Funny Slapstick Comedy: Must-Have Laughs for Everyone

Gertrude Picklepants had always thought of herself as an inconspicuous person, which is why, on that fateful Tuesday afternoon, she was happily re-shelving a particularly well-thumbed volume of “101 Ways to Train Your Cat” when the world around her took a turn for the absurd. She barely noticed when a man in a sleek black suit barged into her serene library, breathlessly asking for “The Good Spy’s Handbook.”

Gertrude, engrossed in perfecting her Dewey Decimal placement, raised her hand absentmindedly. “You mean that thin one next to the seven copies of ‘Fifty Shades of Beige’? I believe it’s… um, right next to the knitting magazine?” She paused, distracted by the ever-looming realization that she’d made eye contact. Her clumsiness kicked in, causing her to trip over a particularly defiant library cart that had the audacity to roll away at that very moment.

“Ma’am, I need to—” the man started, but Gertrude was already in free fall. She managed to catch herself against the check-out counter but, in her clumsiness, accidentally sent an array of rubber stamps and pens cascading onto the floor like a slapstick montage of utter chaos.

A loud THUD reverberated through the quiet aisles as she made an awkward, heroic landing, sending a few perplexed pigeons darting from the nearby windowsill. How was this even happening? All she wanted was to return to the world of ISBNs and bibliographies, where the most dangerous event was a paper cut.

However, in her accidental heroics, she caught the attention of a much more serious scenario. The man in the suit, who apparently had the world’s worst case of ‘bad day,’ snatched Gertrude’s arm and pulled her into a corridor marked “Authorized Personnel Only.” The moment felt like she’d slipped through the pages of a thriller novel — and all she could think about was her expired library card.

Her internal monologue spiraled into melodrama: This is it. I’ve finally done it. I’ve joined the CIA! But no sooner had she thought this than the man turned and thrust a communicator into her hands, but in her signature fashion, it slipped, and with an epic clatter, landed in a bowl of leftover snacks from the break room. The universe loved a good laugh, it seemed.

As sirens wailed and the library’s peace morphed into a flurry of confused patrons and yelling, Gertrude squished herself behind a nearby bookshelf, attempting to keep low and invisible like a well-bred librarian ninja. Why me? Why now? she fretted, a textbook in hand. Just then, a fellow librarian poked her head around the corner, horrified.

“Gertrude! What are you doing?”

“Oh, you know, just on an undercover mission to infiltrate the international pigeon-smuggling ring. How’s your Tuesday going?” she deadpanned, although inside she was bursting like a piñata of embarrassment.

Then, amidst the turmoil, she noticed a peculiar piece of paper flapping by her feet. “Instructions for Squeezing into a Safe House,” it read, adorned with some hastily drawn arrows and an impressive coffee stain. Realization struck her: she was somehow supposed to do something, and all she’d managed was to knock over half the library’s greeting cards.

The man, meanwhile, was ducking under the non-existent cover of a potted plant. As chaos reached its zenith, the most bewildering thing happened — he reached for her hand, miscalculated, and flailed. His fingers landed directly on a bag of gummy worms, sending them careening across the floor. With the finesse of a confused ballet dancer, he lost his balance and crashed into the snack table, the table buckling under the force of all-too-tasty libraries’ left-overs.

Gertrude stared, slack-jawed, as jello cups, assorted cookies, and gummy worms exploded into the air like a slapstick explosion from an overzealous party. And somehow, right in that moment of bizarre, sticky horror, she realized something profound.

As she lay there amidst the candy debris, she muttered, “Guess I finally found my true calling — Professional Snack Dodger.” But even as she giggled internally, the ground shifted, the universe turning one more time: she glanced up just in time to see a little girl pick up a gummy worm, stick it in her mouth, and stare wide-eyed at the disarray around her.

“Can I have some?” the child asked, holding her hand out.

Suddenly, Gertrude thought, her face lighting up in exaggerated surprise, “My plan is foiled by the greatest enemy of all — a hungry child!”

In that chaos, with librarians sweeping and people clamoring for gummy goodness, Gertrude couldn’t help but smile through her disbelief. It turns out her adventure was all in a day’s work, not just as a librarian, but now as the accidental queen of culinary disasters!