For December 24, 2025-January 6, 2026

Hello and welcome to A Newsletter of Humorous Writing, a roundup of the week's finest short humor pieces and funny articles, and a celebration of the fantastic writers who wrote them. It’s only January 8th but we’re pleased to announce that we’ve already completed one of our major goals of 2026: Getting our heads unstuck from the way-too-small turtleneck sweaters we bought each other for Christmas.

What We Enjoyed This Week

I Know We Don’t All See Eye-to-Eye About the Office Cobra by Jim Marino (Points in Case) We love the dynamic here, with the narrator trying to be very tactful and reasonable about something that is extremely unreasonable. Jim also does a great job exploring many different, unexpected effects that the cobra has on this workplace, including on the decor: “At this point I don’t think it’s necessary to show us more baby pictures of the cobra. I think there are enough framed photographs on the office walls, visible from every work station, for us to be familiar with how the snake looked.”

Thirteen Waters: Tasting Notes from a Sommelier by Amalia Ulman (The Paris Review) It’s not a traditional short humor piece, but this article did make us aware of the existence of “water sommeliers” and we simply couldn’t pass up this opportunity to share this knowledge with our readers. We assume you have many questions, for example, “Wait, how do water sommeliers cleanse their palates in between water tastings?” Fear not, all will be answered. Come for the rankings of different waters, stay for phrases like “water gossip.”

Updated Rules for Children at Our Brewery by Eddie Small (The New Yorker) Lots of great jokes in this piece, but we particularly like the ones that reveal information about what’s going on with the brewery staff: “If you happen to have an architecturally gifted child who makes a chair fort that genuinely looks pretty cool, he should at least let our manager crawl in and check it out instead of telling her that no adults are allowed.”

-- ADS --

Come see A Fitness Carol, a new, New Year’s sketch comedy show by Emily Kapp all about the oldest New Year’s resolution in the book: exercising. In this fast and loose parody, a young man just trying to get jacked is visited by a terrifying entity who exposes the horrors of the gym, working out, and getting fit. Every Thursday in January at 7:30pm in Chicago. You can purchase tickets at secondcity.com.

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Points in Case is looking for a part time editor to temporarily take over some work at the site next year! If you think you might be a good fit, send an email to james@pointsincase.com with the subject “Temporary Editor” and include a few details about your background and what you’d bring to the role!

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An Old Favorite

This week's Old Favorite is a Brian Agler Selection (TM)--a piece whose accompanying note was written by Brian--from Newsletter #130.

Shhh! Quiet In The Library, The Books Are Sleeping by Libby Marshall (Slackjaw) What a silly idea--and we mean that in the best way possible. Sometimes, the most fun pieces take a goofball premise and just go with it, treating it as super-logical. For writers stuck with a blank page, try this format out. It often leads to fantastic results.

Do you have an Old Favorite of your own? Let us know by filling out this form and we may run your pick in a future edition of the newsletter.

Updates From Your Editors and Friends of the Newsletter

Luke’s still got some spots left in his intro to short humor writing workshop starting THIS SATURDAY! In four weeks, you’ll learn the essentials of short humor in a supportive environment and come away with a draft of your very own piece.