Whlpped Cream and the Value of Fun

I’ve only just completed an introductory course to stand-up comedy and have one live show under my belt, so undoubtedly, I’m a tad short of the 10,000 hours of practice research suggests is needed to be considered an expert. Regardless, given the state of our mixed-up, messed-up world, I’m feeling some pressure to try to provide a diversion in the form of laughter.

Sadly, I just don’t have it in me today. But the good news is that I have an extensive archive. The post below was written years ago, but it remains a reminder of why fun and laughter are so important. Enjoy.

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While we didn’t need an excuse, a colleague’s birthday was the impetus for an informal, on-the-job get-together.

Rose, definitely the most culinary-gifted member of the team, made a to-die-for chocolate mousse cake piled high with fresh berries and shaved dark chocolate. Martha would have been proud to put her name on it.

Rose made it even better by bringing in her gourmet whipped cream charger - a steel cylinder-shaped container filled with nitrous oxide.

Apparently, nitrous oxide is used because it migrates easily into the cream so that when the cream dispenser’s valve is opened, the cream is forced out of the nozzle by the high pressure and instantly becomes frothy whipped cream.

While Carol, the birthday girl, heard Rose’s admonition to make sure the nozzle was pointed downward, she somehow missed the ‘Go slow’ part of the instructions. Being serious about her whipped cream, Carol diligently pointed the canister downward and pushed down - hard.

For those who weren’t there, it helps to visualize the force of the erupting whipped cream, knowing that these chargers are also used as a source of nitrous oxide for small, powerful model rockets. It was this force that startled Carol into jerking the charger to one side, thereby unleashing a spew of whipped cream that shot across the room.

Of course, it didn’t all make it across the room because some of the whipped cream was blocked - by my face.

It also splattered down the front of our boss, who was sitting beside me. Most of the whipped cream was captured in his lap.

The whole incident took place so quickly and so unexpectedly that everyone absolutely lost it, erupting into such uncontrolled, belly-rolling laughter that some knees needed to be crossed.

I think Carol apologized, but given her giggling snorts, it was hard to tell for sure.

Every time the laughter tapered down, there’d be yet another comment that would set us off again. By way of example, someone asked the boss how he was going to explain the whipped cream in his crotch area to his wife when he got home. That set us off again. When we finally regained some semblance of sanity, we were still smiling - struck by how unbelievably good we all felt.

It was a clear and important reminder that fun and laughter are amazingly therapeutic and something we all need, especially in tough times.

I also learned that people doing great things also tend to be people having great fun doing them.

That made me realize that I have to get past thinking that fun is simply a diversion. Instead, I have to consider it a road map to great things.

So what do we do if we aren’t all that good at having fun? How can we find more of it?

Thinking about and writing down the things you remember doing as a child that were fun or made you laugh is a good place to begin. Ask others what they do for fun. Pay special attention to the things that absorbed you completely and made you lose track of time. There are clues in your answers that will help you find, or perhaps rediscover, what will bring you fun.

The challenge for each of us is to answer the question, “What am I doing for fun? What makes me laugh? If you can’t answer it, or if you don’t have any whipped cream handy, you have some serious work to do. Or is that serious fun?

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