You are bursting to laugh, but how do you keep a straight face?

Dig my nails into my palms...hopefully the pain distracts from whatever it is making me about to spit my drink all over the person in front of me!

This is a very hard one sometimes. It's best to keep an arsenal of wittiness in one's pockets for just such occassions. Being fast on your feet helps a bit too, because that'll help you to pull the funny out of any thing being said or done.

Because if all fails and the damn breaks and the guffaws ensue, which they sometimes do, you have to have something to justify it and quickly.

Barring that, honesty, as painful as it may be, might be the only other alternative.

Man, that was the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard, seen..." may hurt. But sometimes it's all you've got left if the arsenal of wittiness comes up short, or if the quick feet lose their footing.

We're all human. We're all bound to lose it now and again.

I've tried putting my hand over my mouth or holding my breath but I don't think I've ever managed it.

I cant really gove you an answer,but what I can give you is a way to a solution, that is you have to find the anglde that you relate to or peaks your interest. A good paper is one that people get drawn into because it reaches them ln some way.As for me WW11 to me, I think of the holocaust and the effect it had on the survivors, their families and those who stood by and did nothing until it was too late.