I took my impression to my parents who both laughed and found my efforts valiant and told me I had done an exceptional job. Two people laughing was not enough so I went and showed my best friend who although thought it was very weird, found it hilarious. Great. Three people think it was funny, just one more person needed to laugh before I was ready for the world to see it. I went to my one-year-old sister, sitting in her pack n’ play, crouched down, and unleashed my best impersonation yet. She looked freaked out for a minute then started to cry. These tears to me were ones that could only come from laughter, it was validation enough and confirmed what I already knew, I was super funny. I was so proud of myself that I decided that I was ready to take to my kindergarten class and show them my new talent. Surely they would love it.

Walking into school the next day I told all my new friends that I had something that would blow their minds. As they all sat around me, watching, I hissed out “My precious. My precious. My precious.” in my best rendition of Gollum’s voice… I did not get the reaction I was going for. Some of the kids thought I had lost my mind while others were somewhat scared… but I did get the teacher to laugh, which in my young brain was a huge win. I had made an adult that wasn’t my parents laugh. I was a success.

I have learned since then that maybe the people that I got to laugh, weren’t laughing with me but at me. I guess it was kind of weird to choose a Gollum voice to make everyone laugh but in my five-year-old mind that was peak comedy and I just knew that it would make everyone laugh and was very likely to gain me some more friends. It was kindergarten so of course I left that day with like, two new friends.

“Gollum II” by miss_rogue is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.