Transcending The Giggle Loop

"It's always funny until someone gets hurt. Then it's just hilarious."

I admit it, I spent the first evening I've had to myself in some time continuing my steady progress through Season 2 of Buffy The Vampire Slayer. I've seen most of it before, but usually drunk or engaged in conversation or both. And...(deep breath)...my name is Michael, and I'm a Buffy fan.

Whew, I'm glad we got that out in the open. I mean, I'm still a ways away from admitting I'm partial to A-ha and wrestling (though not at the same time), but this is an important step in the right direction, the first confession of many I will make to my readers so that they will finally understand that I am so not cool. I know some of you may have been fooled by the suave penmanship, moody headshots, and beautiful wife...but I'm afraid the rumours are all false. I am a nerd, a geek, and a dork. It's time to stand up and be counted.

And anyway, Buffy was a good show. I mean, even after Sarah Michelle Gellar became the Maybelline skeleton and took up with the Prinze Of Darkness, it still had a lot going for it, namely pitch-perfect characterisation and an almost uniformly strong script, especially in the dialogue department. Sure, seasons four, five, and six bit the big one, but then every show jumps the shark eventually, and Buffy came back strong enough in the home straight to evoke memories of the glory days. And even if Buffy herself had gone to the Dark Side (as in the one where you get date-raped by Matthew Lillard rather than the one where you bust funky Force shit with Darth Vader), there was still Faith. And Xander. And Spike. And...enough.

The reason I bring this up now is because I wanted to talk about human behaviour. You see, there are advantages to being gainfully employed by the Home Entertainment people, and one of them is access to a wealth of cheap movies, TV Shows, and videogames. This leads not only to many opportunities for reliving old favourites or discovering fresh ones, but also to the kinds of conversations that always make me think of Kevin Smith's Clerks.

There were two things my co-worker one night last week did to indirectly inspire this post. The first was to join me in a conversation we had about a TV show called Coupling (The non-British may not be familiar with it, though I gather there's a dire American remix out there someplace). Now, I've always found it quite funny, but never to a degree that would make me watch it religiously. My co-worker, however, was clearly a big fan, and spent some time that night explaining a concept that had played a major role in one particular episode; the Giggle Loop.

Now, you may not know the phenomenon by that particular name, but I assure you that you know it. The Giggle Loop is when you're in a situation where it is imperative that you do not laugh and in a position where you're going to. Unlike regular laughter, this forbidden amusement simply will not die. Instead, the longer you remain in the sombre/angry/tragic/inappropriate moment, the stronger the urge to laugh becomes. Eventually, you either escape from the predicament and rush to a place of safety, only to discover that the hilarity has mysteriously passed, or your poker face simply collapses before the pressure of the Giggle Loop, rendering you a shaking, weeping, hyperventilating social embarrassment. Pretty much everyone I know has at least one tale of misfortune based on the latter scenario.

So my co-worker and I exchanged our stories of Giggle Loop defeats, shared a laugh, and then moved onto other subjects. It was only later that same evening, when he finally snapped beneath the weight of the trailers and adverts that play - ironically - on a loop in the store, that I boarded the train of thought that eventually resulted in this post. It was around eight o'clock on a long, slow night, and for what seemed like the millionth time that shift, the televisions were playing an appeal for a charity that the Home Entertainment people support. In this particular vignette, a young girl with a terminal disease gets to go into a studio and record a single. R&B star Miss Dynamite turns up, and the girl and her parents go into spasms of bittersweet celebrity-worship. During the advert, the girl's mother and father provide a voiceover explaining their daughter's situation and how the charity has helped them. If you saw it once, you'd be honestly touched. But both I and my co-worker had seen and heard this particular commercial more times than we could possibly count. It was only a matter of time before something gave.

"It's always been her dream to record a song," the voiceover mother said, in a voice touched by both sadness and pride. "She'd like to have a number one single."

"Well she won't have a number one single!" my co-worker suddenly shrieked. "Because she'll be DEAD!"

For the briefest of moments I was mortified - a situation I have to tell you was morally reassuring - but then the Giggle Loop had me - had us both - doubled over with mirth that was okay because it was just he and me and an empty shop.

But it's weird how we laugh at spectacularly inappropriate things sometimes, isn't it? I don't think there's a rational explanation that covers all cases. It's one of those strange quirks of human behaviour that I find fascinating. For example (and it's an extreme one), I have a friend who once confessed to me that when watching the footage of that first plane crashing into the World Trade Centre, he started laughing. Unforgiveable on one level, yet fascinating on another. What is about what must be the most tragic and enduring image of our time that could possibly make a person start to laugh? I mean, that's the polar opposite of funny. And what's even more interesting is how once he shared that knowledge with me, we got caught in the Giggle Loop. Now, every time the subject is raised, I see the shameful smirk start to appear on his face, see the way he tries so hard to control it...and it makes me want to laugh. When he sees me struggling at the sight of him struggling, it makes his burden all the heavier. So now, the mere mention of that fateful day invariably leads to the pair of us grimacing and gurning until we can take it no more and the Giggle Loop has its way.

I think that's awful, I really do. But that somehow makes it all the funnier. Even with the above explanation, it's not something I feel entirely comfortable sharing. I can't imagine how it would be were we to lose it over that particular subject in public. How would people react? Would they be absolutely horrified, or would that dark and uncontrollable laughter spread? Is it possible that one guy stumbling into some lunatic situation where such a thing becomes a trigger for giggles could eventually lead to a whole room full of people laughing at hideous tragedy without any idea how it happened?

