I actually started listening to this as an audio book last summer while packing my home, so there were some VERY timely parts that made me laugh out loud. Which I needed, because I did NOT. Want. To. Move. But it was necessary. Anyhow, I never got through it all before the title expired and then moving day came and life was crazy. So I decided to pick it back up as a physical book for the 2016 reading challenge "book written by a comedian". I know she's a talk show host, but she is considered to be a comedian, so that's good enough for me :-) And you have to read this with Ellen's voice in your head. Because in the audio, she narrates it, and that is what makes it funny.
So let me tell you, the FUNNIEST part for me while packing up random stuff in my kitchen, I listen to this chapter on clutter. So here is an excerpt:
Nowadays people are a little more aware of how much stuff they have because there's a bit of social stigma if you have too much stuff. There's even a name for the people who have the most stuff. They're called hoarders. Back in the day they were just called grandmothers. If you want to clean out your house and get rid of stuff, you can always do a good spring cleaning every year. Or you can do what I do. Move. I move a lot. I've moved about ten times over the past fifteen years. I don't move for the sole purpose of getting rid of stuff. I'm not crazy. I also move so that I never have to wash any windows. "Is that a smudge? Time to pack it up. Let's go." When you're packing up a house, you're forced to decide what you really need versus what you can get rid of. You might have been holding on to cases and cases of empty glass jars, but once you have to pack them up and move them, you realize maybe you're not going to harvest your own honey. My mama is similar to me in that she also likes to move a lot. Mama has moved thirty-two times since 1952.....Anyway, my mama might be similar to me as far as moving around goes, but as far as clutter is concerned she's a little different. When she moved into the house she lives in now...., she made it a point to tell me how excited she was because she was going to downsize. She was getting rid of all the stuff she didn't need anymore and starting fresh in her new house. I was so proud of her. I went over to help her settle in and I assumed when I got there, I wouldn't have to unpack much more than a pillow and a spoon. Not so. Let me share with you all the items Betty "I Am Downsizing" DeGeneres asked movers to wrap up, place in a box, seal up the box, put in a van, and move into a while new house so that I could cut open the box, take out hte items, and unwrap them:
1. A three-hole punch
2. A single-hole punch
3. A VHS tape of Abs of Steel
4. An unopened VHS tape of Hip Hop Abs
5. A harmonica
6. Another harmonica
7. A third harmonica
8. A rusty sifter
9. A colander from 1953
10. Biscuit cutters.
Many of these items have moved thirty-two times. And I should point a few things out. First of all, Mama moved into that house in 2010, not 1987, as the VHS tapes would have you believe. Second of all, Mama is not in a blues band. She doesn't play the harmonica and even if she did, the ones I found in that box looked like that had been dug up next to some train tracks. If Mama put her mouth anywhere near them I would immediately taker her for a tetanus shot. Thirdly, Mama does not cook or bake or prepare food in any way. I don't know what sort of imaginary biscuits she thinks she's going to cut."
And I was listening to all of that as I was packing up boxes....some of which had content lists that are just as silly because I didn't have the time (or gumption) to actually go through them as I was packing (in my defense, I pretty much had to pack an entire home on my own in 2 weeks. I THOUGHT I had made excellent progress, but when my husband returned to help with the 'last few things' it turns out you really can hide quite a large amount of THINGS in places that the are "put away" in).
So I would give this a 3.5 star rating because most of it was funny, only a little was annoying, and only a slight bit was a little inappropriate (but not in a hilarious enough way).
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