Yes, I really needed an infusion of funny. And not just funny, but Haha! funny. And Dave Barry always makes me laugh. So sue me.
I don’t remember whither I got I’ll Mature When I’m Dead. Clearly some overstock source, as I wouldn’t have paid full price for it. Which has nothing to do with this particular book, but I don’t pay full price for any books anymore… The way I know it was overstock is a price sticker I found covering up part of the back-cover blurb, along with the beautiful black line someone had drawn along the book-block with a black magic marker.
This book has been criticized for being full of clichés. And it is. So what? It still makes me laugh.
I could have chosen a funny snippet from any part of the book, maybe from Dave’s eloquent defense of men, who clearly adore clichés, or his description of his daughter’s dance recital—a fatherhood ritual I was spared—or his comments on high tech or celebrities or Hollywood, taking care of man’s best friend or Judiaism for Christians. (If you been following this blog, you will understand why is that particular piece was so significant to me.)
I seriously considered choosing a snippet from of the one piece that had me laughing so hard I literally could not breathe and thought I would throw up in my bath water. (That’s a different story.) That would be his inspiring story about his colonoscopy. (And I really, honestly, truly, and for-real mean that the story was inspiring. It almost inspired me to get a colonoscopy… except that I’m about 8 years too young. Damn!)
But today’s snippet, I finally decided, ought to come from one of the preview chapters of Dave’s new novel, his soon-to-be magnum opus, entitled, Fangs of Endearment: A Vampire Novel, which reads with all of the grace and charm and literary proficiency of a B-movie on Quaaludes, or a Twilight novel:
I gasped and dropped my fork, which penetrated about a half-inch into Pete’s foot.
“Why?” I inquired forbodingly.
“There’s been some trouble,” he expressed with a wince as he pulled the fork out and put it on the table out of my reach.
“What kind of trouble?” I probed.
“In the past two days, a hundred and fifty-eight hikers have been killed in the woods around Creepstone.”
“Killed?” I queried. I felt a cold feeling shoot through my veins like an intravenous slushy. “How?” I elaborated.
“It’s the darndest thing,” marveled Pete. “All of them were violently dismembered, apparently by someone or something with incredibly savage strength. Some of the victims’ limbs were found as far as two football fields away from their bodies.”
I stared at him with a facial expression of shock.
“But how…” I began, searching for the words to complete the question that was even then forming in my brain. “How did two football fields get into the woods?”
P.S. My voice-recognition software transcribed one of the lines above as “158 high chairs have been killed in the woods around Creepstone,” which is actually way more interesting than the original. I think Dave should include that edit in his next revision.
Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. I’m trying a variation on the mainstream “Teaser Tuesdays” concept. Instead of quoting two sentences from a random page in the book, I’m selecting a snippet that reflects qualities I find in the book.
-TimK