Alternate Ending to Happiness

Edwin goes up to the mountain to speak with Jack and finds him close to death. Jack states that all of the money made from How to be Miserable has been left to Edwin, and he congratulates him on being a millionaire. Edwin leaves Jack and sets out to find May. At first, she wants nothing to do with him. Edwin gives one final attempt by writing her a letter stating exactly what he really thinks of her; everything from the Sheraton Timberland Lodge to the way her lipstick makes him feel is included in this extensive letter. It was all she needed, and she eventually comes back to him. Edwin quits his job at Panderic, pulling Mr. Mead's ponytail as hard as he can on the way out. He and May move to a secluded tropical island, happily miserable about their imperfect lives.
Mr. Mead realizes that Panderic isn't the place for him afterall and he leaves without so much as a good-bye note. He writes a book called Live Baby-boomers, Live! which competely flops of course. Though he lives out of a box and has only $4.83 to his name, he is perfectly content with how unhappy he is.
Nigel is fired from panderic for never paying Edwin for the tie. He finds Jenni, Edwin's ex-wife, stumbling around in the woods claiming to be on a quest designated to her from the great Tupak Soiree himself. Nigel convinces her that he is the real Soiree and they get married on a mountaintop in Tibet. Unfortunately, their honeymoon is cut short when their plane is hijacked by Mr. Ethics (recently escaped from jail and still on the hunt for Edwin) who has no knowlege of how to fly a plane. He accidentally crashes it in a field, killing himself and all of the passengers on board.
The final scene depicts Edwin and May approaching a forgotten grave in an old cemetary some years later. The headstone reads, "here lies Jack McGreary, the most miserable man to ever live, and damn proud of it!" There are only two distinctions between this grave and all the others, the first being a hand-written note recently set in front of it stating, "wow, thanks grandpa." The second, most peculiar distintion, is that all of the graves are covered by plain, green grass, except for this one which is covered by a thick patch of thriving daisies...

Happiness reviews

I was completely taken by surprise upon reading all of the reviews for Happiness. I really enjoyed the book for several reasons, yet it seems I was the only one! The review that really surprised me was the one that referred to the book as "tame." Tame would be the last word that I would use to describe the book. It's true that the the humor sometimes distracted me from the "message" but that doesn't mean that it was tame. When I think tame, I think subtle, and the raw (often brutal) honesty that Ferguson uses isn't subtle at all. In fact, it was refreshingly blunt. It wasn't sugar-coated at all, it was real human experience, and I loved it.