The text consists of a series of descriptive poems, fictively told to an unnamed auditor by a wise old man, in which the latter depicts a variety of whimsically-unfortunate characters, or situations wherein any character might be so, in comparison with whom the auditor might consider itself exceptionally fortunate.
List of bad situations the readers could be in or unlucky people they could be
Working on the Bungle-Bung Bridge and trying to complete its impossibly rickety structure
Living in Ga-Zair with one's bedroom and bathroom being in separate, faraway buildings
Herbie Hart, who has disassembled a machine called a "Throm-dim-bu-lator" and cannot remember how to reassemble it
Ali Sard, who is dirt-poor because of having to mow grass that grows faster than he can mow it, and his stingy uncle, the owner of the property, pays him so little that he has to moonlight by painting flagpoles
Mr. Bix, an old man who wakes up every morning at 6:00 a.m. to find that a machine he owns, a Borfin, has slumped over, and spends all day fixing it, only for it to slump again the next day.
The Crumple-horn, green-bearded, web-footed Schlottz, whose tail is tangled in impossible knots
Riding a camel with a saddle known as a "wamel" that could mean certain death for the rider if the button holding it together comes loose
Mr. Potter, a man who has to dot and cross seemingly endless spools of i's and t's
A person from Hawtch-Hawtch, all of whom have to supervise each other and also a somewhat lazy bee
Professor de Breeze, a man who, for 32 years, has had no success in trying to teach Irish ducks how to read a dead language called Jivvanese
The Poogle-Horn Players, who break their horns every morning to wake up a prince
A boy named Harry Haddow, who, for some reason, is unable to cast a shadow
The Brothers Bazoo, each of whom whose hair is the other's beard, and vice-versa
A forest in France where the trees there seem to feast on people's pants
A particular radish in the garden of Farmer Falkenberg that is seemingly about to be eaten by a worm
Guckie Gown, a boy who lives in a ramshackle place named the Ruins of Ronk
A left sock left behind in the seemingly unnavigable Kaverns of Krock
