It’s the little things, ya know?

I have a friend that, in the past month, has made my week twice–simply by sharing with me a bit of humor she found in the oddest places. I’m not talking about irony. I refer instead to genuine humor. Things people created to be funny that are actually, surprisingly, funny.

The first came two days before Christmas. I was sharing with her the horrors of family Christmas and she said, “Well, then, you probably need to see this card.” Out she brings a nice, fun card with Santa Clause on the front. “You’d better not pout, you’d better not cry. You’d better watch out, I’m telling you why,” Santa says on the cover in a chipper, smiling manner. You open the card to find him screaming “Because Santa doesn’t want to fucking hear about it, okay?!”

I cannot overstate how much joy I got from reading that card. In 23 words, forever engraved into my memory, a card-writer captured my sentiments of the holiday season. (Thank the lord it’s gone.)

So tonight, I’m over at her house, helping her rescue her emails from her old computer and import them onto the new computer, a task that MicroLimp has done very little to make easy. We’re talking and she starts laughing. Says to me “you’ve got to see this. I gave it as a gift at a ladies party for Christmas.” She produces a plastic reindeer. Complete with a movable tail, antlers. I’m like, “okay?” Then she presses it down.

The tail raises up and out of its ass falls a rootbeer jelly bean. Pressing it again, the reindeer produces a cola flavored been. Both are a particular shade of brown that was slightly disturbing.

Lucky for me, she had an extra. I’m going to keep it on my desk in my study at home for those special moments when life gets me down. I’ll reach up, press him down, and out will pop a poop-colored jelly bean, the prefect reminder that shit comes from the most unlikely of places and isn’t always shit.