Perhaps my firm testimony of its hilarity comes from agreeing with the premise of the article (Deseret Book’s censorship of a book that explores a gray moral area of life), or perhaps it is because I have also been delighted to read the description of Book of Mormon Sleuth. But probably it is due to one of my favorite Snide Remarks’ lines ever: “In the world of Deseret Book, however, there is no gray, only black and white (mostly white).”

And of course, the dissection of foamy-mouthed, angry letters are frosting on a hilarious heaping of Snide Remarks cake.

“After sitting through this ride five times, and getting seriously weird looks from the lithe young man who operated it…”

I looked up lithe just to make sure it meant what I thought it meant (and it does really mean supple and flexible), and found it funny that every source used “a lithe ballerina” as an example.

Then I thought about the passive aggressiveness of Eric to compare the teenaged ride operator to a ballerina.

Then I wondered what the operator could have done to have Eric describe him as lithe.

Also, “The Heppiest Place On Earth” has always been one of my treasured columns, and having Eric say he doesn’t think it’s funny won’t stop me from laughing every time I reread it. I think he illustrates the situation perfectly, and if not, then I guess I have a brilliant imagination.

“An Embarrassment of Richard’s”: I remember “LaVonda Does LaVerkins” to this day (although, admittedly, 2002 wasn’t so long ago).

I think No. 4 is a good column, despite what has been said here.

I feel the same of No. 3.

No. 2 makes me laugh out loud. It could be that it’s late at night, but perhaps I simply enjoy everything Eric has written, regardless of what the author thinks?

One fun tradition he didn’t mention is the Walking to Circle K for donuts on Christmas Eve. The four boys go, and after we moved to our new house in 2001, they started driving back to the old house, parking, and walking to Circle K from there. The neighbors watch for them. And when Jeff got married, the dilemma was whether Bethy could go, because it’s supposed to be just the boys, but she’s Jeff’s wife, so she’s part of him. So they took a vote by giving a thumbs up or thumbs down, but no one wanted Jeff to see what they voted, so they stood in a circle with their eyes closed and did their signs, but since everyone’s eyes were closed, they still didn’t know who voted how. (She didn’t want to go anyway, so the problem was solved.)

So that there was a good column.

Just thinking about you writing a humor column while panicked makes me want to grab a shotgun and put you out of your misery. While crying, of course.

You poor, poor smoe.