My Planet: Finding Humor in the Oddest Places

Best Cheap Fun!

The price of a movie has gone double-digit. You need a major-league contract to afford an afternoon at the ballpark. Has fun priced itself out of our lives? Not at all.

• Photo booths. While you wait for your strip to be developed, reach up and feel around the top of the booth. People often toss their embarrassing outtakes up there.

• Bubble Wrap

• Your cat. Blow into his face. Stick your finger in his mouth as he yawns. Put him on a leash and try to take him for a walk.

• The sight of a dog wearing one of those medical lamp shades on its head. For immediate gratification, do a Google image search for “Elizabethan collar,” which is what veterinarians call it.

• Wave at people while you drive.

• Helium Balloons

• The weekly police roundup in any small-town newspaper. I am still laughing over the report of a man seen running naked down a neighborhood street. A policeman who arrived to investigate noticed a note on a car windshield that read “Gone to get parts.” The officer misread this as “Gone to get pants” and, satisfied that this explained the man’s nudity, returned to his beat.

• Bumper Cars

• The commuter ferry on a blustery day. My brother comes to visit me once a year, and if the weather’s dramatic, we always head for the ferry dock. Go on the weekend and have the ship to yourself.

• Order a dish off the Chinese-language side of the menu.

• Attempt to sneak a bottle of water onto the plane.

• Come visit me in jail after someone from Homeland Security reads the above.

• Any toenail polish color besides red.

• Bubblegum

• Type “yink” into your spell checker and read the suggestions out loud.

• Those 25-cent horsy rides outside the Walmart.

• Root for the Red Sox at Yankee Stadium.

• Request a phony page on the White Courtesy Telephone I once heard (in a hospital) “Al Bumin, dial operator. Al Bumin, operator please.” Someone in my dorm in London once paged “Mahatma Coat.

• Did you know there’s a brand of dishwashing detergent in Iran called Barf? Or that Japan sells a sports drink called Pocari Sweat?

• Supermarkets in foreign countries.

• Launch a message in a bottle with your e-mail address. For maximum exoticism of response, remember to do it when the tide is going out, not coming in.

• Lie down in a cow pasture. If the herd is far off, yell to get their attention, then immediately drop down and lie flat. The entire herd will come galloping over and form a tight circle around you, staring down at you with intense bovine curiosity. I have tried this three times on two different continents. It’s marvelously surreal.

• Late Night Infomercials

• Armpit farts. Here’s a variation that will make you feel less childish (but fools no one). It works best in humid weather. Lie on a wood floor, pull up your shirt and press your slightly damp lower back into the floor as firmly as you can. Then pull away quickly. This is also a good lower-back strengthening exercise, but who cares.