April 2000

Gone Boating	Ring	Consumer Labels
Bank Robbery	LAWS FOR WOMEN TO LIVE BY	Moses
What A Deal	Work vs. Prison	Jury Duty
Gas Service	Dear John	Gas Prices
Word Play	6th Grade History Test	What's Your Sign?
Cutting Class	Embarrassing Compulsion	The Audit
Philosopher	Some Tax Day Quickies	Speed Trap
Three Engineers	New Yorkers at Heavens Gate	Accident in NYC
Best T-Shirts	On Behalf Of the King	Bad Days
Gators	Whats My Name?	In Laws
Medical Q & A		The Parrot

A lady was walking down the street to work and she saw a parrot on a perch in front of a pet store. The parrot said to her, "Hey lady, you are really ugly." Well, the lady is furious! She stormed past the store to her work.

On the way home she saw the same parrot and it said to her, "Hey lady, you are really ugly." She was incredibly ticked now. The next day the same parrot again said to her, "Hey lady, you are really ugly."

The lady was so ticked that she went into the store and said that she would sue the store and kill the bird. The store manager replied profusely and promised he would make sure the parrot didn't say it again.

When the lady walked past the store that day after work the parrot called to her, "Hey lady."

She paused and said, "Yes?"

The bird said, "You know."

Two men are sitting drinking at a bar at the top of the Empire State Building when the first man turns to the other and says, "You know, last week I discovered that if you jump from the top of this building, by the time you fall to the 10th floor, the winds around the building are so intense that they carry you around the building and back into the window."

The bartender just shakes his head in disapproval while wiping the bar.

The second guy says, "What are you a nut? There is no way that could happen."

"No, it's true," said the first man, let me prove it to you." He gets up from the bar, jumps over the balcony, and plummets to the street below. When he passes the 10th floor, the high wind whips him around the building and back into the 10th floor window and he takes the elevator back up to the bar.

He met the second man, who looked quite astonished. "You know, I saw that with my own eyes, but that must have been a one time fluke."

"No, I'll prove it again," says the first man as he jumps. Again just as he is hurling toward the street, the 10th floor wind gently carries him around the building and into the window.

Once upstairs he urges his fellow drinker to try it. "Well, what the hey," the second guy says, "it works, I'll try it!" He jumps over the balcony plunges downward, passes the 11th, 10th, 9th, 8th floors ...and hits the sidewalk with a 'splat.'

Back upstairs the Bartender turns to the other drinker, saying "You know, Superman, sometimes you can be a real jerk."

Q. What is the easiest way to figure out exactly when I got pregnant?
A. Have sex only once a year.

Q. My blood type is O-positive and my husband's is A-negative. What if my baby is born with say... type AB-positive?
A. Then the jig is up.

Q. My husband and I are very attractive. I'm sure our baby will be beautiful enough for commercials. Whom should I contact about this?
A. Your therapist.

Q. I'm two months pregnant now. When will my baby move?
A. With any luck, right after he finishes college.

Q. My brother tells me that since my husband has a big nose, and genes for big noses are dominant, my baby will have a big nose as well. Is this true?
A. The odds are greater that your brother will have a fat lip.

Q. My wife is five months pregnant and so moody that sometimes she's borderline irrational.
A. So what's your question?

Q. Is there any reason I have to be in the delivery room while my wife is in labor?
A. No, not unless the word "alimony" means anything to you.

Q. Does labor cause hemorrhoids?
A. Labor causes anything you want to blame it for.

Q. Our baby was born last week. When will my wife begin to feel and act normal again?
A. When the kids are in college.

A young man asked a rich old man how he made his money.

The old guy fingered his worsted wool vest and said this:

"Well, son, it was 1932. The depth of the Great Depression. I was down to my last nickel. I invested that nickel in an apple. I spent the entire day polishing the apple and, at the end of the day, I sold the apple for ten cents.

The next morning, I invested those ten cents in two apples. I spent the entire day polishing them and sold them at 5:00 PM for 20 cents. I continued this system for the rest of the month, by the end of which I'd accumulated a fortune of $1.37.

