The Ultimate Bathroom Reading Experience

In response to my various columns, essays, and blog posts, I get a decent amount of email feedback each week (although some of it is, in fact, indecent).

Some of the email messages make me smile, especially the ones that say, “Hey Bill, your column today about the casket that fell out of the hearse on the way to the cemetery was really funny.” Other messages make me shrug, especially ones like this: “Hey Bill, you ended a sentence with a preposition again, something I cannot put up with.” And still other messages make me cry myself to sleep, especially the ones that say, “If you think that was funny, young man, you’ve got another think coming! Love, Mom.”

However, recently I received an indecent email that caused me to stare at my computer screen with my mouth hanging open. (As opposed to the rest of the time, when I stare at my computer screen while my mouth chews on a donut.) I didn’t know how to react to this particular message.

Here is the actual email note (except for her full name), which unlike the three quotations above, I did not make up:

“Hi Bill, M. here. My husband and I met you at the Main Street Marketplace last year, and I bought a couple of your books. I thought you would enjoy the humor in this. I had not read your book ‘Matter of Laugh or Death — Volume 7’ yet, and Wednesday I had to have the prep for my 5 year colonoscopy (which I know you’ll appreciate since you discuss your own procedure in the book).”

Umm, that is correct. I did write a column about my colonoscopy. No, actually it was two columns.

M. continued: “Trapped in the bathroom for 5 hours straight, and then again the next morning for 5 hours straight, I needed something funny to pass the time. Then I remembered your collection of humor columns. It was the most hysterical thing I’ve ever read. It made me appreciate the absurdity of what I was going through, and kept me laughing for 10 hours. My husband couldn’t believe how good a mood I was in, although as time passed it got a little less good. But I told him it was because of your book.”

Now, please understand, I’m not reprinting M.’s email just to pat myself on the back and boast. I’m reprinting M.’s email to try to sell some darn books! They told me 3,000 people attend the Main Street Marketplace each week. So you’d think a guy would be able to sell more than seven books, even if the book for sale was the 1996 Phone Book. And since the publisher’s minimum order quantity was 500 books, let’s just say I’ve got a fair number of heavy cardboard boxes piled up in my basement. If I could get rid of some of those books, that would be awesome. 

I’m thinking of three possibilities here. First, I can rent a dumpster and toss out the boxes of leftover books. However, destroying books is probably a sin, and besides, the boxes are kind of heavy. For the second option, you can contact me at MerryCatholic@gmail.com and I’ll mail you a copy of my book. If you think it’s any good, send me a check. My third idea is to contact the American Gastroenterologist Association, and try to convince them to write prescriptions for my book as a required part of the colonoscopy preparation procedure. But if my humor book becomes an official medical device, in keeping with the healthcare industry’s pricing structure, I’ll have to change the price of the book from ten bucks to $243.86 — with a 20% co-pay.