Laughter Event 1

Date of Occurrence: 3/24/15

I tend to make innocent jabs at people for inventing their own seemingly universal hand signs for objects or events. One such event occurred during a Resident Assistant staff meeting for my residence hall. One of the females on our staff proceeded to tell a story reminiscing of her adventures in search of some establishment known for its combination of waffles and other food items. While she told this story with a sparkle in her eye, she mentioned the word waffle numerous times, for obvious reasons. Waffles with tacos, waffles with pasta, waffles with whatever you want. I decided to question the inflection of her voice when she mentioned "waffle", in addition to her odd hand motion. Her pronunciation of the word waffle was distorted and ended up sounding like "waaaa-full". The overwhelming excitement affecting her speech was not enough; she decided to invent some hand motion that accompanied the word waffle and what I can only assume she felt was an appropriate hand gesture for a waffle. The gesture, although unforgettable, is hard to depict verbally. Imagine your hands making two "C" like motions opposite of each other and ending with your arms crossed. In essence, it was akin to parabolic thug pose. I was perplexed, but interested in her motive for such motions, so I decided to ask a simple question. "When did that become the universal hand gesture for waffle?" The other staff members in the room burst into laughter, obviously in agreement.