Then my wife's father died and left us two million dollars."

The manager of a large office noticed a new man one day and told him to come into his office. "What's your name?" he asked the new guy.

"John," the new guy replied.

The manager scowled, "Look... I don't know what kind of a namby-pamby place you worked before, but I don't call anyone by their first name. It breeds familiarity and that leads to a breakdown in authority. I refer to my employees by their last name only ... Smith, Jones, Baker ... That's all. I am to be referred to only as Mr. Robertson. Now that we got that straight, what is your last name?"

The new guy sighed, "Darling. My name is John Darling."

"Okay John, the next thing I want to tell you is . . . "

While sports fishing off the Florida coast, a tourist capsized his boat. He could swim, but his fear of alligators kept him clinging to the overturned craft. Spotting an old beachcomber standing on the shore, the tourist shouted, "Are there any gators around here?!"

"Naw," the man hollered back, "they ain't been around for years!"

Feeling safe, the tourist started swimming leisurely toward the shore. About halfway there he asked the guy, "How'd you get rid of the gators?"

"We didn't do nothin'," the beachcomber said. "The sharks got 'em."

A knight and his men returned to their castle after a hard day of fighting.

"How are we faring?" asked the king.

"Sire!" replied the knight, "I have been robbing and pillaging on your behalf all day, burning the towns of your enemies to the west."

"What?" shrieked the king, "I don't have any enemies to the west!"

"Oh!" said the knight,"Well, you do now."

...you wake up - face down on the pavement

...you call Suicide Prevention and they put you on hold

...you see a "60 minutes" news team waiting for you in your office

...your birthday cake collapses from the weight of the candles

...your son tells you he wishes Anita Bryant would mind her own business

...you turn on the news and they're showing emergency routes out of the city

...your twin sister forgets your birthday

...you wake up and discover your waterbed broke and then you realize you don't have a waterbed

...your carhorn goes off accidentally and remains stuck as you follow a group of hells angels on the freeway

...your wife wakes up feeling amourous and YOU have a headache

...your boss tells you to not bother taking off you coat

...the bird singing outside your window is a buzzard

...you wake up and your braces are locked together

...you call your answering service and they tell you it's none of your business

...your blind date turns out to be your ex

This was in the "Bob Levey's Washington" column in the Washington Post. Every year he compiles and prints the "Best T-shirts of the Summer":

1) (around a picture of dandelions) I Fought the Lawn and the Lawn Won

2) So many Men, So Few Who Can Afford Me

3) I Suffer Occasional Delusions of Adequacy

4) God Made Us Sisters, Prozac Made Us Friends

5) If They Don't Have Chocolate In Heaven, I Ain't Going

6) At My Age, I've Seen It All, Done It All, Heard It All... I Just Can't Remember It All

7) My Mother Is A Travel Agent For Guilt Trips

8) I Just Do What The Voices Inside My Head Tell Me To Do

9) (Worn by a pregnant woman) A Man Did This To Me, Oprah

10) If It's Called Tourist Season, Why Can't We Hunt Them?

Saint Peter was manning the Pearly Gates when forty people from New York City showed up.

Never having seen anyone from the Big Apple at heaven's door, Saint Peter said he would have to check with God.

After hearing the news, God instructed him to admit the ten most virtuous people from the group.

A few minutes later, Saint Peter returned to God breathless and said, "They're gone!"

"What? All of the New Yorkers are gone?" asked God.

"No!" replied Saint Peter. "The Pearly Gates!"

Officer Patrick McGuire of the New York City Police Department answers a call on his radio and reports to the scene of a car accident in the Queens-Midtown Tunnel. Officer McGuire notes that a new Buick had its front end merged with the rear end of a Chrysler. The driver of the Buick was Father Francis O'Boyle; the driver of the Chrysler was Rabbi Isaac Goldstein.

After Officer McGuire verifies that Rabbi Goldstein has suffered no physical injuries in the accident, he walks back to survey the damages to each vehicle.

Then, Officer McGuire walks over to Father O'Boyle and asks him: "Tell me, Father, just how fast was that Rabbi going when he backed into you?"

