most inappropriate time you have laughed/smiled?

[SteveArt]

i think for me , when i was in school i used to smile when i was being told off.

mosret I am proper at that!

I'm not a teacher but am in schools a lot due to my job. Was sat at the back of class of little ones (doing a supposedly unobtrusive classroom observation) who were doing rhyming words, hat, cat, bat etc and one boy came out loudly with SHAT! I kind of snortlaughed and covered it up with a cough. Another time a little girl of about 5 told me that " we're not allowed to swear in school, but I know some, the worst one is FOOK!" God knows how teaching staff manage.

At my eccentric aunties funeral, she never opened her house curtains for as long as I can remember, sat between my mum and another auntie as the music started to play for the curtains to close they jammed wide open cue us in hysterics with tears streaming down our faces trying not to let out huge belly laughs

If anyone's ever sat in a class of Y7/8s reading Room Thirteen aloud, you'll know the silent agony of trying not to guffaw at the numerous double-entendres that I'm positive Robert Swindells (author) inserted to test staff's patience.

When I was at school we had a very senior, and very scary, deputy head as a stand-in one day. We were supposed to be silently reading The Machine Gunners while he got on with Very Important Paperwork. I reached the part where the next door neighbour runs into the shared Anderson shelter just after a bomb has landed, with her knickers round her ankles, and snorted then howled with laughter at the mental image it evoked of what must have happened to her. The deputy head raised an eyebrow and glared at me, but one by one the entire class reached the same paragraph and we all started silently weep with suppressed laughter.

Ditto when I had to read aloud the line, "Edgar made a slop in his saucer" during a very serious A level lesson on Wuthering Heights. I'd gone for the rest of the hour.

The one I remember most is when I was about 14 at school, doing a two minute silence for remembrance. As soon as the silence started I just knew I wanted to laugh. It was excruciating I kept pinching myself under the desk to try and stop but it built up and I eventually burst out laughing with only about 30 seconds to go. I was severely bollocked and made to wait outside the classroom.

Me and my dad were ina fit if laughter as we walked out to greet the funeral cars of my aunty I feel bad about it now. There was no ill intent with it.. and it wasn't a nervous reaction.. just inappropriate!

Funeral - fell over right in front of the family, you know the bit when you're queuing up to pass your condolences on...right there! On both knees, My Mum burst into laughter and I couldn't control myself - family obviously didn't find it funny so Mum and I were ushered away - awks!

Went to a small theatre with a few friends on a whim. Staff almost didn't let us in because the play had just started but told us to go in quietly. So we crept in, hunched down, following my friend in front who for some reason was making a bee line for the front seats. There was a man on stage in robes citing a long dramatic monologue. We slowly realised there were only about 3 other spectators.

The fact that we ended up sitting inches away from the actor on stage, plus the fact that we had to sneak in combined with the the theatre being practically empty did it for me. I stated giggling into my coat and my friend next to me started. He tried to cover it up by coughing which just made it worse. I thought I was going to die laughing and we just felt so stuck there although in the end we just got up and left, crying with laughter all the way out.

This was about 20 years ago and I remember it so well as it was mortyfying - that poor actor! If you'd offered me a million quid to stop laughing I still wouldn't have been able to though!

Someone told me their mum had died, he took the piss about anything and everything all the time and he had a dark sense of humour, so I assumed it was a joke, I smiled and half giggled before I realised he wasn't joking and that I was a terrible person.

My DGM laughs at really inappropriate times, it’s basically a nervous thing for her and she truly can’t help it. Problem is, when she cracks up it makes me laugh too and most other people around her. It’s quite amusing really, like something from a comedy sketch .

She told me her sister had been diagnosed with a brain disorder a few years ago which caused her to randomly start running and have an inability to stop. Of course this caused accidents at times, she would run into things etc. DGM burst out laughing as she told me so I laughed too, it was awful and inappropriate but I still kind of laugh thinking of it now.

We just bought a house off an elderly lady with dementia. The estate agent laughed as she told us about a particular sentence the lady would repeat. I don’t think she meant to be so cruel, it truly was an awkward laugh but that made us feel quite odd...

We were visiting the in-laws at Easter many years ago when they suggested we go to a small, beautiful church in the south west. The organist had finished playing the intro, the choir master’s hands went up to bring in the choir and nothing happened. Not a peep out of them. I immediately burst out laughing pretending to cough and nudged my husband for his handkerchief so I could try and stifle the wails I was suppressing. I cried with laughter and hung my head as low as I dared all the while clutching my pregnant belly in some vain attempt to garner a modicum of sympathy.
Oh the shame.

I was at a church christening with my ex and we had the booklet with all the poems and hymns in. He started sniggering about the words of 'All things bright and beautiful'. When it came to singing the line with 'the purple headed mountain' we were both shaking with laughter. Luckily we were drowned out by the singing and hopefully no one noticed.

I went to Canada for a friends wedding and the best man during his speech stumbled over his words and morphed the bride and grooms names into one, Brangelina style. He called the bride and groom Jiz.

All I could do was lower my head and shake violently as I tried to stifle my laughter. The tears were streaming down my face and a mutual friend had to literally turn his back on me so I wouldn’t set him off. I managed to hold the big guffaw until he finished and everyone was applauding his speech and looking awkwardly at the Canadian guests wondering if jiz means the same thing over there as it does over here.

Also had a good giggle at the minister at my papas funeral, a man who is a bloody awful public speaker for someone who’s job is essentially public speaking, calling my 93 year old papa a happy raver. I can’t for the life of me remember what he was meant to say but it wasn’t a happy raver.

