'Diary of Indignities' by Patrick Hughes

ISBN: 1595821031
Format: Paperback, 256pp
Publisher: Dark Horse Comics
Price:$14.95

While I read Diary of Indignities I marked passages I thought were funny and wanted to share. When I finished reading I realized that I couldn’t share it all because I would have to copy more than half the book down. Okay, the whole book. I laughed, I was shocked and often disgusted, but overall highly entertained.

Diary of Indignities started out as a blog by the name of Bad News Hughes written with brutal honesty by none other than Patrick Hughes. He used the blog to chronicle the daily indignities of his life and now he sits “naked on a throne of human skulls, drinking warm blood while surveying my blog empire of pain” with a book to show for all his trouble. I think he puts it rather well.

So what kind of indignities will you come across? Every single horrible, unimaginable thing your brain could dream up to torment you at three in the morning; those things you do while drunk and claim to not remember or are lucky enough not to. There are a lot of those stories in here. The crazy relatives, and trust me he has yours beat, stories that we all share with friends… and yes, with the stranger sitting next to you on the bus. Patrick Hughes bares his dirty soul to the world and I for one am glad to know I’m not alone in some of the stupid things I’ve done.

I am a huge fan of my local Friends of the Library book sale so I was thrilled to learn that Mr. Hughes was as well. In "Francis Ford Coppola is a Dick," a chapter that has very little to do with Francis Ford Coppola, he touches on the madness that is one of these book sales. The pushing, shoving, and being caught by your mom and her elderly friends with a copy of Penthouse Forum in the adult section of the sale. Good times.

There are also several chapters in which Mr. Hughes doles out advice for the kids. In many cases the advice is something you are sure the author learned the hard way. There are such classics as, “Don’t use one of those little Handi-Vac things to empty an ashtray. Because the inrush of air could potentially reignite the fading embers. And, uh, a big jet flame might shoot out of the thing, surprising you and making you scream like a ten-year-old girl. And you might knock over your beer.”

Or “For that matter, be aware that bowling-alley employees may have a limited tolerance for other non-pajama-related behaviors, such as getting all loaded and pretending to be Godzilla and stomping on the windmill over there in the indoor miniature golf course.”

There is a reason it says "Adult" on the back of the book, and of course it also designates "Humor" and "Memoir" as well. Swear words, references to sex toys, Jell-o shots, use of said sex toys, more swear words, and drug use make this a book you might not want to leave around your kids or your elderly parents. But if you dare to crack its spine, Diary of Indignities will have you laughing out loud and maybe cringing a little.