There are three engineers in a car; an electrical engineer, a chemical engineer and a Microsoft engineer. Suddenly the car just stops by the side of the road, and the three engineers look at each other wondering what could be wrong.

The electrical engineer suggests stripping down the electronics of the car and trying to trace where a fault might have occurred. The chemical engineeer, not knowing much about cars, suggests that maybe the fuel is becoming emulsified and getting blocked somewhere.

Then, the Microsoft engineer, not knowing much about anything, comes up with a suggestion, "Why don`t we close all the windows, get out, get back in, open the windows again, and maybe it`ll work!?"

A man was speeding down the highway, feeling secure in a gaggle of cars all traveling at the same speed. However, as they passed a speed trap, he got nailed with an infrared speed detector and was pulled over.

The officer handed him the citation, received his signature and was about to walk away when the man asked, "Officer, I know I was speeding, but I don't think it's fair - there were plenty of other cars around me who were going just as fast, so why did *I* get the ticket?"

"Ever go fishing?" the policeman suddenly asked the man.

"Ummm, yeah..." the startled man replied.

The officer grinned and added, "Ever catch *all* the fish?"

A renowned philosopher was held in high regard by his chauffeur, who listened in awe at every speech while his boss would easily answer questions about morality and ethics.

Then one day the chauffeur approached the philosopher and asked if he was willing to switch roles for the evening's lecture. The philosopher agreed and, for a while, the chauffeur handled himself remarkably well. When it came time for questions from the guests, a woman in the back asked, "Is the epistemological view of the universe still valid in an existentialist world?"

"That is an extremely simple question," he responded. "So simple, in fact, that even my driver could answer that, which is exactly what he will do."

The stock broker received notice from the IRS that he was being audited. He showed up at the appointed time and place with all his financial records, then sat for what seemed like hours as the auditor scrutinized their every detail.

Finally the IRS agent looked up and commented, "You must have been a tremendous fan of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle."

"Why would you say that?" wondered the broker.

"Because you've made more brilliant deductions on your last three returns than Sherlock Holmes made in his entire career."

Q. Are birth control pills tax deductible?
A. Only if they don't work.

A fine is a tax for doing wrong.
A tax is a fine for doing well.

"The hardest thing in the world to understand is the income tax." -- Albert Einstein

"The income tax has made more liars out of the American people than golf has. Even when you make a tax form out on the level, you don't know, when it's through, if you are a crook or a martyr." -- Will Rogers

"Many never test their powers of deduction, except when filling out a tax form." -- Anonymous

"The reward of energy, enterprise and thrift -- is taxes." -- William Feather

"Jill," a teacher reprimanded the teenager in the hall, "do you mind telling me whose class you're cutting this time?"

"Like," the young teen replied, "uh, see, okay, like it's like I really don't like think like that's really important, y'know, like because I'm y'know, like I don't get anything out of it."

"It's English class, isn't it?" replied the smiling teacher.

A man walked into a bar and ordered a glass of white wine. He took a sip of the wine, then tossed the remainder into the bartender's face. Before the bartender could recover from the surprise, the man began weeping.

"I'm sorry," he said. "I'm really sorry. I keep doing that to bartenders. I can't tell you how embarrassing it is to have a compulsion like this."

Far from being angry, the bartender was sympathetic. Before long, he was suggesting that the man see an analyst about his problem.

"I happen to have the name of a psychoanalyst," the bartender said. "My brother and my wife have both been treated by him, and they say he's as good as they get."

Six months later, the man was back.

"Did you do what I suggested?" the bartender asked, serving a glass of white wine.

"I certainly did," the man said. "I've been seeing the psychoanalyst twice a week." He took a sip of the wine, then he threw the remainder into the bartender's face.

The flustered bartender wiped his face with a towel. "The doctor doesn't seem to be doing you any good," he sputtered.

"On the contrary," the man claimed, "he's done me world of good."

"But you threw the wine in my face again!" the bartender exclaimed.

"Yes," the man replied. "But it doesn't embarrass me anymore."

