CAUGHT IN THE SHOWER WITHOUT A PENCIL is B. Elwin Sherman's rapid-fire patchwork of Baby Boomer humor. If you've ever been caught in the shower without a pencil, (and you know what that means) you'll find what you meant to say here --- from the rubble of 9/11's "Ground Zero Genesis," to the revelation of a child's grace in "The God Cartoon, And Long May It Rain." Ninety-one hilarious ways to relive it all --- and laugh until you dry.

Everyone should have a legacy. Ask yourself today what you'd most want to be remembered for tomorrow if you died tonight. You should have an answer at the ready. Yes, it's true, according to our 43rd President, that "you never know what your history is going to be like until long after you're gone," but that shouldn't stop you from considering who you were while you still are. Welcome to Bush Country, and the landscape of its linquistic legacy.

B. Elwin Sherman is a humorist/author living in the New Hampshire North Country, where he writes a syndicated humor column and often reinvents "the cottage industry survival kit." His books have gone largely unheralded, "because I do nothing to promote them. No one should ever have a legacy before they're dead. Life is embarrassing enough without that." He first read Richard Gary Brautigan's works in college, "when everyone else was lugging around Nietzsche and Kant for ballast. I kept In Watermelon Sugar in my hand because there was a tsunami on the horizon, and there I was without a beach umbrella."

WHO ARE THE DIOECIANS? They are one man and one woman of the traditional opposite sexes, married later in life after surviving other marriages, divorces, lovers, deaths, abortions, children, careers and travelogues, planned and abrupt, overplayed and unrequited, and how they now lose and find each other's mind, body and soul in the labyrinths of love --- his and hers.

Trouble on the homefront? Overworked at the office? Pets too picky? Can't find the humor in anything anymore? DEAR WITBONES may just change your life, with a smile or two to spare. One disclaimer: If you need serious lovelorn help from an "agony aunt," please call your mother's sister first. If she's busy and already has enough trouble with your agony uncle, DEAR WITBONES is here for you. You could do a lot worse, and if you're here, you probably have. Witboner [whit-bon-er] Word Origin: noun 1. A question submitted to B. Elwin Sherman's agony uncle advice column. 2. Any individual who poses such a question.