The Value of a Laugh

A short story

Monday mornings, my allowance sat waiting for me, perched on the wood countertop next to that of my two brothers’.

My dad, the accountant, set out the coins in a perfect row. Alan, the eldest, got 30 cents. Martin, the youngest, got 20. I got 25.

I saved my quarters in a tin piggy bank for five weeks. With $1.25 cents, I could buy a MAD paperback book.

At ten years old, with the pocket of my Sears Toughskin jeans weighed down by my net worth, I set out on foot to Southdale Mall to see what new MAD books would be on offer at the B. Dalton’s bookstore.

Would it be one of their featured reprints of MAD magazine, or a collection from one of my favorite artists, like Don Martin’s Captain Klutz, or All Jaffee’s Snappy Answers to Stupid Questions?

Whatever was there, I would buy it, and I would cherish it.

I studied every word of my MAD books. I knew every line of the drawings. I read and re-read each book until it was dog-eared and so stretched from repeated openings that the title was worn off the spine.

My MAD books were my crown jewel. I was the Thomas Jefferson of humor, collecting these priceless tomes and displaying them with a gentleman’s pride on my shelf.

By the time I was 12, my interests evolved. I wanted to buy a super-8 movie camera to make funny movies. My allowance had only increased by 5 cents each year, and the cheapest super-8 camera at the camera store—one with no frills—was over $100.

I knew I could never save enough. How could I get this money?

My jaw dropped when my mom suggested I sell my MAD books to the used bookstore. As aghast as I was at the suggestion, I knew these books were my only hope. They were the only asset of any value I owned.

On a brisk winter day, I carried my stack of books the few blocks to a small used-book shop just south of Minnehaha Creek, stopping halfway to set the books on the sidewalk to give my arms a rest.

When I arrived, the little bell tinkled as I pushed the door open with my back. The counter was cluttered with old books. I found a space to slide my MAD books in front of the appraiser, a hunched, middle-aged man in a sweater vest who smelled of musty, yellowed pages and coffee.

He looked over his glasses to examine each MAD book with a furrowed brow, the static of his combover making a few hairs rise above his head.

He exhaled and opened the cash register.

How much would I make from my legacy of humor? My Monticello library? Surely it would be enough for the movie camera. Maybe I could even get one with frills.

He gave me $8.