I have to preface this by saying that my father was a very sober and controlled guy. You act right no questions asked. Particularly in church; sit quietly and no fidgeting or goofing around. It never even crossed my mind to do anything other than sit politely in church.
Until one Easter, when the offertory procession included a lamb cake on a tray, like this:
I had never seen one before and it struck me as hilarious. I got the giggles and of course it gets worse the harder you try to stop. The pew starts shaking from my laughter and the unprecedented happens: my father lets out a little puff of laughter. It spreads to my mom on his other side, and then to the people in the pew behind us. Thank goodness it was the offertory and the music would have been playing. :o
At my dad’s viewing, my youngest sister, who was closest to him, commented that she wanted to have him buried in a t-shirt that said “I died and all I got was this lousy t-shirt!”
We all pretty much lost it, and our little corner of the funeral home was definitely undignified. But we also knew that Dad would have cracked up at the comment, so I guess we came by our inappropriate humor honestly.
Another church one: My mom is very devout, my daughter and I not so much. We will attend service with her to make her happy. One Sunday, we had a visiting pastor. To say he was dull is an understatement. His sermon was intolerably boring. Half the church was dozing.
My daughter leaned towards me, cups her hand around my ear, whispers…
Meow!
I lost it. Absolutely lost it. I tried to get out of there as fast as possible, but I was in tears and snorting with laughter.
At least I woke everyone up.
Another funeral story. My cousin died young, in his 30s. While he wasn’t called the black sheep of this very conservative Mormon family, he had a much more interesting history than the others.
Rather than go on a Mormon mission like the rest of the boys, he joined the navy serving on the Midway based in Japan, and married a bar girl* from the Philippines. That marriage lasted until she got her green card. After that he got hooked up with a homeless single mother who had drug problems.
The guy was his worst enemy, but really a nice guy and everyone loved him.
His devout mother had an LDS funeral for him and the bishop was giving the eulogy. It was obvious that the bishop was clueless about my cousin, and was giving a long, rambling but generic description of a religious guy, something this cousin was not. Everyone was getting restless.
At one point another of the cousins leaned over and whispered to me “So when is he going to talk about the girls?” I was fighting for control when her five-year-old girl then asks in a loud voice, “What girls?”
We all lost it.
*Anyone in the Navy in that era will know exactly what a bar girl in the Philippines does. But he was a good guy.
This happened back in 1981 or so. I was in the Air Force and was just out of basic training and tech school and at my first assignment.
I worked in personnel and I sat right by the front door of our office.
The janitorial staff had mopped the floors and put up the “wet” signs so folks would know to be careful.
Anyway—this really large woman (who was civilian) and worked down the hall came in to talk to my boss. She had just gotten to my desk when she slipped on the wet floor. And it was more than a slip.
Do you remember those cartoons where the character slips on a banana peel and ends up in the air with feet kicking and arms waving. That is what happened.
She landed on her huge ass right in front of my desk.
And I broke out laughing. I didn’t mean to—but if you can imagine that cartoon, then you can understand why I lost control. I had tears steaming down my face. Everyone rushes to help her up, and I went around to help too, but I couldn’t stop laughing. It was a long time before she talked me again.
Another incident about 10 years ago (not in the Air Force as I had gotten out by then).
Down at my favorite bar and we had a pitch tournament going on. There was this extremely fat woman (who none of us liked) and she was playing.
We were all sitting at our tables and the chairs were not very sturdy. They didn’t have conventional legs on them, but were rather the newer ones with the folded metal that curved and stuff. Well, I had finished my game and was sitting at the bar and I happened to look over at her table. The chair she was in was slowly collapsing around her. It was sinking down and the arms were folding around her and I could see the panic in her face. Then THUD—she was on the floor totally trapped within the chair. So, naturally, I burst out laughing while everyone else runs to her rescue and tries to remove the chair that is wrapped around her body. Her fat legs kicking in the air air…The others were laughing, too, so I don’t feel too bad. The chair had to be thrown out.
A couple of years ago, my friend married this American girl. During the Father of the Bride’s speech, for reasons I can’t really explain, I kept cracking up at his pronunciation of Martin - the groom’s name. Of course, my best mate sat beside me noticed but didn’t attempt to calm me down - he was poking me in the back the whole time. I managed not to make too much noise, but I had tears running down my face at the end. At least I was in the corner of the room, far from anyone’s notice.
A few years ago I was supervising a Habitat for Humanity worksite. It was a cold, miserable February day and we were running propane heaters to make it tolerable. A young Americorps member stood a little too close to the open flame and the ragged edge of her torn jeans knee burst into flame. My first instinct was just to point and laugh. When I realized she didn’t have gloves on, I finally put her out. Fortunately she was wearing long underwear and wasn’t hurt. Not my finest moment.
When I was 13, one of my friends was killed by a drunk driver. It was my first really significant death and my community of friends was pretty devastated. They brought in a grief counselor to talk to us and for some reason we met in the gym, where we sat in a circle on the floor - I was sitting cross-legged.
We were talking about Very Serious Things, of course, and some people were crying as we shared our feelings. And then, in the middle of the counselor saying something… a little tiny fart tooted out of me completely by surprise. Tiny but definitely audible.
Pppfft!
While the counselor continued, my friend sitting next to me looked over at me with eyes wide and the beginnings of a smile on his face. He set me off and I started to giggle for a second before I could tamp it down. Not soon enough.
PPPFFFFT!
A second fart rang out, louder than the last. The counselor continued as my friend burst out giggling, setting me off giggling while I desperately tried to stop, but too late, I was in a vicious cycle of giggle farting:
PFFFFFT!
hahahhaha
PFFFFT!
hahahahahahaha
PFFFFFFFFFFFTTTT!!!
