Laughing? Don’t fall for it

LAST year I wrote a Ramblings about the plovers nesting on my front lawn.

I called them Mr and Mrs P. Lover.

This year they are back and nesting on the same raised patch of grass.

We have a big yard and there’s some distance between the front deck and the road.

I was working and heard a knock on the front sliding door.

It was a salesman with clipboard and briefcase in hand.

I told him, no we were not interested in ‘going solar’.

He turned to leave, and I remembered the P. Lovers and the four speckled eggs between him and his car.

They’d let their guard down when he’d arrived or maybe they were off getting tucker ... who knows?

I decided to watch the show and it was quite the performance.

Poor dude, if it wasn’t hard enough cold calling and facing rejection after rejection, the plovers now had him in their sights.

As his foot hit the bottom step, the plovers clocked him.

Two, three, four steps in and swish, one plover to the left and one plover to the right.

There was a bit of distance yet to go and he was unwittingly walking in the direction of the eggs.

Oh dear, up went the briefcase and up went the clipboard as he ran trying to shield his face.

I was watching and cracking up, then just as he neared the end, he slipped and fell flat on his face.

The briefcase went left, the clipboard went right and he became horizonal.

The whole time I’m wishing I was videoing what I was seeing.

He was fine, it was a soft landing, but I imagine he’d said a few choice expletives when safely in his car.

Falling over is funny unless you’re the one on the ground.

The millions of video clips with just as many views on social media prove I’m right.

But why do we laugh when someone falls or hurts themselves unexpectedly?

Some say it’s nervous laughter and a way of distancing ourselves from the person who has fallen.

Laughter also means the person in question is being ridiculed and it is society’s way of setting boundaries.

AKA … stop, don’t do that!

Falling down as part of an act also elicits laughter.

Circus clowns, for example, pretend to walk into things and get knocked down.

They’re not really getting hurt; they are pretending and the audience knows it but still laughs.

Even videos for toddlers have silly fall or slip comedic content and perhaps that’s also a reason why we laugh as adults.

A Colorado psychologist reasons that seeing others get hurt is funny when the viewer doesn’t feel sympathy for the victim.

Content makers might get hurt but because they’re doing it on purpose, we don’t empathise with their shenanigans.

Some philosophise that laughter helps to maintain the rules of society because we learn to laugh at careless or eccentric behaviour.

Laughter is also a response that apparently calms the nervous system.

But it’s funny until it’s not and that’s when someone is genuinely injured.

Slap stick comedy actors and circus clowns are skilled at looking like they were injured when they weren’t.

I read that while plovers swoop at humans, they very rarely make contact.

I also read on an Australian government website that the best way to avoid getting swooped was to avoid plovers.

Well, duh.

Perhaps our ‘attack plovers’ are paying their rent as part time security guards on our property.

I’m hoping someone else turns up unannounced because this time I will be ready to film as they walk away.