Alexandra and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day

{Unrestrained Laughter #1}

     I get sick quite often and when I do, it is no laughing matter. 

     In the spring of my freshman year, I came down with the worst flu I have ever gotten in my life.  My throat and stomach were killing me, I legitimately could not speak (I sounded like Olaf without even trying), my nose was running uncontrollably, and I was achy and lethargic.  It was bad. 

     I ended up going to the health center to figure out what was wrong with me.  Of course, the health center could not decide what I had, so they told me they needed to perform a variety of tests on me to pinpoint my sickness.  I had to get my finger pricked, a flu test (where they stuck an incredibly large stick up my nasal cavity), and a throat swab.  It was the worst day ever.  You may wonder what they ended up finding out.  The answer to that question is nothing.  They said they thought I had a virus, but they could not do anything about it (what a wonderful assessment).

     Consequently, I had a terrible cough and could not stop coughing all day and night.  To make it worse, nothing was helping.  I ended up drinking over a half a bottle of cough syrup (over the span of a few days) that was virtually powerless.  My roommate and the entire hallway wanted to kill me because no one could sleep, with my loud cough booming through my thin dorm room walls. 

     What did I do?  I decided to sleep in my dorm’s lobby all night.  Mind you, it was a Friday night so the entire hall thought I was either so drunk I could not find my way to my room or I did not live there and decided to crash there for the night.  I brought my box of tissues, a bag of cough drops, and my pillow to the common room and with all my will, tried to stop the horrifying uproar that billowed from of my chest every few seconds. 

     When Saturday morning rolled along, there was no lack of questionable stares.  For the most part, I pretended to be asleep, while the entire TCU population judged me silently. 

     Finally, I woke up from my uncomfortable slumber to see both my roommate and friend staring at me wide-eyed.  We all started laughing uncontrollably and my friend showed me the picture she took of me earlier in the morning (picture attached below).  To this day, everyone can get a laugh out of my freshman year dorm nightmare.

     The Incongruity Theory is at the root of this story.  The Incongruity Theory is based off of the idea that humor violates conceptual patterns.  Thus, amusement is caused by a mismatch between expectation and perception.  My friends and I laughed because it was unexpected that I slept in my dorm’s lobby.  Sleeping in the common room was the cognitive shift.  It was a sudden, unexpected violation of expectation. 

     My friends ended up calling my sickness “The Infamous Swine Flu.”  It was the flu that took a week to get rid of and forced me to sleep in my dorm’s lobby.  It also prompted my mom to send me enough McAlister’s meals to feed my entire hall (we had five pints of soup and buckets of macaroni and cheese in our refrigerator for a month).  Yet, it also made for a lot of laughs and a wonderful story to tell people. 

     I will forever remember the night I spent in my dorm’s common room, complete with confused stares, too much cough syrup, and a memory that will never fail to make me laugh.

Pictured above: My long night spent 

in the common room