There’s a reason the phrase “nervous laughter” exists – and it’s because sometimes our poor, puny human brains get overloaded with awkwardness to the point that all we can do is laugh.
If you’ve ever caught the giggles at a totally inappropriate moment – and who hasn’t – you’re going to feel right at home reading these 14 stories.
14. I mean technically…
Some older kid at my school ended up in a coma after taking N2O (i think he ended dying so it’s a pretty dark story) and one of the principals came into an assembly and angrily declared “Nitrous Oxide is no laughing matter!”
I think most of us were too young to know that nitrous oxide is laughing gas but for some reason I knew so everyone was silent/scared of the angry teacher, and I was just there trying not to laugh audibly.
13. You ask, you get an answer.
When I was a 2nd year law student, I had a classmate abruptly get up, mid-lecture, and waddled quickly out of the lecture hall.
There were about 90 students in the lecture and, in law school, the academic approach is the Socratic method, which is usually the professor and one student going 1:1 during the course of a lecture/class.
The dude comes back into the classroom and the professor abruptly halts his current line of questioning with another student. I’m front of the class, the professor asks the returning student, “is everything okay?”
The student responds “bad chipotle” and walked back to his seat. I spent the rest of the lecture period giggling through the professor grilling students about family law.
12. Now I can’t stop laughing.
During a cathedral Confirmation liturgy, the Bishop let out a resounding fart in the reverberant room as he elevated the host.
Immediately, the Deacon began swinging the incense pot (thurible) because the altar boys kneeling directly behind the bishop started holding their noses and waving their hands.
11. What did they expect?
In Highschool there was three religion courses you could pick: catholic, evangelic (edit: I’m told it’s protestant in English) or neutral. You would have different topics in class and different destinations on the yearly trip.
I picked catholic and on the yearly trip we went to a monastery. On the third day one of the exercises was to talk about death, so there’s 20 kids in a circle of chairs and everyone’s crying because everyone lost a loved one at some point and death is a hard topic.
The teacher starts talking about how she imagines death to be like and begins to tell: “I imagine after dying there to be a long long spiral staircase. And you go down and down until there’s a door and behind that door…” The rest I didn’t hear because my friend next to me whispers:
A muhf**ken kebab-stand” We both sat there giggling for like 20 more minutes until the meeting was over. To this day I feel really bad.
10. Emotions are hard.
My senior year of high school I went to this memorial breakfast with my principal and a few other seniors because my principal was begging a few of us to go and hey, free breakfast.
So getting to the end this woman starts singing an incredibly moving song, and she’s doing beautifully. But I look over at my principal and he just looks so dead. Like his face was completely blank and because I also don’t deal well with emotion apparently, I thought it was the funniest thing ever.
So while this lady is singing and some people are crying I am losing my mind and trying so hard to stop laughing and I can’t. My friends thought I was having a complete mental breakdown, like I’d finally lost my mind or something.
I felt absolutely horrible about it and ducked out as soon as I could.
9. Trying to laugh quietly hurts.
Was sat at dinner with friends this week & one of the kiddos was saying they had extra stomachs for some particular food. Started talking about how cows had extra stomachs. Then somehow it got to comparing humans & cows & one of them said in the brightest, most angelic voice, “But mum doesn’t have udders!” I made the mistake of glancing at her husband & I swear the filthy twinkle in his eye was audible.
Thank f**k I have long hair – I dropped my head down to look at my plate, so my hair covered my expression & sat there with my shoulders shaking silently.
He asked in a rather amused voice if I was OK as I appeared to be vibrating.
Couldn’t fu**king breathe.
8. I bet he’s still single.
On the best date of my life I went to see a really stupid movie A Walk To Remember (Edit cause many are asking) with my first girlfriend. We were sitting in the 4th to 5th row from the screen and two rows ahead of us were a group of younger girls.
One of them is rushing back to her seat with her friends and she slips and falls. It was a nasty fall too and even though I felt bad for her I couldn’t stop laughing. It was awful. I don’t know why I couldn’t stop and I was even like, “god I know I shouldn’t laugh but that’s just making me laugh harder.”
