Has Your Partner Made You Laugh?

Laughing together makes everything better -- if only for a few moments. But once you have a good laugh, the effect is not only while you're laughing, but also when you retell the story to others, and when you remember it later by yourself. If it's a really good laugh, it becomes part of the ongoing connection you have with your partner - a shared smile that the two of you can resurrect any time, often with only a single word or phrase.

For Richard and me, the phrase is, "They're making a break for it."

Several years ago I went through a very hard period. Bad pain. Bad attitude. I couldn't work and didn't want to leave the house. I was sunk in misery, waiting for a new medication cocktail to kick in. I was Eeyore, moping and wandering aimlessly from one room to another.

One afternoon as I was heading upstairs, I noticed 9 black socks draped randomly on several stairs. Now, Richard and I have gone mano-a-mano many times about his tendency to leave objects strewn about the house. But this was over the top and inexplicable.

I asked him to join me at the bottom of the stairs and explain the mystery of the strewn socks. He said, "They're making a break for it. Trying to join their comrades in the land of lost socks."

I cracked up. Both at his explanation and at imagining him coming up with this scene and placing the socks, one by one - purely to make me laugh. That became a good day and a shared memory that still makes us smile.

How about you? Any stories about a time when your partner made you laugh?