The Hapless Times

Inspiration That Any Clod Can Muddle Through Life

When I'm not having fun working on marketing content projects, I'm goofing off telling funny stories of misadventure. This content is all about healthy self-deprecation and celebrating our humanity. These light-hearted tales of bad luck and bumbling recognize that all of us, if otherwise intelligent people, have occasion to be absent-minded, careless and hapless — or just be in the wrong place at the wrong time. The stories are based on true reports from real people around the world, from all walks of life -- including me. All of us are one with the fact that none of us is immune to miscues, so why not laugh about them instead of hiding them?

Stories on Substack

Subscribe for free, and you’ll get a delightfully funny story delivered to your inbox every Sunday morning to enjoy with a warm cup of coffee. You’ll also get access to the archives of previously published stories and the opportunity to submit stories (you write) or story ideas (that I turn into stories) for publication. Read Now

Stories on Medium.com: Spilled Soup for the Bumbling Soul

Take a break from the depressing or mundane news stories and enjoy a light-hearted look at some minor misadventures in life with this collection of stories called Spilled Soup. Read Now

Archived podcast

Join me for interviews with notable people who share their humorous foibles of bumbling and bad luck. Listen Now

Share your foibles

Any decent therapist will tell you that coming clean about your misadventures and miscues is cathartic. Plus, you'll give a lot of people a good laugh. Maybe you'll even trigger a case of incontinence or two. That alone makes this worth it.

Submitting a story is easy. Just e-mail ed@ed-mauss.com the details in this order:
-Name, address, phone
-When did the incident occur?
-What happened (to you, or caused by you)?
-What were the consequences?

Don't agonize over the narrative. Just use your own words, as if you're telling someone the story verbally. Try to keep it under 500 words. We'll be writing the story from the third person point of view (he/she/they) and using excerpts from your narrative as quotes.

To get started, contact me at ed@ed-mauss.com and type "story" on the subject line first. Then key in your narrative in the message area. Our receipt of your e-mail is also a confirmation that you're giving us permission to use the details of your story.

Profit from using our stories

Leverage our growing collection of humorous stories for your newsletter, your web site, or both. Why? Because this compelling content can help grow your business by engaging your audience with relatable, authentic stories . Remember, the second most popular type of content found on online is humor-oriented. (Shame on you if you know what the most popular content is.)

Not only will your audience look forward to this content and think happy thoughts about you for providing it, but they'll also be inclined to forward it to their friends and family. This is classic viral marketing -- legions of people spreading the word about you for free.

Here are some sample segues you could use at the end of the stories:

-Everyone commits minor miscues like this and we laugh about them later. But for the serious misfortune in our lives, there’s XYZ Insurance.
-We’re all bumblers at one time or another, but when it comes to [service offered], I won’t botch the job. Contact me today.
-I can't help you in situations like this, but I will provide you with high-quality products and excellent service. Contact me today.

If you're looking for a unique way to engage and audience, contact ed@ed-mauss.com.

Inspire your teams

Let's say you're in charge of getting a speaker for a meeting or a leader for a team-building event.

Sure, you could get one of those motivational types, but the message -- albeit somewhat customized -- is always the same: reach for stars, you can accomplish anything, yada, yada, yada.

Or you could seek out one of those out-to-pasture political leaders who'll milk you for astronomical fees while boring half of your audience members to the point of insanity.

And how about one of those egomaniacal business all-stars who spends more time talking about what he did than how he did it?

Shake things up a bit and book me for your next corporate retreat, trade group meeting, commencement or just about any other event. Our theme is unique and has universal appeal: all of us flounder, but admitting we're human helps us to keep things in perspective and avoid getting caught up in our own self-importance.

Our engaging presentation combines dynamic but humble remarks with the recounting of select stories, audience participation and a small-group collaboration activity (if event is for team-building). Plus, we won't cost you an arm and a leg --- more like a pinky and a toenail.

To check availability, contact ed@ed-mauss.com. We look forward to getting you a lot of pats on the back from colleagues.

Deliver entertaining videos and films

Good material is hard to find for visual creators. But we've got a ton of it here that you can leverage for videos, animation, TV shows and even films.

Check out a few premises for your next creation or project:

>A naked man's dangling appendages are attacked by his kitten when he stoops under the sink to fix the garbage disposal

>A preacher forgets to shut off his wireless microphone after a sermon and his congregation hears the sounds of his restroom visit.

>Motorist, with girlfriend in car, flips off honking driver behind him, but soon discovers the offending driver is father of his girlfriend simply saying hello.

>Man is fed up with puddle under his washing machine and destroys the machine in a rage; turns out a leaky pipe caused the puddle.

Contact ed@ed-mauss.com for access to several narratives from which you can develop a script, or call 949-633-0100 for more details.

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