On finding laughter in all things

I'm not sure I've mentioned this here, yet, but I live in my aunt's basement. This is relevant information because my aunt's basement gives me the creeps pretty badly, so sleeping down there is a pretty brave thing for me. Well, I was talking to my aunt the other night about ghosts and whether there were any in the house we're living in, now. I mentioned to her that I occasionally got the feeling that something like that was down in the basement, but that I wasn't sure. One thing I did know what that there was an occasional tapping on my wall from the attached room that was unexplained (creepy as hell at 2am, in a dark basement).
Well, the other day, she insisted on checking it out, just in case it was a mouse or something that was getting ready to tip over or something. I stood behind her as she delved down behind a bunch of old boxes she was keeping against that wall. Suddenly, she let out this piercing, blood-curdling scream that made me jump about a foot and sent my heart and adrenaline racing like crazy. Scared the shit out of me. She straightened up and looked at me with a big grin on her face like she had just won the best prize in the competition (I had to say, she definitely topped grandma suddenly appearing out of the dark while I was brushing my teeth). Instead of getting pissed off, like I normally would have done, I just laughed. It was mainly out of relief, but I could also appreciate her cleverness in taking advantage of the situation: I'm scared to death of things that go bump in the night, and she used that delicious little factoid as leverage for comedy's sake.
This moment also made me a bit less scared of being down in the basement at night--she put comic relief to something that was bothering my sleep, so now I'm able to sleep much better. It's odd how that works, but it's also proof: laughter really can be the best medicine, especially to emotional sickness, like fear.