The Laughter Contagion

    Three old men sat playing checkers and drinking tea early in the morning. Whenever joggers ran by they resumed their intended pastime of jeering at them and making fun of their shoes. Unfortunately for them, the new neighbor, Raquel, was also a runner, and when they mocked her shoes, she abruptly removed them from her feet and threw them at the faces of the two playing checkers.

    The third old man upon witnessing this, burst out laughing, spilling his tea all over the checkerboard and into the laps of the other two. Raquel continued her run in bare feet, and so didn't see the remainder of their interaction, but that interaction was as follows.

    The one with a now-empty glass laughed even harder when the other two stood up looking like they had experienced incontinence again. They were furious at first, but the laughing man's dentures fell out into his glass, and he laughed even harder. Contagious as it was, the other two couldn't hold their smiles back anymore, and they too began laughing uncontrollably.

    The three of them ignited each other's laughter until they all did in fact experience incontinence. When Raquel passed by them again returning home, she saw them laughing, now each with pants much darker than when she passed by earlier, and she was sure it wasn't the lighting.

    Once again, the contagion of the laughter struck, and Raquel found herself rolling in the middle of the street. One by one the neighbors stepped out to inspect the matter, but it was to their demise as each one found themselves bent over on their porch, clutching their abdomens.

    The contagion spread thus throughout the region, then the continent, and eventually throughout the whole world. As emergency personnel are able, they each give their best attempt to address the situation, but none last more than a minute. To this day it remains the most highly contagious, yet least fatal epidemic to strike the world in human history.