When I came across CatalogLiving.net last week, I figured I would include it in one of my compilations about visual storytelling, but I found it so funny — and I have a very high humor threshold — that I had to single it out.

On the site, Los Angeles-based actor, writer, and comedian Molly Erdman spins the ongoing story of Elaine and Gary in their lives within peculiar catalog photos. Actually, to someone flipping through the proliferation of lifestyle catalogs (from companies like Plow & Hearth, Restoration Hardware, Pottery Barn, and West Elm), the photos might not seem that odd. But when you see them in conjunction with Erdman’s hilarious captions, they are laugh-out-loud hysterical. They provide, as Erdman says “A look into the exciting lives of the people who live in your catalogs.”

As Reader’s Digest recently put it, “Ever notice that photos in home catalogs always include an overly twee prop or two? Molly Erdman decided they needed a backstory.”

For example, the caption for the photo below:

Elaine hoped that a nice bowl of fruit could lure Gary back from his magical journey into the Land of the Headboard.

Here’s how the Chicago Tribune described the origins of Erdman’s madness:

… late one Sunday night in June [2010], looking at a page in a West Elm catalog, it hit her: “This is so ridiculous,” she thought, trying to make sense of the outdoor furniture tableau that featured a plate of figs placed under a table.

“I showed my boyfriend,” she says. “I said, ‘Wouldn’t it be funny if I put these pictures up and made little captions for them?’” — essentially imagining the lives of the people who live in these oh-so-meticulously designed rooms.

Erdman decided to sleep on it and “see if it’s still funny in the morning.”

It was, and it has been ever since, CatalogLiving.net has evolved into the chronicle of a sort of Waspy couple, “Gary” and “Elaine,” who Erdman depicts as being a little hollow, a little fragile, a lot item-obsessed and, mostly, completely unaware of the occasional absurdities in their surroundings.

Seriously. You gotta check out the site if you’re in the mood for nonstop belly laughs.