Nervous Laugh

When I get a little nervous, sometimes I get the "nervous laugh". Even though laughing is fun, this kind of laughing is NOT fun. It's the kind where you know you should stop, and you try to stop, but you just can't stop laughing. For way too long. Sometimes it happens when I'm trying to be funny but I'm a little unsure, so I'll choke out a laugh mid mildly witty comment; or sometimes it comes on in a context where laughing would be really inappropriate. 

Two times that I've gotten the nervous laugh for way too long:

1. Freshman year public speaking class in college. We were giving impromptu speeches, which means that I picked up a piece of paper with a prompt on it and had to give a few minute speech to the class. I was already a little giggly because I was sitting next to my new bff in class. It was my turn, so I got up in front of everyone and started talking. Five to ten seconds in, I started laughing. And laughing. And laughing. I tried some deep breaths. I tried looking away from everyone. I kept laughing. Finally I got it together and my professor let me try again. I made it all the way through my speech, until I got to the end, and said, "we all should live life to the full-" and at this point, I spit the world full(est) out and started laughing hysterically again and had to sit down. Good news, I speak in public for a living now. And I don't say as many stupid cliches.

2. The week before Jesse and I got married, I said something that I thought was funny. Apparently I had some nerves that I didn't know about, because I laughed for twenty minutes straight. I'm not exaggerating. It was twenty minutes. Think about laughing for that long. Think about sitting next to someone laughing that long. Jesse just sat there and periodically would ask, "what is wrong with you?" I don't even know if he laughed at my super funny joke in the first place. But I did. For TWENTY MINUTES. 

The nervous laugh is not funny... right away. But when you talk about it later, it really is.