How many members of each astrological sign does it take to change a light bulb?

ARIES:        Just one. You want to make something of it?

TAURUS:       One, but don't try to convince me that
                       the burned-out bulb is useless and should be
                       thrown away.

GEMINI:       Two, but we will never be finished. We will
                     argue endlessly about which one should do it
                     and how it should be done.

CANCER:       Just one. But I will need three years of therapy
                       to get through the grief process.

LEO:          I do not change light bulbs. I will have
                  my assistant get a Virgo to do it for me
                   while I am out.

VIRGO:        Approximately 1.000000 plus or minus
                    one millionth.

LIBRA:        Err, two. Or maybe one. No, on second thought,
                    make that two. Are you okay with that?

SCORPIO:      That information is strictly secret and shared
                       only with the Enlightened Ones in the Star Chamber
                       of the Ancient Hierarchical Order.

SAGITTARIUS: The sun is shining, the day is young, we've got
                         our whole lives ahead of us, and you're inside
                         worrying about a light bulb?

CAPRICORN:    I don't waste my time with insignificant matters.

AQUARIUS:     Well, you have to remember that everything is
                        energy, so...

PISCES:       Light bulb? What light bulb?

Actual answers..and spelling.. in a 6th grade history test:

1. Ancient Egypt was inhabited by mummies and they all wrote in hydraulics. They lived in the Sarah Dessert. The climate of the Sarah is such that the inhabitants have to live elsewhere.

2. Moses led the Hebrew slaves to the Red Sea, where they made unleavenedbread, which is bread made without any ingredients. Moses went up on Mount Cyanide to get the ten commandments. He died before he ever reached Canada.

3. Solomom had three hundred wives and seven hundred porcupines.

4. The Greeks were a highly sculptured people, and without them we wouldn't have history. The Greeks also had myths. A myth is a female moth.

5. Socrates was a famous Greek teacher who went around giving people advice. They killed him. Socrates died from an overdose of wedlock. After his death, his career suffered a dramatic decline.

6. In the Olympic games, Greeks ran races, jumped, hurled biscuits, and threw the java.

7. Julius Caesar extinguished himself on the battlefields of Gaul. The Ides of March murdered him because they thought he was going to be made king. Dying, he gasped out: "Tee hee, Brutus."

8. Joan of Arc was burnt to a steak and was canonized by Bernard Shaw.

9. Queen Elizabeth was the "Virgin Queen." As a queen she was a success. When she exposed herself before her troops they all shouted "hurrah."
10. It was an age of great inventions and discoveries. Gutenberg invented removable type and the Bible. Another important invention was the circulation of blood. Sir Walter Raleigh is a historical figure because he invented cigarettes and started smoking. Sir Fransis Drake circumsized the world with a 100-foot clipper.

Arbitrator \ar'-bi-tray'-ter\ : A cook that leaves Arby's to work at McDonald's

Avoidable \uh-voy'-duh-buhl' \ : What a bullfighter tries to do

Baloney \buh-lo'-nee' \ : Where some hemlines fall

Bernadette \burn'-a-det' \ : The act of torching a mortgage

Burglarize \bur'-gler-ize' \ : What a crook sees with

Control \kon'-trol\ : A short, ugly inmate

Counterfeiters \kown'-ter-fit'-ers\ : Workers who put together kitchen cabinets

Eclipse \ee-klips' \ : What a Cockney barber does for a living

Eyedropper \i'-drop-ur\ : A clumsy ophthalmologist

Heroes \hee-rhos' \ : What a guy in a boat does

Left Bank \left' bangk' \ : What the robber did when his bag was full of loot

Misty \mis-tee' \ : How golfers create divots

Paradox \par'-u-doks' \ : Two physicians

Parasites \par'-ih-sites' \: What you see from the top of the EiffelTower

Pharmacist \farm'-uh-sist \ : A helper on the farm

Polarize \po'-lur-ize' \ : What penguins see with

Primate \pri'-mate' \ : Removing your spouse from in front of the TV

Relief \ree-leef' \ : What trees do in the spring

Selfish \sel'-fish' \ : What the owner of a seafood store does

Subdued \sub-dood' \ : Like, a guy who, like, works on one of those, like, submarines, man

Sudafed \sood'-a-fed' \ : Brought litigation against a government official

Gas prices are so high that when I pulled into a station this morning and asked for a dollars worth, the attendant dabbed some behind my ears.

