The Anecdotes Not Taken
According to their website, Reader’s Digest prints only about 250 of the 250,000 humor submissions they receive each year. Below are items I submitted that were among the 249,750 not taken. INTRODUCTION I have a […]
Author: Bill Spencer
Bill Spencer is author of the book Uranus Is Always Funny: Short Essays to Make You Laugh (Humor Outcasts Press 2020). His humor writing has been published by Funny Times, Narrative magazine, Reader's Digest, The Sun, The Inconsequential, Clever magazine, Defenestration, The Short Humour Site, Hobo Pancakes, and Nuthouse. He has also published scholarly articles on the novels of Cormac McCarthy and is co-author of an unproduced screenplay, "Angel Pays a Visit." He lives in a cabin in the mountains of North Carolina with his wife, artist-poet Carolyn Elkins.
My Father’s Sense of Humor
When my wife tells me, “You’re not as funny as you think,” I freely own up to my failings and admit, “That’s my dad’s fault.” Yes, the nut doesn’t fall far from the tree, so […]
Any Pet in a Storm
When my stepson’s cat, Pishi (Farsi for “Kitty,” pronounced PEE-shee), came to live with us for a year, she didn’t warm to me right away. Early on, when I tried to pet her, she bit […]
Nobody Knows the Trebles I’ve Seen
f (forte) I’m not one to toot my own horn, but when I started playing trumpet at the age of seventeen without any previous musical background whatsoever, many people told me they expected me to […]
Indoor Skydiving on My Honeymoon
I went indoor skydiving on my honeymoon. I mean that literally, not figuratively. If you’re for unique ideas for your honeymoon, take a look at Jettly to see if you could hire a private jet […]
A Mother’s High-Calorie Love
My mother equated food with love and food that she cooked for her children with mother’s love. The more food, the more calories, the more trouble, the more time involved, the more pans used, the […]
Coffin Shoppin’
Coffin shoppin’ is a grave undertaking. It can be confusing and inconvenient even though there’s never so far been even one complaint from an end-consumer. My fervent hope is that one day every mall will […]
Stepparenting: What Have You Stepped Into?
Once when my wife, my 5-year-old stepson, and I took a late-afternoon walk, we paused to enjoy how long our giant shadows were. That’s when my stepson stepped into the middle of my shadow and […]
Faculty Senate Fiasco: A Political Primer
Before I ran for Faculty Senate at my university, I was a political naif, a greenhorn, a rube, a babe in the woods, a fish in a barrel, an easy mark, fresh meat, a political […]
The ER Protocol
This story has a happy ending. But the way it starts is that about 20 years ago as I was driving my crying mother home from visiting my youngest brother in a mental hospital the […]