Now you're wearing a box?

This picture and those words brought Addison to hysterics. They're from the book Not a Box byAntoinette Portis. (The image is actually a lame Paint creation of mine, but it's pretty much the gist). The book is simply but wonderfully drawn and written, and it illustrates the way a box can become anything in a child's fantastic world.

We just got the book from the library a couple of days ago, but now Addison insists on reading it over and over and over again. His insistence probably springs from the fact that during his initial read, the page with this picture and the words "Now you're wearing a box," made him laugh.

And it didn't just make him laugh. They were deep, seizing, please-stop-tickling-me belly laughs not unlike the laughter I produce when Chris Farley dances or Dave Chappelle does just about anything. It's laughter that constricts your temples and strains your gut. Addison is especially prone to this kind of chuckle, I think, because he likes it so much.

To Addison, laughing is the pinnacle of human existence. Not sure where he gets that. But to him, if you're laughing, you've arrived. The only higher plane of fulfillment is to transport someone else into the land of the laughing. He's pretty good at knowing what will make someone laugh, but he's even better at sniffing out the things that will make him laugh . . . and then squeezing out every drop of laughter he can from that tiny little belly of his.

So why was this picture so funny? Man, I don't know. But even after a couple hundred readings, it still gets him, and I love that.