Yesterday, my friend and I were chatting on instant message, and he told me he had two tickets he had to give up because of a date that had to get rescheduled. He had planned for them to go see Drunk Shakespeare, so he asked me if I was interested in taking the tickets.

“Drunk Shakespeare?” I said to him. “That sounds like it’s going to be funny. You know I can’t laugh right now. It hurts my ribs too much. And Chris hates Shakespeare, so he definitely wouldn’t go anyway.”

“You still can’t laugh?” my friend responded, confused. “How long are you going to go without laughing?”

That was the saddest conversation. I told him that post antibiotics when I was spending a lot of time with Chris’s cousins, we laughed so much that I’m sure it only exacerbated my rib pain. The idea of being in any situation where I have to laugh too much or talk too much is a road to more rib pain.