To Laugh is to Gaffe

Ever get those bursts of laughter over things that aren't necessarily all that funny but you just can't control yourself and the more you try to stifle it the more you feel like you are going to explode?

I remember one time when we were in church (I was probably a teenager) and this guy sitting in front of us was wearing sweatpants. Every time he stood up he had a wedgie and it was sheer torture for me and Colleen to try and hold in our grunts and giggles. We were nearly peeing our pants at some points. Even though we knew it was wrong / disrespectful to laugh in church and in the grand scheme of things this guy's wedgie was really not that funny, we just couldn't control ourselves and the more we tried to the worse it would get.

This laughter demon struck at work the other day. I was sitting at a microscope that has multiple eye pieces. About 6 or 7 people are gathered around this table looking at the same slide. Everyone is pretty quiet and serious. The guy sitting next to me is rather tall and he was kind of slouching over to look through the eye piece. I'm watching out of the corner of my eye as he struggles with the chair adjuster. He finally gets it and his chair abruptly drops down like 3 feet and I almost completely lose it. The other guy keeps on talking seriously as if he doesn't notice anything. Meanwhile the guy next to me is practically sitting on the floor and he is now frantically tugging at the adjuster and squatting above the chair to get it to raise back up with no success. He stands up, turns around, and starts trying to pull it up from above. I am trying everything not to make a noise but my whole body is shaking with the giggles and I feel like boogers are about to shoot out my nose. Luckily everyone is still looking through their microscope eye pieces and I don't think they noticed my stifled giggles and jagged breaths. He eventually gets the chair back up to the right level and the meeting continues on with no distraction, but I still can't help but crack up whenever I think about that.