Crying tears of happiness | Lisa Scottoline

I cry when I vote.

And I blame the internet.

Let me explain.

I voted in the midterms last week, and I cried.

I cry every time I vote.

I have no idea why.

I can tell you that I'm happy.

Not sad.

I look around at the polling place, and nobody else is crying.

And I wonder, why is nobody as happy as I am?

What's wrong with me?

Or what's right?

Sometimes I think I cry because I know people fought and died so that I could vote, or sometimes I cry because there are so many people who can't vote, or maybe I cry just because it's a moving experience.

But I'm having way too many moving experiences.

I cry all the time.

Because I'm so happy.

For all of this, I blame the internet.

Because there are a million things online that make me so happy I could cry.

The internet is training me to cry all the time.

Let's start with videos.

Like the one where the two men disentangle an owl whose wings got caught in a construction fence.

I cry like a baby at that one.

I'm worried about the owl, and by the end of the video, I want to marry the men.

They could be Thing Three and Thing Four.

And then there's a video where a man finds a raccoon stuck in a tarp over his car, and the man frees the raccoon.

Lost it over that one.

And how about the one with the people who get the baby ducks out of the sewer?

Don't even show me a baby duck.

I burst into tears.

Anytime an animal is getting saved, I need a Kleenex.

Most of these videos are on a site called the Dodo, and I cannot live without the Dodo.

Or maybe I should because my eyes are red all the time, from happiness.

Then there are sites that show baby animals of all kinds.

I tear up at most of them.

And if one of them is dressed up, forget about it.

Have you ever seen a hedgehog in a jumpsuit?

I have.

I'm not crying, you're crying.

And what about the video of the baby bear climbing the mountain to his mother.

Stop it right now.

I watched that three or four times. I was supposed to be writing a suspense novel.

That video was more suspense than anybody could handle.

And then there are the videos of pygmy goats.

Pygmy goats are always doing something that will make you cry.

They jump around, spin in the air, climb on each other, or just spring up and down.

All at the same time.

So you know where this is going.

Mommy needs a pygmy goat.

Don't forget the unlikely animal-friendship videos.

A dog is friends with a duck, I'm crying.

A pig is friends with a dog, I'm crying, too.

There's an orphaned rhino whose best friend is a pygmy goat.

I feel you, rhino.

And how about that baby elephant who gets stuck in the water trough? He's upside down, about to drown, until his whole herd comes to rescue him.

No one can survive that.

Not the water, the video.

Not the elephants, the humans.

This human.

I cry at plenty of videos without animals, too.

I'm an equal-opportunity sobfest.

Anytime a soldier comes home to his dog, I cry my eyes out.

Or when a soldier surprises his kid at school — don't ask.

I really cry at the videos where the kids find out they got into college.

They're what makes this country great, like voting.

I cry because I'm lucky to be an American.

I cry because I'm lucky to be alive.

I cry because I have great WiFi.

I'm inconsolably happy.

Look for Lisa and Francesca's new humor collection, "I See Life Through Rosé-Colored Glasses," and Lisa's number-one best-selling domestic thriller, "After Anna," and her new Rosato & DiNunzio novel, "Feared," in stores now. lisa@scottoline.com.