“When you’re a kid, you have delusions of grandeur– when you’re an adult, you have delusions of competence.”

  So over the weekend I had the incredible honor of getting to meet one of my favorite authors at a event in Syracuse. Bruce Coville has been a literary inspiration to me since I was in middle school and continues to be to this day. Needless to say, I was ecstatic and somewhat less composed than the eleven year old girl who was also there to meet him.

I took notes! Here’s a little tidbit of enlightenment from Mr. Coville himself.

Bruce Coville’s Theory on Fart Jokes:
Imagine a mountain and at the top is the literary fountain of profound ideas and enlightenment through knowledge. Then, at the bottom, are all these kids playing in the dirt and mud.

You travel down the mountain and tell the kids that, if they just travel up it, they’ll reach all this enlightenment, and the kids don’t want any part of it because they’re happy playing in the dirt.

So instead, you tell them that there’s a fart joke at the top of the mountain and they scurry up it all excited. The fart joke leads them to where the profound stuff is.