It took me at least 10 minutes to stop.
Girl who fell. If you’re out there somewhere I hope my laughing didn’t make you feel bad. To this day I still don’t really get why it was so damn funny to me.
7. Well deserved.
Used to be a member of student Council back in college and this one time during a meeting with the campus Dean who was explaining (very seriously) how some students were sh**ting on the toilet walls and throwing literal s**t on the toilet ceilings which were building up expenses for cleaning.
Was asked to give ideas on how to tackle the issue and I clearly remember trying not to laugh and holding it in perfectly but then as I made eye contact with a friend of mine in the council we bursted out laughing to the point where our stomachs started to hurt which lead to other members of the council laughing out loud.
It was the first time meeting the campus Dean aswell after that anytime I’d see him he’d give me a dirty look.
6. You know they wanted to.
I would prefer the laughing!! One time me and an ex set up a hammock stupid high in the middle of his yard and when I got off I fell and landed back first on the metal support rod on the ground. In front of his whole family.
They just stared and didn’t say anything lmfao i would have felt soooo much better if they just laughed with me
5. A legend for sure.
My Grandad had “If you don’t know me by now” played as the curtains closed at his funeral.
Shouldn’t have laughed. Couldn’t help it. Legend.
4. Laugh so you don’t cry.
I was in a local support group for friends and relatives of people with bipolar disorder. One person was relating the story of her older teenage daughter who, in a manic episode, grabbed a flashlight and took it upon herself to stand in a downtown intersection and direct traffic, until she was picked up by the police and taken to the hospital. (I kind of covered my mouth and pretended I was having a coughing fit and excused myself to go to the restroom)
Another person her younger teenage daughter was in the emergency room getting stitched up after an episode of self-harm. One of the nurses was mean and implied she was a waste of space as opposed to the “real” patients and said “You’re just doing it for attention, right?” The daughter, irritated, said “Yes, now gimme!!!!!”. I was able to not laugh at that one, but it was a close call.
3. Absolutely painful.
When I worked with a financial advisor, he misspoke and asked me to check a client’s “investment in black c*ck”, instead of Blackrock (an industry fund).
He didn’t realise what he’d said, and he was super big on maintaining a professional, humorless working environment, so I couldn’t point it out. I managed to keep a straight face long enough to excuse myself, then spent 15 minutes wheezing in a spare office.
2. Funerals can be funny.
My mom’s funeral service. It was just at the funeral home, but we had a priest since my parents are/were Catholic. My dad is severely disabled, so he was only brought in for the actual service part of the whole shebang. We had calling hours first, then a 15 minute service-no church funeral as it would have been too much for my Dad.
So, my dad is sobbing, which was really hard and the Priest was very kind and was comforting him before the service. I stood next to my Dad’s stretcher and held his hand. Then, the service started.
Anyone remember those old Fed Ex or Micro Machines commercials? I think he retired and became a priest. “Inthrnameofthefathersonandholyspiritweblessthiswoman…”
It looked like I was crying for my departed mother, but I was biting my cheeks so hard to keep from laughing that the tears started. I had to walk outside right after so I could let it all out because I couldn’t hold it in anymore.
Before my Dad’s brain injury, he would have been right outside laughing with me 🙂
1. Calls for a breather.
When I was like 17 I worked at an Ace Hardware. I found a guy looking at construction adhesives and sealants with the most confused look on his face, so, I ask him what’s up.
“I am looking for caulk…” (heh)
“…it needs to be black…” (heh heh)
“…and I need it to stay hard.” (trying really hard to hold it together now)
“One minute sir, while I find the guy that works in this department.”
I run off and find the guy that knows caulking and bring him back introducing him to the customer as our “resident caulk expert”, and the customer nods at him approvingly. I then escape to the breakroom where I am dying laughing trying to blubber explain something about hard black cocks to my other coworker.
Wow, I’m…I think I’m laughing now, too.
If you’ve got a great story to add to this list, please share it with us in the comments!