Dear John,
I have been unable to sleep since I broke off our engagement. Won't you forgive and forget? Your absence is breaking my heart. I was a fool, nobody can take your place. I love you.
All my love,
Judy

P.S. Congratulations on winning this week's lottery.

Two gas company servicemen, a senior training supervisor and a young trainee, were out checking meters in a suburban neighborhood. They parked their truck at the end of the alley and worked their way to the other end. At the last house, a woman looking out her kitchen window watched the two men as they checked her gas meter.

Finishing the meter check, the senior supervisor challenged his younger coworker to a foot race down the alley back to the truck to prove that an older guy could outrun a younger one.

As they came running up to the truck, they realized the lady from that last house was huffing and puffing right behind them. They stopped and asked her what was wrong.

Gasping for breath, she replied, "When I see two gas men running as hard as you two are, I figured I'd better run too!"

IN PRISON... You spend the majority of your time in an 8x10 cell
AT WORK...   You spend most of your time in a 6x8 cubicle.

IN PRISON... You get three meals a day.
AT WORK...   You only get a break for 1 meal and you have to pay for it

IN PRISON... You get time off for good behavior.
AT WORK...    You get rewarded for good behavior with more work.

IN PRISON...   A guard locks and unlocks all the doors for you.
AT WORK...    You must carry around a security card and unlock and open all the doors yourself.

IN PRISON..     You can watch TV and play games.
AT WORK...      You get fired for watching TV and playing games.

IN PRISON....    You get your own toilet.
AT WORK...       You have to share.

IN PRISON...     They allow your family and friends to visit.
AT WORK...      You cannot even speak to your family and friends.

IN PRISON...   All expenses are paid by taxpayers with no work required.
AT WORK...      You get to pay all the expenses to go to work and then they deduct taxes from your salary to pay for prisoners.

IN PRISON...     You spend most of your life looking through bars from the inside wanting to get out.
AT WORK...      You spend most of your time wanting to get out and go inside bars.

IN PRISON...     There are wardens who are often sadistic.
AT WORK...       They are called supervisors.

IN PRISON...      You have unlimited time to read e-mail jokes.
AT WORK...        You get fired if you get caught.

My wife was called to serve for jury duty, but asked to be excused because she didn't believe in capital punishment and didn't want her personal thoughts to prevent the trial from running its proper course. But the public defender liked her thoughtfulness and quiet calm, and tried to convince her that she was appropriate to serve on the jury.

"Madam," he explained, "this is not a murder trial! It's a simple civil lawsuit. A wife is bringing this case against her husband because he gambled away the $12,000 he had promised to use to remodel the kitchen for her birthday."

"Well, okay," agreed my wife, "I'll serve. I guess I could be wrong about capital punishment after all."

A Catholic priest was called away for an emergency. Not wanting to leave the confessional unattended, he called his Rabbi friend from across the street and asked him to cover for him. The Rabbi was concerned that he wouldn't know what to say, but the priest told him to come on over and he'd stay with him for a little bit and show him what to do. The Rabbi comes, and he and the priest go into the confessional together.

In a few minutes, a woman comes in and says, "Father, forgive me for I have sinned.

The priest asks, "What did you do?"

The woman says, "I committed adultery."

Priest: "How many times?"

Woman: "Three times."

Priest: "Say two Hail Marys, put $5 in the box, and go and sin no more."

A few minutes later, a man enters the confessional. He says, "Father, forgive me for I have sinned."

Priest: "What did you do?"

Man: "I committed adultery."

Priest: "How many times?"

Man: "Three times."

Priest: "Say two Hail Marys, put $5 in the box, and go and sin no more."

The rabbi tells the priest that he thinks he's got it so the priest leaves.

