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When is the last time you laughed?
I’ve been staying in Miami, Florida now for the past year, and I must say that I have dubbed it, The City of Basic Humor.
People laugh here often. Thing is, sometimes I’m unsure if someone is laughing because they feel obligated or because they are truly feeling exuberant.
I hear a co-worker laugh at an age-old joke, and the laughter catches like wildfire. Soon, the whole office is laughing and I wonder, am I the only one here who has heard that before?
Maybe it’s my sense of humor that is old news. Or perhaps, being a writer has left me a little shell-shocked.
I think of working the counter of a convenient store back in Atlanta and how the migrant workers would just kinda look at me and smile with a few crumpled old bills in their hands.
The poor guys just wanted a can of beer after work, but I had to gingerly pluck the required currency from their unsteady fists with uncertainty.
In the meantime they’d just laugh and nod in a way that said, “I hope that is the right amount, because I wouldn’t know either way.”
Sometimes, a laugh is the only sure sign of polite compromise and understanding. Maybe, that’s why Miami seems to be the city of basic humor.