If you’ve ever publicly laughed so hard you can’t stop, while everyone around you stares, you’re in good company. Comedian Paula Poundstone, who’s coming to Bend later this month, has done that at least once on a taping of NPR news quiz show “Wait Wait … Don’t Tell Me,” on which she is a regular panelist.

If you’re reading there’s a chance you’re a news nerd whose listened to or has at least heard Wait Wait, on which a panel of three — usually comedians and journalists — play an hourlong series of news-related games hosted by Peter Sagal. Poundstone has appeared on the show some 261 times since 2001, according to the Wait Wait Stats Page. And when Sagal messes up, even a comedy pro can get a serious case of uncontrollable giggles.

“I forget what it was that got me started. I think it was that Peter just screwed up something that he was saying,” Poundstone said. “When he went to do a retake of it, I think he screwed it up again. And in a very childish way, I thought it was funny. I could not stop laughing. Everybody else was like, ‘What? What? What’s so funny?’ And every time I tried to explain it, it just put me over the edge again. When I watch it again, I start to laugh. My own laughter is infectious to me. How about that?” she said.

Loving Bend, sort of

Infectious laughter will be the order of the day at the Tower Theatre in Bend May 31, where Poundstone is slated to perform her singular brand of observational, confessional and off-kilter comedy.

“I’ve been to Bend a number of times, love it,” Poundstone said. “Well, I can’t say I love Bend. I don’t really know Bend. Because I don’t really know any city. I fly in. I’m exhausted. I go to bed. I get up. I do my job. Maybe I go for a walk. And then I’m usually gone before the sun’s up the following day. But I know that I’ve had a great time with the audiences in Bend.”

As those who have made up those audiences can attest, most of Poundstone’s shows combine rehearsed material with impromptu crowd work.

“On a good night — and I like to think some are — about a third is unscripted,” she said. “I’ve not done completely unscripted, because the other thing is, somewhere in my head, 45 years of material is rattling around. I always figure that my act is a little bit like one of those arcade games where you step into a glass booth and they blow paper money around you, and whatever you can grab, you can keep. That’s sort of how my brain is. Whatever I can think of to say in the moment, I just say it.”

‘Nobody Listens to Paula Poundstone’

Poundstone has hosted a weekly podcast, “Nobody Listens to Paula Poundstone,” which paulapoudstone.com describes as “a podcast taking the fun of a late-night show, the wit of a public radio show, and the knowledge of a guest expert while setting the volume to the max.”

Its 306th episode was released Tuesday.

“It’s a little bit like exercising in that you’re not really looking forward to it, and then you do it and you feel better,” she said. “It’s a lot of work. Every week, I’m like, ‘Oh thank God that’s over.’”

Podcasting is not exactly lucrative for the majority, she said. In fact, it’s like the economic opportunities in the country as a whole.

“There’s a one percent, and the rest of us scramble for the crumbs,” she said, laughing. “There’s a really small cadre of podcasters where they could do that for a living. I swear to God, sometimes I think it’s a Ponzi scheme of some sort. You’re just sliding around the same ads — I don’t know, there’s something about it that never feels quite right to me.”

That makes her consider giving it up — except for one thing.

“Paula Poundstone fans are the very best fans there are,” she said, and that applies to live audiences and podcast listeners, the latter of which may form an even stronger connection given the weekly nature of the show.

Either way, “I have the best audiences in the world, which is why I do two hours on stage. I won’t let anybody else open for me. People have written to me and asked if they could, and I’m like, ‘Nah.’ I really am just too selfish for that,” Poundstone said. “I have the best audience in the world, and I am not sharing them for even five or 10 minutes before I go on. I love being with them, and I don’t want to be not with them.”

If You Go

What: Paula Poundstone

When: 7:30 p.m. May 31, doors open 6:30 p.m.

Where: Tower Theatre, 835 NW Wall St., Bend

Cost: $62 plus fees

Contact: towertheatre.org or 541-317-0700