he job of an introduction is to set the tone for whatever you're writing and pull the reader into the piece. This one doesn't just set the expectation of a personal narrative, but a funny one too.

What makes it funny? Word choice and surprise.

1. Word Choice

In interviews, Seinfeld talks about how certain words are simply funnier than others. Yiddish, for example, is a hilarious language: klutz, schmutz, chutzpah. Something about the construction of these words will bring a chuckle out of the listener. The humor in this introduction comes from ‘pooper-scooper’ and ‘dog crap.’ They’re the kinds of raunchy-ish phrases you’d say to a friend at the bar if you were a tad pissed off. Alternatively, Seinfeld could’ve written: “There was no law for cleaning your dog excrement and the streets were covered in canine waste." But that wouldn’t be the slightest bit funny, because it’s so heady

2. Surprise

There’s a freshness at the beginning of Seinfeld’s intro. He’s just arrived in New York, and you can practically imagine a beautiful summer day where he’s just signed his rental agreement and he’s as cheery as the sky is bright. But in that moment of elation, things flip. He discovers that his car has been towed. This introduction is both funny and captivating because every sentence ping-pongs between emotions. If you wrote an entire piece like this, it'd be exhausting, but it works well for an intro.

Two sentences is all it takes for Seinfeld to break the frame of a New York Times article, create tension, release it, and make the reader laugh (not once, but twice).