We all know that a sense of humor can get us through a lot of things. People have written humorously about such things as cancer, head injury, death, disability-- all things we think of as painful, difficult, or sad. But how we deal with such occurences often makes all the difference in how well we survive them (or in the case of death, how we meet the challenge of the transition).
Humor is a vital tool that also benefits people in poverty. And there is much humor to be found in the contradictory rules of the various "helpful" agencies, the accounts of real life encounters with social workers who are seemingly clueless, or else dealing with their own clueless agency. (Yes, sometimes you find very good social workers handcuffed by ridiculous rules and red tape.)
I welcome submissions to this page of actual accounts or discussion of the role of gallows' humor in survival.