Have you ever wondered why, when you throw a flat rock, it never flies straight...and accidentally hits your sibling in a vital organ? Have you ever survived a night in a den of 40 snorers intent on rearranging your circadian rhythm...forever? Did you ever blow up cuisine in the microwave and then try and hide it from your clairvoyant mother...by sucking it up in her vacuum cleaner?

If so, then these stories are right up your alley!

Follow the author and his family and friends in their rollicking adventures sledding down the dreaded Sleddin' Road, riding in a Volkswagen Rabbit that expels more exhaust than a convention of chain smokers, and practicing "Premeditated Bear Situation Thinking" while out in the woods. Just try not to laugh as you hear about the cutthroat cookie-decorating contest of Christmas 2007 or as the author guinea-pigs his younger brother in a game of spit wads. Reminiscent of Patrick F. McManus yarns and Erma Bombeck columns, these stories are sure to get you laughing.

Born in Idaho, raised on ice cream, and schooled in calamity and disaster, author James D. Beers tells the "somewhat true" tales of his zany life from a unique and humorous perspective in A Knack for Embarrassment, his first collection of short stories.