Laughing Contest

It started as a silly idea at the annual summer fair.

The town had seen pie eating contests sack races and even a watermelon rolling championship but never anything quite like this.

The mayor announced a brand new event with a grin so wide it looked like he had been practicing for weeks.

Welcome to the first annual laughing contest he said.

The rules were simple.

Laugh the loudest laugh the longest or laugh the silliest.

Points would be awarded by a panel of three judges sitting at a folding table with clipboards and an expression that said they had no idea what they were in for.

The prize was a giant golden trophy shaped like a mouth mid chuckle and a fifty dollar gift card to the local diner.

People signed up faster than you could say giggle.

By noon the stage was set with hay bales for seating and a banner that read Who Will Laugh Last.

The first contestant was a teenager named Kyle who had a laugh that started as a squeak then turned into a high pitched whistle that sounded like a tea kettle about to boil over.

The crowd erupted before the judges even wrote anything down.

Next was Mrs Thompson the retired librarian who had a deep booming laugh that seemed to shake the hay bales and startle the pigeons perched on the barn roof.

Halfway through her turn one of the hay bales tipped over sending a small child rolling onto the grass in a fit of uncontrollable giggles.

The contest quickly descended into chaos.

One man tried to make his laugh sound like a siren which caused a dog in the audience to start howling along as if joining the competition.

A pair of twins performed a synchronized laugh that made them sound like a malfunctioning set of bagpipes.

Then came Benny the reigning champion of the pie eating contest who decided his best strategy was to combine laughing with animal impressions.

The result was a bizarre sequence of noises somewhere between a donkey and a chicken which made the judges double over and drop their clipboards.

A farmer named Pete took to the stage next and began a laugh so wheezy and slow that the audience thought he might fall asleep halfway through but then it exploded into a booming cackle that sent several people into tears.

The silliest moment of the day came when young Ella brought a whoopee cushion on stage and placed it under herself before beginning a laugh so loud it startled a nearby vendor into dropping a tray of cotton candy.

The sticky pink fluff floated away on the breeze while people scrambled to grab a piece between fits of laughter.

As the rounds continued the contestants became more competitive.

Some tried to make their laughs musical while others tried to tell bad jokes mid laugh just to keep the crowd going.

One man accidentally snorted so hard during his laugh that he toppled off the stage and into a pile of balloons sending them bouncing across the fairground.

By the final round the crowd was in tears from laughing so much.

The judges huddled together whispering while trying to wipe their eyes and regain enough composure to speak.

The mayor stepped up to the microphone and announced that the winner was Mrs Thompson for sheer volume and the ability to make even the mayor snort into his microphone.

She accepted the golden mouth trophy with a victorious roar of laughter that echoed across the fairground and seemed to bounce off the cornfields beyond.

Benny was awarded the runner up ribbon for creativity while Ella got a special mention for most unexpected use of a prop.

As the crowd began to leave people were still chuckling and mimicking the strange laughs they had heard during the contest.

Neighbors walked together down the dusty fairground path swapping stories of their favorite moments and promising to compete next year.

The mayor promised that next year the contest would be bigger louder and even sillier.

Vendors were already discussing laugh themed snacks and a local band offered to write a theme song.

Parents pushed strollers past the closing stalls while kids practiced fake laughs hoping to perfect their style for the next competition.

For now the town had learned something important.

Sometimes the best competition is the one where everyone wins just by showing up and laughing until their cheeks hurt.

Long after the sun dipped below the horizon and the fairground lights went out a few lingering voices could still be heard sharing quiet giggles under the summer sky.

And somewhere in the distance a dog howled again as if asking to be part of next year’s contest.