First Bout of Uncontrollable Laughter

Last night, or I should say this morning I guess, at around 1:30 in the morning one of my roommates excused himself to use the restroom. As the room was already dark, I saw this as an amazing opportunity to scare him when he came back. I warned my other roommate, who was laying in his bed, about my plan and began executing it. I shut off the rest of the lights. I assumed my roommate would think nothing of it because it was late and I thought that he would think my other roommate and I went to sleep. I then hid in the closet that is closest to the door into our room. As I was anticipating my roommate’s return from the bathroom, my other roommate and I began to laugh uncontrollably. I could envision what was about to take place and my roommate’s reaction to being scared and I just began to shake with uncontrollable laughter. At this point my other roommate, the one lying in his bed (I know it gets a little confusing trying to follow which roommate is which, sorry about that), looked at me laughing uncontrollably and began to laugh himself. We were both picturing the events that were about to unfold in front of us. After we regained composure, the door opened and the light from the hallway made its way into our room. I began to shake with laughter once again and almost blew the whole operation but thankfully someone in the hallway called my roommate’s name and he had to go back outside. I finally collected myself once again. The door opened. I prepared myself for what was about to happen and waited a few seconds. I wanted my roommate to take a couple steps in the room so he could be aware of his surroundings before I scared him because I find that sometimes if people are confused, the effect of them being scared isn't as great as it can be. I also wanted to give the door a chance to close as much as possible, so it was as dark as possible. I finally jumped out of the closet and screamed as my roommate was walking by. His reaction was priceless. He reacted by dropping his jaw wider than anyone I have ever seen, bulging his eyes, raising his hands, and screaming at the top of his lungs. It had never occurred to me before this point that I might actually be putting myself in danger by doing this to him. When he raised his hands, I thought that he actually might hit me. I hadn't thought about that possibility before I thought of the plan. But, needless to say I laughed uncontrollably for about 3 minutes straight otherwise I wouldn't be writing this blog. Once I stopped laughing, I thought about his reaction and began to laugh uncontrollably once again. My roommate that was lying in bed also laughed uncontrollably as well at his reaction. The roommate that was scared, however, did not find this even to be particularly funny. I had expected him to act this way because we were gaining pleasure at his expense. He actually at one point told me he hated me. So, how were we each affected by this experience? Well the roommate that was lying in his bed and I got a great abs workout and the victim of my prank got the scare of his life time and was probably unable to fall asleep for a while because his body was pumping with adrenaline from his flight-or-fight response. So, it had a positive effect on two of us and a negative effect on one. And I guess it was only really humorous to my one roommate and me because we were not the victim of the prank. This makes me think that humor has to be something positive to be considered humor to people because my roommate who was scared certainly doesn’t think that the situation was humorous. I personally also think that humor can be used in negative ways to hurt people’s feelings or make them feel bad about themselves. But I think that in this situation, it is only perceived as humor to the people that are benefiting at the expense of the victim of the cruel humor. The victim certainly won’t find their version of humor funny. So I think that humor needs to be perceived as positive in order to be considered humor. Was this prank a bad thing to do? Was it cruel? I think that if I didn’t know my roommates as well as I do it would be a different story but because we are so close, I don’t think that this necessarily makes me a bad person. Of course, you are all entitled to your own opinions of whether this prank was a bad or good idea on my part.