Humor at a Funeral

I have often found humor in the most unlikely of places: funerals. I have been to an unusual amount of funeral for someone of my youthful age and I have somehow broken out into uncontrollable laughter at every one of them. The most recent on was my uncle’s earlier this year in February. I was sitting in the pew during the service with my brother Walter on my left, my Mother next to him, and my friend Daniel on the other side of my mother. The funeral was going fine (well, as fine as a funeral can be) until we got to the end. Up until that point my brother and I hadn’t so much as chuckled. Then, this old man got to speak, and he informed us that he was from the Free Masons. We were unprepared. He started this long half-memorized burial speech about out life, roses, tombs, the changing seasons, etc. The whole thing lasted several minutes and the whole time he had this southern Louisianan accent that was just a funny out of place scene. However, the funniest part was that he forgot his lines about halfway through and kept reciting the same part over and over until he pulled out a piece of paper, glanced at it for a few seconds, and them kept on going. While this happening, the whole room is silent and respectful, but my brother is laughing so hard and trying to suppress it to no avail. He started shaking the pew, and his laughter was making me laugh and soon my mother was also giggling. It was very inappropriate, and I tried to quit by keeping my head down, biting my arm, and singing a song in my head. When the funeral ended, we left as quick as possible to avoid talking to the Masons. It was one of the funniest things in my life.