MemeMachineGo!

Hello, and welcome to the eighth stop on the "Rainy Day Fun and Games for Toddler and Total Bastard" virtual book tour, the virtual book tour that refuses to die, no matter how many times I hit it in the head with a shovel. My name is Greg Knauss and I clearly have no idea when to end a joke.

During this tour, many people have asked me why they should spend six of their hard-earned dollars on a collection of stories that has already appeared on the Web, at An Entirely Other Day. Good question! I always answer: "Oh, just buy the damned thing, for Pete's sake. Put me out of my misery. Please. For the love of God, please. I just want to go home." And then there's a lot of crying and moaning and clutching at lapels.

But then I also say, "Reference." Because of all the books that tell adorable stories about children -- "Madeline," for instance, or "Lord of the Flies" -- "Rainy Day Fun" is the only one that will teach you how to get a child to punch himself in the face.

And, now, today's reading:

When I walk in the front door, Joanne, my loving wife, rushes to greet me after a hard day at work.

"Here," she says, handing Mikey to me. "Just in time."

Mike looks up at me and blows bubbles with his spit. He stinks to high heaven. The boy needs a change.

So I head upstairs and lay him out on the changing table and unbutton his pants and yank off his diaper and suddenly can't stop laughing.

"What?" Joanne yells from the bottom of the stairs. "What's funny?"

"I just remembered," I say. "Mike had raisin bread for breakfast."

There's a pause.

"Ew," she says. And then: "Dinner is going to be about half-an-hour late while I try to get that image out of my head."

Geoffrey Long asks: Do you have any plans to take your publication to other media? (Indie filmmakers take note!)

Indie filmmakers have taken note, Geoffrey, assuming your definition of "indie" means people with very patient wives. Dylan Northrup -- armed with such a wife, an even more patient child and a conveniently befouled diaper -- has made a short film of the reading above, available at here.

If you have any questions about "Rainy Day Fun" that you'd like answered, please mail them to greg@eod.com and I'll edit them until they make me look good. And be sure to join us tomorrow when this shambling corpse of a book tour pulls into Downeast. See you there!