The New Year Resolutions haven’t been going so well. Let’s talk about them later, okay? The first week of the New Year has not been kind to mental happiness as upstate NY suffered though a “lake effect” storm where someone (Mother Nature? God? The Buffalo Bills?) dropped snow on us every day, and blew it around like drunken confetti. We are still under a State Of Emergency prohibiting “unnecessary travel”. I watched the entire debacle from The Chair positioned in front of my huge apartment windows and enjoyed every second of the first few days. Now, in Day 6, it is time for necessary travel. Anywhere.

One last thing, people sure are interesting (30 percent?). One guy brushed snow off his car (it’s a northern thing) in his shorts. It was 6 degrees out and he didn’t last long. Another decided “no necessary travel” was not “no travel” and rocked his car back and forth in a parking lot drift until giving up and not coming back for two days. People did all sorts of strange things and the snow removing machines worked round the clock. Mother Nature just sent more.

So for Christmas I got a book and, yes, I read a lot when the parking action was slow. A lot. The book is titled: “Learn a Lot While You’re on the Pot”, by Jack Haynes. Without breaking a resolution, I’ll just say as we age, bowel movements seem to-how to say this–take their time. It’s a senior thing younger readers will learn eventually, but Mr. Haynes has capitalized on that “slowness” to offer a tidy book about all sorts of things. It’s 136 pages on 5 million (I exaggerate) subjects so it’s not comprehensive as much as pithy in its prose. It makes it easy to finish a topic or two before…you know.

My favorite sections is entitled : “Best Puns and Wordplay”. Let the games begin with an obvious groaner: “I once gave a performance about it Puns. It was just a play on words.”

Some puns only work when they are typed: “My friend became a vegetarian, even after I told him it was a big missed steak.” Say it out load to someone and they just stare at you. Like: “Once you’ve seen one shopping center you’ve seen a mall.” Or: “Did you hear about the explosion at the cheese factory? All that’s left is de-brie.”

Some are better spoken: “The future, the past, and the present walked into a bar. Things got a little tense.” You may have to wait for that spark of recognition on that one, but it’s worth it. Or: “I told my wife to embrace her mistakes and she gave me a hug.”

Sadly, there are some clunkers: “What do you call fake spaghetti? Im-pasta.” Ugh. “My son says he’s friends with only 25 letters of the alphabet, He doesn’t know y.”

Related: “My daughter said that after she ate alphabet soup she had a vowel movement.”

I’ll end this torture with my two favorites: “It’s been a terrible winter for Humpty Dumpty. But at least he had a great fall.” And, maybe not so much funny as apt: “I’ve discovered that where there’s a will, there’s a relative.”

Crap. One more: “Did you here about the toilet that was stolen from the Police Department? The cops have nothing to go on.”

Hope this helped any of those who were trapped at home with themselves, or even worse, family. Just remember: “Don’t let anyone call you average. That’s just mean.”