Guy goes into a bookstore.
Guy to clerk: “Excuse me, can you tell me where the self-help section is?”
Clerk to Guy: “Wouldn’t that defeat the whole purpose?”
Dale
Founder, Moderator, and contributor of fluff off-topic threads
Heh. I’ve never really understood why it’s called “self-help”. I mean, if I could do it myself, I wouldn’t need help. 
several of us were cruising “The Quarter” in Nawlins, and we went into one of the voodoo shops. The proprietor came up to us and said “We have one of the BEST fortune tellers in all of New Orleans working here in this shop”.
A friend says “Well, they ain’t THAT good or they would have known it was useless to tell us that.” and we walked out… 
Some years ago I wrote this list, which was published as a poem in a now defunct (I think) Washington, D.C. area outlaw literary journal called WordWrites.
Titles Awaiting Publication (a Lament for Unpublished Authors)
The Heart of the Soul and the Soul of the Heart
Care of Your Heart’s Soul
The Heart of a Vice President for Human Resources
Chicken Soup for the Small Appliance Repairman’s Soul
Chicken Soup for the Menopausal Woman’s Soul
Chicken Soup for the Teenage Marilyn Manson Fan’s Soul
Chicken Soup for the Soul of the Person with Severe Mood Swings
Hearty Beef Stew for the Republican Soul (with Big Chunks of Potato)
Chocolate for Bad Lutherans
Hegel for Dummies
String Theory (Harmonic and Non-Harmonic) for Dummies
The Idiot’s Guide to Writing Books for Dummies
Arthroscopic Knee Surgery for Klutzes
(with Fiber Optic FunTM Surgery Tools in attached mesh bag)
The Pop-Up Book of Nasty Skin Disorders
Robert Pinsky Reviews the Poems of Jewel
Encourage Your Child’s Reading (Audiobook)
I’m nearly finished with my 2nd collection of poems and I’m considering calling it Chocolate for Bad Lutherans.
The Pop-Up Book of Nasty Skin Disorders is the best title of the bunch.
Kevin Krell
I need to own a couple of those if and when they ever actually get published… and again, I’ll not hold my breath… but the “Chicken Soup for the Menopausal Woman’s Soul” is an urgent need, as I’m ahead of you by two years and seven months on the 50th B-day schedule.
Is there a scratch ‘n’ sniff version in the works?
I suspect they’ll do the sequel first: The Pop-Up Book of Sexually Transmitted Diseases.
It’ll pop up on it’s own accord, not necessarily when you want to read it?
I actually own a pop-up book on human sexuality and reproduction.
My hippie brother-in-law thought this would be a useful contribution to our library when we started having kids.
It has always has been available for their perusal, but a book called
It’s Perfectly Normal does the job better.
Phew, glad that era is mostly over. There really aren’t that many of those books around anymore, except a local dude over in my hometown who tells you “not to sweat the small stuff.” Also, I keep seein’ ol Wayne Dyer on the PBS affiliate in his sweater. Sure beats workin’.
“Im okay, you suck!!” was a title that never quite made it, for some reason…
Apropos of nothing, here’s a poem I like:
This is spectacular! It’s got great rhythm! Listen:
<. . . must find this book . . .>
Dale, I’m telling you now that I am stealing your first joke but swithching it to a library, we get that all the time in the library and since old Dewey ain’t friendly to “Self-Help” of any kind (no specific classification area) the answer to the joke is what I would really like to say!
MarkB
There is a “Philosophy for Dummies” on the market. I do like “Hegel for Dummies”. I could get my daughter to write that one.