Well, I guess I was about 14 at the time...
...but even now I haven't grown out of laughing at others' misfortune. I play the trumpet, and our band had been invited to play at the Hexagon in Reading. It's not massive, but I believe it has about 1,000 seats with a couple of floors etc. We were playing the second half, and were all suited ready to play, but to be polite we were asked to sit behind the band playing the first half and watch - meaning that we were facing the audience and were in full view.
The lights went down. The conductor raised his baton. Just as they were about to play a door opened in the top right hand corner of the balcony, casting a shaft of light across the audience and onto the conductor, all of whom stopped and looked over, to see an frail looking woman well over 80 years old. As she stepped into the darkness, she lost her footing and stacked it down three flights of stairs head first; ending up as a crumpled heap at the bottom of the balcony. The audience gasped and several people ran to help her. They had to call an ambulance and everything. I on the other hand had my head between my knees, crying with (silent) laughter the whole first half. I thought I was going to be sick.
( Turquoise Hexagon Sun has just dropped acid on, Thu 17 Dec 2009, 16:00, 1 reply)

i'm not laughing
at the poor old womans misfortune but at the image i've got in my head of you crying on stage.
(Kip, Thu 17 Dec 2009, 18:16, closed)