My friend Neil says I am a comedy librarian. I know what he means. Maybe because my home does not ring with the laughter of children or supervillains, I have to fill the void with yuks of other sorts.
Or maybe I just know how to put myself in a good mood. When bummers abound, my collection of mood-altering movies (The Big Lebowski, Anchorman, Office Space, Evildead 2, Borat, Tropic Thunder, Superbad, Office Space, Talladega Nights) and TV shows (Seinfeld, It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, 30 Rock, Arrested Development, Futurama) are guaranteed to dunk my brain in a tank of comedy, faster than you can say "McLovin!" or "Zoidberg!"
And of course there are books. Many of them you already have, because they are justifiably famous: the George Carlin books, either of Bill Simmons' books, Michael Ian Black's My Custom Van, The Book of the Subgenius, John Hodgman's stuff, all those 'Onion' books, The Far Side collections, Shit My Dad Says, and Earth: The Book. But others are a little less well-known, yet no less laughter-inducing. Some have never been in the humor section at all, yet put to shame 98.3% of what we call humor. You should have these books. They will make you laugh. When we laugh, we are happy. Get these books and be happy.
Mark Peters is a language columnist for Good and Visual Thesaurus. He can be found on Twitter here.
