Hyperbole and a Half: Unfortunate Situations, Flawed Coping Mechanisms, Mayhem, and Other Things That Happened

“I apparently thought my future self wouldn’t be aware of my name or eye color.”

As a child, Allie writes a letter to her future self. The dry wit of this sentence exemplifies her style of humor as well as self-deprecation, in this case about her childhood self.

“I’ve wondered about her intelligence ever since I adopted her and subsequently discovered that she was unable to figure out how stairs worked.”

Allie describes her suspicions about one of her dogs—the “simple dog.” She desperately wants to prove the dog’s capabilities through IQ tests she looks up online.

“Most people can motivate themselves to do things simply by knowing that those things need to be done. But not me.”

Brosh sets up a frame story for her struggles with motivation and task completion. She also creates an expectation with “most people” in a longer sentence, then follows this with the sentence fragment excluding herself. The shift creates humor with its directness.