“The family. We were a strange little band of characters trudging through life sharing diseases and toothpaste, coveting one another’s desserts, hiding shampoo, borrowing money, locking each other out of our rooms, inflicting pain and kissing to heal it in the same instant, loving, laughing, defending, and trying to figure out the common thread that bound us all together.”

Erma Bombeck (1927-1996) was a natural at combining wit and humor in one sentence. After having a family, she resumed writing and wrote columns on a wood plank table supported by cinder blocks. Soon she was in syndication and books and appearances followed. I think it’s hard to write funny. As she shows in this passage above, humor comes through in the little details the writer includes and the juxtaposition of the lofty and the everyday.