A few minutes later, another woman enters and says, "Father, forgive me for I have sinned."

Rabbi: "What did you do?"

Woman: "I committed adultery."

Rabbi: "How many times?"

Woman: "Once."

Rabbi: "Go do it two more times. We have a special this week, three for $5."

George W. Bush, the candidate for president of the United States, was in an airport lobby, noticed a man in a long flowing white robe with a long flowing white beard and flowing white hair. The man had a staff in one hand and some stone tablets under the other arm.

Excited, George W. approached the man and inquired, "Aren't you Moses."

The man ignored George W. and stared at the ceiling.

Mr. Bush positioned himself more directly in the man's view and asked again, "Aren't you Moses?"

The man continued to peruse the ceiling.

George tugged at the man's sleeve and asked once again, "Aren't you Moses?"

The man finally responded in an irritated voice, "Yes I am."

George W. asked him why he was so uppity and the man replied, "The last time I spoke to a Bush I had to spend forty years in the desert!"

The teller had just been robbed for the third time by the same man, and was being asked by a police officer if he had noticed anything specific about the criminal.

1. Don't imagine you can change a man - unless he's in diapers.

2. What do you do if your boyfriend walks-out? You shut the door.

3. If they put a man on the moon - they should be able to put them all up there.

4. Never let your man's mind wander - it's too little to be out alone.

5. Go for younger men. You might as well - they never mature anyway.

6. Men are all the same - they just have different faces, so that you can tell them apart.

7. Definition of a bachelor; a man who has missed the opportunity to make some woman miserable.

8. Women don't make fools of men - most of them are the do-it-yourself kind.

9. Best way to get a man to do something, is to suggest they are too old for it.

10. Love is blind, but marriage is a real eye-opener.

11. If you want a committed man, look in a mental hospital.

12. The children of Israel wandered around the desert for 40 years. This just proves that even in biblical times, men wouldn't ask for directions.

13. If he asks what sort of books you're interested in, tell him checkbooks.

14. Remember a sense of humor does not mean that you tell him jokes, it means that you laugh at his.

15. Sadly, all men are created equal.

In case you needed further proof that the human race is doomed by stupidity, here are some actual label instructions found on consumer goods:

On a Sears hairdryer: Do not use while sleeping.
On a bag of Fritos: You could be a winner! No purchase necessary.Details inside.
On a bar of Dial soap: Directions: Use like regular soap.
On a Swann frozen dinners: Serving suggestion: Defrost.
On Tesco's tiramisu dessert (printed on the bottom of box): Do not turn upside-down.
On Marks & Spencer bread pudding: Product will be hot after heating.
On packaging for a Rowenta iron: Do not iron clothes on body.
On Boot's children's cough medicine: "Do not drive a car or operate machinery after taking this medication."
On Nytol sleep aid: Warning: May cause drowsiness.
On most brands of Christmas lights: "For indoor or outdoor use only."
On a Japanese food processor: Not to be used for the other use. (I gotta admit, I'm curious.)
On Sainsbury's peanuts: "Warning: contains nuts."
On an American Airlines packet of peanuts: "Instructions: Open packet, eat nuts."
On a child's Superman costume: "Wearing of this garment does not enable you to fly."

One day the telephone rang and when I picked it up a female voice from the other side said, "Is your number 555 1212?"

"Yes it is" I replied.

"Could you call 911?" she asked, "My finger is stuck on the phone."

Last summer, down on Lake Isabella, located in the high desert, an hour east of Bakersfield, a woman, new to boating was having a problem. No matter how hard she tried, she just couldn't get her brand new 22 foot Bayliner to perform. It wouldn't get on a plane at all, and it was very sluggish in almost every maneuver, no matter how much power she applied.

After about an hour of trying to make it go, she putted over to a nearby marina. Maybe they could tell her what was wrong. A topside check revealed everything was in perfect working order. The engine was fine, the outdrive went up and down, the prop was the correct size and pitch.

So, one of the marina guys jumped in the water to check underneath. He came up choking on water, he was laughing so hard.

Under the boat, still strapped securely in place, was the trailer.