HAHAPFFFTHAHAHAHAPFFFFFFTTTHAHAHHAPFFFTTTHAHAHA!
Needless to say, the whole group stopped and stared until the storm subsided, including the counselor. It was simultaneously incredibly embarrassing and hilarious (but mostly embarrassing) and seemed to go on f o r e v e r. I do grin when thinking about it now.
PS. Fuck drunk drivers.
My Uncle Kopek was a 30 year AAC/Air Force soldier who spent another 30 years as a civilian advisor. He was lovingly known as Sarge and lived up to the title and he seriously made many a high-ranking officers career. The one thing he wanted was an honor guard when his time came and when it did Dover sent their best detachment.
The terribly young man in charge asked several of us who could speak and make decisions for the family and the 4 or 5 of us standing there at the time said pretty much any of us; we’re that kind of family and he didn’t have a wife or kids. So the young man asked if he could video tape (DVD really) it all so they could use it for training purposes. We all busted out laughing, told him sure no problem, and the young airman walked looking very puzzled.
My one cousin asked “Can you hear what I hear”?
I replied “Yeah – Sarge saying Damn Kids! Here I am just going underground and I still have to help teach them and wipe their noses”!
Not the best time or place. But for my uncle, totally appropriate.
Another church one: one of the last times I accompanied my mother to (Lutheran) church, I was about 13 and they sang a hymn with the sweetly-sung line “eat my body, drink my blood” - and I could barely hold back my laughter. Shaking, choking, tears, snot running down my face, the whole bit. I’d barely get it under control, and here’d come the line again. I don’t think I ever completely mortified my mother that much before or after.
A sort of mean one: my second wife had a green conure that (1) shit all over my office (including runnels down the back of bookcases I didn’t find for years) and (2) had the most godawful glass-shattering screech I’ve ever heard a creature make. When we separated, “Boo-bird” was one thing I was happy to see leave.
My ex also took my first Great Dane, who I missed much more than her owner. Then she acquired a second, larger one, Savannah.
A while along, I pick up my daughters for school. The younger one is sniffling and snorting. I ask her for the second or third time what’s wrong, and she bursts out, “SAVANNAH ATE BOO-BIRD!” and continued with inconsolable little-girl wails.
I couldn’t help it. I burst out laughing so hard I had to pull over. She laughs about it now, but Daddy had to do a LOT of explaining about how he was really sorry Boo-Bird had gotten… sorry… can’t type… still laughing too hard…
At my grandfather’s funeral service… I was really sad, crying off and on. The pastor that was leading the ceremony pulls out his acoustic guitar and starts singing a hymn, but his voice is absolutely terrible, he sounded like fozzie the bear, it was a totally unexpected signing voice compared to his speaking voice. I tried to hold the laughter in, but that just made me do that loud internal laugh/snort thing before busting. I couldn’t stop and had to walk off giggling/crying with my head down because I didn’t want to offend anyone. I’m sorry granddad!
I was sitting beside my aunt at the graveside service for my grandmother (my aunt’s mother). This particular aunt and I love to cut up and really shouldn’t sit beside each other at a circus, much less a funeral. Just as things were starting I leaned over and whispered “I wonder where the rest of him is?” as I pointed to a tombstone inscribed with the family surname “Head”. A few minutes later she whispered back “Found some!” as she pointed to a tombstone inscribed “Foote”. I’m sure MawMaw forgave us…
I was at a karate team thingy years ago where teams of novices from different studios did katas as a big group (about 50 folks in all).
After a few katas the leader said “okay, take a moment to relax before we start again.” A split second after this announcement my BFF, who was standing next to me, accidentally released a giant “BRRAAAAAAWFFFTPHTPHTBRAP [SIZE=“6”]A BRAP”[/SIZE] fart that seemed to last about two minutes and basically echoed throughout the gym.
In one of the best insty-retorts I’ve ever heard, the leader said “well, don’t relax THAT much!” Virtually everyone at the meet was rolling on the mats in laughter. It took a long time to get the scheduled events rolling after the Fart that Almost Killed Karate.
Some years ago I was in a graduate-level class on fluid mechanics. Complicated stuff delivered at break-neck speed by a crusty old perfesser; all very serious, you had to pay attention to keep your head in it.
The classroom was in a vintage building that still used steam-powered radiators for heat. One day during class a radiator out in the hall (or possibly in an adjacent classroom) began knocking. Loud, maybe once every six seconds or so, a little like this but slower and LOUDER. The sharpness of each knock, combined with a curing ringing reverb afterward, sounded like a blacksmith hitting an anvil with a hammer. I turned to my friend sitting next to me and said “that sounds like a blacksmith hitting an anvil with a hammer.” Suddenly my friend was struggling to contain laughter, and so was I. Each new knock from the radiator compelled another near-eruption of laughter; it was at least a couple of minutes before the radiator calmed down and so did we.
My grandfather’s funeral. All of my male cousins and I (9 of us, I’m the oldest and, um, most responsible?) are sitting in the front right pews as the pall bearers. We already smashed grampa into the doorway wheeling him into the church and are trying to suppress giggles over it. Our grandfather would have been laughing with us over it.
To pass the time in a non-laughing way, I pull out the hymn book and start flipping pages. I see one song named “Jesus in me, Arise.” Only the font they used for the book made it look like “Jesus in me Arse.” I giggle, and my cousin Shane, sitting next to me, looks over and inquires as to the reason for the giggle. I point to the title in the book, and he reads it out in a perfect Irish brogue. I lost it, howling in laughter.
Then the rest of my cousins wanted to know what it was. Shane gives them the page number. Now we’re all laughing, with the rest of the congregation scowling at us. Thank god (heh) the priests weren’t out yet, they would have tossed the nine of us out on our ears.
! That made my day.