DON'T MAKE ME LAUGH

It’s been scientifically proven that reading reduces stress by 68%. But how much MORE stress is reduced if you read COMEDY?

I write comedy, I read comedy, I watch comedy. Give me The Lucy Show over They Shoot Horses Don't They? anyday.

My forté is writing humor – I’m not so much a stand-up but a sit-down comedian. I love reading it, too, so when Time magazine plopped into my mailbox at the New Year, I was eager to see their

“10 Best Novels” of the year.

So I started with the review of The Underground Railroad:

“After Cora is beaten and raped … grounded in the harsh reality of Africa-American history, toiling ever harder for survival.”

No-siree, too depressing. So I check out the next book, Another Brooklyn:

“Four young women … deal with racism, sexual assault, poverty, grief and other traumas.”

I’ll give that one a miss, too. Let’s try the next one, Homegoing:

“shines and equally harsh light on the social inequity … it documents the horrors…”

Okeydoke, the next one has to be more light-hearted, surely, Imagine Me Gone:

“After a son inherits his father’s severe depression and anxiety…”

No thank you! But this one sounds promising, My Name is Lucy Barton

“marked by loneliness. In spare prose with pain pushing through the seams…”

Pain pushing through the seams? I want shrieks of laughter bursting my corset! I want to chuckle, chortle and snort. I give up. These books won't have me cracking a smile. They'll just depress my already depressing life.

So my question to you, dear reader, is this: What is wrong with HUMOR?? What is wrong with making a reader SMILE??

Charles Dickens totally agrees with me. Take a look:

“People mutht be amuthed. They can’t alwayth a learning, nor yet they can’t alwayth a working. They ain’t made for it.” – Charles Dickens, Hard Times

Too true, Charlie.

Here’s another quote, which is a little more modern:

“Make the reader laugh and he’ll think you a trivial fellow but bore him and your reputation is assured” –Somerset Maugham

I guess that means I’m not going to be famous anytime soon.

Pity. After all, as my grannie says: “Laughter is the best medicine”. And she’s alive and kicking –with a boyfriend in tiger-print slippers - at the age of 96.