At a relative’s funeral, I heard a child say, “Is Grandpa in the hope chest?” No uncontrollable laughter, but at least a few smiles. (And he would have thought it was funny, too.)
I was trying to figure out how to reply to that post. You beat me to it and did a much better job, short and sweet.
My high school graduation.
Being as I was in student council, I sat next to one of my close friends (and one of the funniest people I know) on the stage, facing my 900+ classmates, as well as their friends and family.
At rehearsal the day before, everyone runs through their speeches to iron out any potential kinks.
Well, our valedictorian had his speech thematically connected to a Third Eye Blind song. (Yes, I know.)
He managed to work in the title of the song in virtually every other sentence throughout his address, and it was just so… dumb. As his rehearsal progressed, we started laughing a bit, and we spent the remainder of the day dropping the title of the song in all of our conversations.
I went home and told my dad about the speech, making fun of the constant repetition of the phrase.
So, the night of graduation, I’m already laughing internally, knowing that all of our classmates are going to hear this thing for the first time, and my friend is sitting next to me, nudging me and kicking my chair, since we were trying to set each other off, as the valedictorian starts his speech. I was tittering, but I’d like to think I was fairly well behaved.
It wasn’t until I look up in the arena, and I see my dad, with the biggest grin, and it causes me to lose control., which then in turn, sets my friend off. I look into the crowd, and I can see some of our friends looking at us, and they start to lose it, too.
Was never reprimanded for the lack of composure, because, at that point, what can they really do.
To this day, I laugh a little whenever I hear “How’s It Gonna Be?”
Funeral (I sense a theme) for a dear friend of the family. I was really weepy during the service until one of her daughters misspoke during the responsorial psalm:
“You are there with your cook and your staff, with these you give me comfort.”
I tried to stifle a laugh. I couldn’t. My mother also lost it.
This had me laughing my (American) arse off all day yesterday. I had a bunch of serious, stressful meetings and – I guess it was in the very spirit of this thread – would get little giggles when I thought about your post.
I had to read this closely a few times to see that it was “cook” and not “cock” ![]()
My mother gave a talk at a church meeting in the 1970s that included some section about being kind to all “living, breathing organisms” as a means of honoring God – except she slipped and said “orgasms.” There was a lot of chortling amongst older teens and adults who caught this. We still tease her lo these decades later.
Ha!
If she had said “cock” then I definitely would have been laughing, but I doubt my mom would have joined in. ![]()
Being kind to all living breathing orgasms sounds like my kind of worship.
One of the reasons my family does so many of the readings in our usual churches is that we, well, we actually can read. As in, we can read a text we haven’t had time to study, without tripping, without mispronouncing and without turning questions into exclamations or congratulations into complaints.
For some reason a lot of people who have no problem pronouncing eclesiástico (“related to a church”) butcher eclesiastés (one of the books of the Old Testament) sixteen ways to Thursday. Instead of the start being (Spanish phonics) “e-kle” in both, they try to go for “ez-le”, “ek-k-kle”, “ez-kle”, “eeeee-ek-kle”…
A few sundays ago, the woman doing the reading was on her fourth attempt at the dreaded word when I mumbled “e-kle-sias-téeeees…” Mom had time to go outside before exploding and was able to come back, sufficiently subdued, before the Gospel started. And that, my children, is how family in-jokes are born.
I think Anton LaVey had a bit of orgasm scripture in his Gospels . . . ![]()
I used to work in a laboratory for a Chinese born manager. In our work the word results came up often. Our manager always very clearly said resorts.
In time we all hardly noticed it, until, in a particular meeting he said it and I giggled, then another person giggled, then he said it again, more giggles then he asked “what’s so funny?” lots of giggles.
I felt bad, he was a good guy, it would have been hard to explain to him why we were laughing.
My extended family was gathered around my grandfather’s hospital bedside. He was in and out of consciousness on his way to being called to his great reward. My cousin, trying to be helpful, procured a phone book and was calling funeral homes inquiring about cremation services. They asked him a question and he responded: “No, just bare bones.” We all bust out laughing. A nurse walked in looking confused as to why we were so merry. Grandpa would have laughed too.
Thought of another one from earlier this year.
Grandfather began suffering from dementia, and would often ask the same questions repeatedly, literally within 15 seconds.
It annoyed some people and family members, but my parents and I took it in stride. He would ask things like where I was living, who my dad’s high school coach was, how long my parents have been married, etc.
The one that took the cake was when my grandfather asked my father (his son), “What are your parents up to? Are they still alive?”
My grandmother was shocked, but my dad just cracked this smile and responded that, yeah, he thinks they are. As the line of questioning continued (what are they doing, where are they living, etc.), we started laughing more and more. We finally got him to the point of realization that my father was his son, and he even laughed about it at that point (though I doubt he knew why).
It happened in 1981 (which, by the way, was 36 years ago) and I was only eighteen.
And I’m sorry about the second one–but if you could have seen that flimsy chair slowly collapsing…
I guess you had to be there.
When my boys were little (6 and 8) we had an elderly neighbor who was having issues with senility. Whenever he could elude his wife, he was apt to take off all his clothes and walk around the neighborhood until she found him and shepherded him back home.
My husband, at his most insensitive, referred to this neighbor as Mr Nudie, and of course, no matter how much I would shush him, my two little “pitchers” picked it right up.
At that summer’s block party, our neighbor, who was on a new medicine and dealing better with his issues, stopped to remark to my husband and I that we had two very mannerly boys. The youngest, who was standing with us, stuck out his hand to the gentleman and said as politely as he could “How are today, Mr. Nudie?”
I was lost. I laughed until the tears came and my husband was just as bad.