Ant Farm: and other Desperate Situations

Simon Rich is the former president of Harvard Lampoon and many of these short pieces first appeared there. Situations is an apt description for these pieces, most around two pages, that depict such instances as the X-Files with dog characters, grown up conversation as imagined at the kids' table, and life if lived by hockey rules. There are a lot of laughs to be found here--one of my favorite lines comes from "what goes through my mind when I'm home alone, from my mom's perspective). After a series of notes from his mom that insult his intelligence (don't drink the medicine), he says "I hope that when my mom comes home she asks me some very specific, humiliating questions about my changing body". It's a fun, fast read--I read the entire thing over my lunch hour.