When my friend and I went to step class. We were (and still are) wildly unfit, and always made sure we were at the back of the class so others would watch our beetroot red sweaty faces grimace as we lugged our lardy arses about.

Good plan, except when on one of the higher intensity step moves friend slipped and went flying backwards straight into all the circuit bikes lined up behind us.

She made a huge wailing sound as she got wedged arse first with arms and legs scrunched in front of her so she couldn't move them to grab anything and pull herself up.

The instructor turned the music off, stopped the class and ran over to help her, with the entire class staring at her.

I was absolutely useless as I was doubled over weeping with laughter physically unable to speak as I was laughing so hard.

It made it worse friend has exact same sense of humour but on this occasion it failed her and she sat very stony face (and at first a bit confused) while she was wedged in and then inched out.

I'm laughing with tears in my eyes typing it it was so funny

Viewing a house my DH tripped over the back step and whacked his eye on the corner of a washing line, in embarrassment he said 'what are the neighbours the like?

'Well they're deaf, but we never hear them!'

We had to leave quickly

About 15 years ago, there was a health and safety awareness session where I worked at the time. The guy delivering had a deathly dull presentation style, and one of his more outlandish (although very probably true) tales of horror involved a old lady who had been fatally injured slipping on dog shit on the steps of a well-known high street bank.

These two things combined to make me absolutely hysterical. I desperately tried to conceal my mirth, but my diaphragm seemed to go into spasm, and I ended up making these strange "hurp...hurp...hurp" noises.

Oh I love all these tales. My sister's wedding degenerated into an hysterical mess....she started laughing, then her DH to be did...standing up there in the registry office. Then the "audience" joined in AND the celebrant.

We were all pissing ourselves for about 5 long minutes. Then the celebrant managed to get it together. "This is a very solemn occasion"

Just made it worse!

These are wonderful. And it's also worth remembering, if you're the sort of person who's prone to getting horrifically outraged about other people's behaviour, that someone laughing at a sad or solemn moment often really can't help it: it's an extremely normal reaction to shock or strain.

(And it's actually quite Good Practice for a funeral celebrant to put at least one funny story into the tributes, because most people have a sense of humour and a lot of the ones we love and miss the most are people who would see the funny side. At my mate's funeral a couple of years ago, one of the undertakers, who looked quite young and probably new to the job, fell over a wreath just after putting the coffin on the catafalque - my dead mate would have been howling at that.)

Another funeral one.

Many years ago my fil's brother died (so dh's uncle). They attended his funeral, along with many other people. Fil sat with my dh and dh's bro, amongst other relatives.

It was a 'rent-a-vicar' doing the service so they were reading from a script with the decedent's name inserted into the relevant blank spaces and other blank spaces filled in with relevant details etc. Everything was fine until there were a few sentences which were celebrating various aspects of dh's uncle's life. It went like: "We are here to celebrate the life of (insert name). The life of (insert name) was long and fulfilled. The life of (insert name) touched many people, as evidenced by all the people here. The life of (insert name) ..."

Great, except dh's uncle was called Brian and dh, bil and fil are all Monty Python fans. So for a short while every sentence was The life of Brian this, the life of Brian that... dh, bil and fil tried not to giggle at first, but every time the vicar said "The life of Brian..." they'd think of Monty Python hilarity and the giggles got worse and worse, until they couldn't help laughing. What seemed to make it even funnier was the vicar hadn't realised the connection and was delivering it in a very serious manner, made them howl even more for some reason.

They managed to mask it behind handkerchiefs, some friends and relatives even commenting on the fact they must have been really close to have cried so much in church. There was also much hilarity later when discussing it with other relatives who knew about Monty Python, turned out some others had to stifle their laughter in the church service too.

Also, mil died last year and dh organised the order of service etc. bil proofread it etc. and he was doing a reading and prayer at the end. Even though he'd helped sort out the order of service bil hadn't realised he was doing the prayer! Cue he realised a couple of minutes beforehand and panicked a bit, we who knew found this funny for some reason and had to stifle our giggles. Fil did also find it funny when told later!

In appropriate smiling I guess. Yeah, another funeral one. At my dad's funeral. The dopey guy taking the service kept on about Malcolm (actually Dad's middle name). I caught my Uncle's eye (Dad's brother) and we smiled. The guy has form for this and I remember saying to my brother "Wouldn't it be funny if Ray does the service?". Sure enough....

Luckily, Mum was too out of it to notice. My SIL thought it wasn't right though and did complain afterwards.

My family and I went to go and watch Titus Andronicus at the cinema, it was a live screening of the play.

It was a really intense play but then out of no where the actors all broke out into interpretive dance and I LOST IT

I looked along the line and sure enough one by one everyone's shoulders were shaking and I couldn't even look at my FIL as I knew he'd have a very wtf face and set me off again!

The looks we got! Uncultured swine that we are

Funeral....my DB and myself at mums funeral earlier this year. He being a wag and a confirmed atheist. Started commenting on the oil and wine in little bottles behind the alter, and then starts talking about it being a salad dressing....and then "lettuce pray".

Take one huge portion of grief, add a surreal pun, both of us crying silently with laughter and grief combined.

I think sometimes laughter is not an expression of amusement but of recognition. I went to see Wipers Times last night and when one of the characters referred to a beautiful river flowing through Amiens called the Somme (this was pre battle) most of the audience laughed - not because it was funny but because of recognition of the irony

When one of my team at work came to complain about another member of staff making a comment about their weight. Everyone had been in giggly high spirits that day and so is went to laugh when I heard the line he'd used. Had to turn it into a cough.