Not if I have my way. You see, earlier today, I beat the Giggle Loop.

It was a normal morning. I'd been up late talking to Jenn and I was pretty tired, but other than that, all the dials were in the green. As the Manager On Duty, I'd gotten to the store first, unlocked and switched off all the necessary devices, and was in the process of printing out a lengthy report containing yesterday's figures. Then today's co-worker arrived. Unlike the lad who'd unleashed a shriek of monotony-inspired joy at the potentially agonising death of another, this particular co-worker is very sincere, very moral, and very God-fearing. We get along just fine in the context of having to work together, but she isn't somebody I'd go out on the town with. I like her, though, and because of her demeanour and beliefs I'm more than happy to treat her with kid gloves and keep my more extreme opinions and traits out of sight. I'm pretty sure she does the same, and every time we work together, we take part in this neat little dance where the point is simply to engage in small talk without treading on any particularly sensitive toes. Most of the time, it works.

Today, however, the usual greetings gave way to silence as she checked-in last night's returns and I stood by the printer waiting for it to finish vomiting out what was fast becoming a novel-sized sheath of paper.

"Did you see that documentary on Channel Five last night?" she asked me, in a way that made the preceding silence feel more awkward than I'd believed it to be.

"I was out," I said, without adding, "at the pub."

"It was about this girl who was born with no face."

I gritted my teeth and bit my lip and focussed my attention on the printer. For reasons I'll at least try to explain momentarily, the previous sentence had dropped a big fat fun bomb in the pit of my stomach. The resulting explosion was filling my lungs and reddening my cheeks. I was going to absolutely scream with laughter.

1. For the non-Brits: In England, before satellite and cable became the norm, there were only four TV channels. In the midst of the digital revolution, some bright spark decided we needed a fifth, and Channel Five was born. It was and is rubbish. This is a station entirely dedicated to people who like incredibly bad chat shows, faux-reality TV, soft porn, Corbin Bernsen, and Argentinian baseball. In other words, it caters to alcoholics, stoners, the unbelievably bored, and students. Mostly it caters to all four. In terms of knowledge, enrichment, and value, it's a complete vacuum.

2. 'A girl with no face'. When you read those words, do you see a tragically disfigured person living a life of torment and bravery, or do you begin to imagine a person that quite literally has no face? 'Cause I saw the latter, and the harder I tried not to think about it, the more I thought about it. The more I thought about it, the funnier the mental image became. I saw ears and hair and then...this blankness. It was surreal, it was ridiculous, and - yes - it was fucking funny.

"Really?" I somehow managed to say.

"Really." My co-worker replied. "She kind of had eyes, and then...just...a tongue."

I was carrying Mount Hilarious on my shoulders, and I was walking. I was the Patron Saint of the Poker Face.

"That's...terrible," I said. An expression of genuine pain crossed my features.

"And people care so much about their image, man. It makes you think," she said. And then - sweet baby Jesus wept - she crossed herself.

I opened my mouth and a desperate sigh wheezed forth from my straining insides. My co-worker shook her head sadly and went about her work. The printer had finally finished its work, and I snatched the paper from its grasp and scurried from the shop floor. With a door between me and my apocalyptic battle with the Giggle Loop, I finally relaxed.

But I didn't laugh.

In fact, I spent the next few hours not laughing, though the image of the faceless girl on Channel Five kept creeping into my thoughts whenever I was behind the counter with my co-worker. I resisted it, though. From nine in the morning until almost two in the afternoon, I held my own against the most formidable of foes. I was proud. I was also late back from my lunch break, though not because of bad timekeeping. No, I was tardy because I'd been out in Barnet learning the secret of defeating the Giggle Loop. Its name? Displacement.

Like my morning, my afternoon began innocently enough. With an exhaustion born of both half a day of work and my internal struggle, I decided to head for a coffee shop in the shopping centre over the road, where I enjoyed a cappuccino and a chocolate chip flapjack before heading back to Planet Home Entertainment. As I left this home of small town commerce, however, my life was forever changed by a small child that came hurtling past me at quite some speed for one carried on such tiny legs. "I WANT A WEE! I WANT A WEE! I WANT A WEE!" it screamed, before karma intervened in the form of a tiled floor made dangerously slick by the efforts of an elderly man and his mop. The child lost control of its bladder-inspired scamper and went into an wild and impressive slide that lasted some two or three seconds before being brought to an abrupt halt by the sudden traction of the pavement outside. There was a long moment of airborne silence, and then it crashed to the ground with a thud that would truly have satisfied anybody who has ever been trapped on public transport with a screaming toddler.

Laugh? I fucking howled. I laughed so hard that my legs gave way and I fell against the window of WHSmith's, sliding to the floor and embracing hysteria as my eyes streamed and everyone stared and the cackling demon took me so completely that there was no room left in my heart to care. I laughed until my stomach hurt and I couldn't see. Then I laughed some more. The mother retrieved her errant spawn, the bystanders went on their merry way, and I laughed and laughed and laughed. It was fantastic.

Eventually, with the evil exorcised and control of my weakened limbs regained, I struggled to my feet and walked back to work like a man on some incredible high. I greeted my co-workers with a smile on my face and a victorious spring in my step. The rest of the day could be nothing but easy. I owned the Giggle Loop.