#449 Staying up so late that everything becomes funny

Neil Pasricha

Midnight is long gone.

Maybe you’re crowded around a kitchen table pasting construction paper onto poster board, squirreled into sleeping bags on a cold basement floor, or drinking cold coffee and leaning over laptops before tomorrow’s big deadline.

Either way, it’s time to face facts: you’re up way too late.

Your eyes burn a bit, your head spaces out, random arms or legs starts throbbing, and maybe your scalp gets really, really, really, really itchy. Point is, you’ve ignored your body’s Go to Sleep signals for hours so now you’re hunched over a walking stick squinting deep into the foggy darkness of four, five, six in the morning.

The good news is your brain has developed just the system to charge you up with extra juice and help you power through. Yes, we’re talking about massively lowered Standards of Hilarity which help make everything funny. Someone steps on Styrofoam Jupiter, kicks a can of Coke onto the pizza, or accidentally deletes the Powerpoint slides, and suddenly everyone looks up at each other with tired raccoon eyes and… just starts cracking up.

Late night laughing is a beautiful moment because we’re letting ourselves stand up and step back from whatever’s keeping us up. Gone are the stresses of the group project, hanging dread of the deadline, and tensions tying us together. Now the differences dissolve and we realize we’re all part of the same Bleary Eyed Giggling clan — telling bad jokes, laughing till it hurts, and smiling till sunrise.

AWESOME!

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84 thoughts to “#449 Staying up so late that everything becomes funny”

  1. Yesterday (today?) was my birthday party, and after most of the guests were gone I sat in a circle with my closest friends and we chatted until the sun rose. You wouldn’t believe how AWESOME it was! :)

  4. ohh, there has got to be nothing like this. The laughter that takes over our bodies – until we cry. and then…we think, ok, IT’S finally over, until someone looks at us AND then it begins again! Yeah….this is pretty awesome!

    Thanks for such a wonderful site!!

    {{HUGS}}
    @spreadingJOY

  5. My friend and I once stayed up until seven in the morning watching Three’s Company. The hilarity was multiplied by twenty; we found every single thing anyone in the show did to be fatally hilarious.

  6. AWESOMEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

  7. I absolutely love this one! This happens to me all the time, and I can’t get enough of it. It’s the entire point of staying up late; if you’re going to stay up, stay up late enough to hit this stage and tomorrow’s headaches and grogginess will totally be worth it, I promise(:

  9. this also occurs when you decided to have a sleep over on New Years Eve, and only sleep for 3 hours between 9 am and 12 pm

    awesome

  11. Ahahahaha, I can’t imagine that me and my friends could laugh any more late at night than we do just at recess and lunch, but a famous story amongst our group that my friend Ella told us tht she and her friend were once up so late they kept making fart noises and it set them off cracking up! hahaha :P And meanwhile, we do so many funny voices and faces and say so many stupid things during the day that we laugh about them for days!

  12. Oh gosh.. like when you laugh at silence? At sleepovers, our parents always make sure that my friends and I get like 3 hours of sleep so we’ll stay up till 4 am and usually crash… and then someone is like, “YOU GUYS! SHH! I’m trying to sleep!” And it’s quiet for two seconds and then you lose it :)

  13. This is awesome. I’ve done this ever since I was little! People just don’t get how awesome it is! It is REALLY fun when with my sister and we just talk and draw and do random things. They don’t make much sense most of the time, but it doesn’t matter, because it’s funny!

  17. Staying up till 3 o’clock playing cards with my two best guy friends, when we were already so tired that we could hardly keep our eyes open. They kept arguing about the stupidest things, and towards the end we started playing Slap Jack, which made everything three times funnier. I was laughing hysterically and uncontrollably the whole time. It’s one of our favorite memories, and we refer back to it all the time. (For the record, all three of us are usually very mature and serious — which made the craziness all the greater.)

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  20. This is one of my favorite posts and memories made:
    One midnight, my eldest daughter decided to open her Tickle Trunk and commanded her sister and I participate in dress-ups; some “serious” modelling and all, in the silliest get-ups until we rolled on the floor laughing. It was one of the best nights of our grown-up lives ever~ in 2003:)

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  23. I’m up late right now reading this out to a group of over tired people and we are all laughing way more than we probably should be – Extra awesome! :)

  25. It’s funny actually, go on google translate activate the speech function where you speak into your iPhone/Android/etc. device and decide – hey I’m going to be creative while in a state of enjoyment and merriment and say random s*** into it and see what google translate comes up with! Try it, you’ll see what I mean… BTW, do it at around – I dunno say… NIGHTTIME?! Another BTW, just because heehee… DON’T HUG ME I’M SCARED.

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