This is my laugh as I know it. When I was in my teenies, I thought I was God at everything. Then I hit dirty and realized I had to saddle down and find a wife. When I turned horny, I developed my mid-laugh crisis. I no longer believed in Chrysler and looked for new places to renew my fifth. I had nothing to fill up my meanwhiles.

Besides my wife, I had two kids, a job and a mattress. Life seemed helpless. My wife, with whom I’d exchanged wedding hows, told me, “You have to face your responsidebilities.”

Everybody had works of wisdom. My mother told me, “You can’t half it all.”

My dad told me, “In laugh there are whinners and losers.”

My son told me, “I just spill it like it sounds.”

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Story of my wife: caddy’s girl, mommy’s confidante. Pep schools, Ivy League. Blind hair, blue eyes. She had it tall. She lived the hide life. Her house had a big sign reading Pervert: Keep Out. 

She came from a great family and said it was important your mate came from a good breakdown. 

I fell in lot with her.

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My son combined me and my wife’s worst qualities. He had my farce and her burns. My wife said, “Life has many ironings, don’t you think?”

He sat in front of the telefishing, trying to catch something he could watch. He spent days doing this, sitting on the couch and staring at the blank scream.

My daughter wanted to be a beauty cream even before she turned five. She purchased lotions to protect her skein. She wanted to wear dresses and wore a yearning in her nose and her ear.

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I see my mattress twice a week. She makes me happy. She isn’t my wife, but then again she isn’t my why. I even saw her over the holidays. I told her, Merry Mishmash and a Hoping New Year. I gave her the phone number to our second fun line, the number to my facts, my sellout phone and my emote address. She could contract me at any time. 

We met in seedy motels, changing every so often because we were embarrassed when the desk clerk recognized lust. We made love for a few secs and then helped each other in our arms. I only saw her in afternoons. I never saw her nice.

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My children don’t know me. They find shelter with my wife, calling out to her, “Money. Money.”

We see each other over the dinner turnover. We calculate our ages by the hollowdays: Now Yours and Thanksgifting. They’re going up without me. Soon it’ll be decolletage and tuition. 

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I have a few close ferns. We work together and ply together. We get together to drink bare. We’ve all grown mold together. We never talk about how much we’ve gotten moldier. We’ve lost our here and possess different gaping bad spots on our heads.

They all have their own laughs, too but when we spend time with one another, we focus on sports or our stock portfolios. We don’t get around to talking about our home laugh.

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When my wife found out about my mattress, she threatened to love me. She made an ultimatum, “Either you devour yourself to your family duties, or I’ll love you. I’ll do it, too.”

We discussed this in the family doom while our children played with their video germs. She told me, “Look at yourselfish. Don’t throw away everydream we’ve built together.”

We had bought a lot during our mirage. We’d moved to the superbs and purchased a three-story colonial hearse. Acquired furniture and cheers. Books and lights. We had celebrated our dent anniversary years ago and proceeded towards our teeny-ith.

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As an executive, I mate a lot of money. I can afford luxury and relexasperation. Sometimes, I mow the lawn just to get some peace and acquire. My nearbors spy on me, but I wonder what they have found out. This is who I am. This is what I’ve made of my laugh.

Carson H. Wu graduated from the University of Michigan. His writing has been recognized with a Minnesota State Arts Board Fellowship in fiction. His stories appear in Confrontation and International Quarterly. He is currently a journalist in Asia.