: A frustrated father talked to his work colleague about his kids and discipline.
“When I was a youngster,” he said, “I was disciplined by being sent to my room without supper. But in my son’s room he has a TV, a laptop, a game console, his cell phone, and a stereo.” After a moment he added, “And I bet he has a stash of snacks there too. We are starting to lose our minds, man, you know what I mean?”
“Oh I do,” replied his colleague, “We’re dealing with the same struggle.”
In Alaska's Tongass National Forest, a tour guide was giving a talk to a group of tourists about hiking in grizzly bear territory: "Most bear encounters occur when hikers, being extra quiet along the trails in hopes of viewing wildlife, accidentally stumble into bears. The resulting surprise can be catastrophic."
To avoid this, he suggested that each hiker wear tiny bells on their clothing to warn the bears of their presence. "Also," he said further, "be especially cautious when you see signs of bears in the area, especially when you see bear droppings."
One tourist asked, "How do you identify bear droppings?"
"Oh that's easy," the guide explained. "They're the ones with all the tiny bells in them!"
A 6th grade teacher posed the following problem to one of her arithmetic classes: “A wealthy man dies and leaves ten million dollars. One-fifth is to go to his wife, one-fifth is to go to his son, one-sixth to his butler, and the rest to charity. Now, what does each get?”
After a very long silence in the classroom, one little boy raised his hand and with complete sincerity in his voice, answered, “A lawyer!”
The commanding officer at the Russian military academy (the equivalent of a 4-star general in the U.S.) gave a lecture on potential problems and military strategy. At the end of the lecture, he asked if there were any questions.
An officer stood up and asked, “Will there be a third world war? And will Russia take part in it?”
The general answered both questions in the affirmative.
Another officer asked, “Who will be the enemy?”
The general replied, “All indications point to China.”
Everyone in the audience was shocked. A third officer remarked, “General, we are a nation of only 150 million, compared to the 1.5 billion Chinese. Can we win at all, or even survive?”
The general answered, “Just think about this for a moment: In modern warfare, it is not the number of soldiers that matters but the quality of an army’s capabilities. For example, in the Middle East, we have had a few wars recently where 5 million Jews fought against 150 million Arabs, and Israel was always victorious.”
After a small pause, an officer from the back of the auditorium asked, “Do we have enough Jews?”
Working at the post office, I'm used to dealing with a moody public. So, when one irate customer stormed my desk, I responded in my calmest voice, "What's the trouble?"
"I went out this morning," she began, "and when I came home, I found a card saying the mailman tried to deliver a package, but no one was home. I'll have you know, my husband was in all morning! He never heard a thing!"
After apologizing, I got her parcel.
"Oh good!" she gushed. "We've been waiting for this for ages!"
My friend's husband is always telling her that housekeeping would be a snap if only she would organize her time better. Recently he had a chance to put his theory into practice while his wife was away.
When I popped in one evening to see how he was managing, he crowed, "I made a cake and frosted it; washed the kitchen windows; cleaned all the cupboards; scrubbed the kitchen floor, walls, and ceiling; and even had a bath."
I was about to concede that perhaps he was a better manager than his wife, when he added sheepishly, "When I was making the chocolate frosting, I forgot to turn off the mixer before taking the beaters out of the bowl, so I had to do all the rest."
A guy walks into his boss’ office and asks for a day off.
His boss replies, “So you want a day off. Let’s take a look at what you are asking for. There are 365 days per year available for work. There are 52 weeks per year in which you already have 2 days off per week, leaving 261 days available for work.
Since you spend 16 hours each day away from work, you have used up 170 days, leaving only 91 days available. You spend 30 minutes each day on coffee break which counts for 23 days each year, leaving only 68 days available. With a 1 hour lunch each day, you used up another 46 days, leaving only 22 days available for work.
You normally spend 2 days per year on sick leave. This leaves you only 20 days per year available for work. We are off 5 holidays per year, so your available working time is down to 15 days.
We generously give 14 days vacation per year which leaves only 1 day available for work and I’ll be darned if you are going to take that day off!”
A rich American man had bad luck with women and finally decided to find a mail order bride from Russia. She arrived a few weeks after they scheduled his order online, they got married and lived happily in a rich town in Connecticut.
Though the poor lady was not very proficient in English, she did manage to communicate with her husband with gestures mostly. The real problem arose whenever she had to shop for groceries.
One day, she went to the butcher and wanted to buy chicken legs. She didn’t know how to put forward her request and in desperation, clucked like a chicken and lifted up her skirt to show her thighs. The butcher got the message, and gave her the chicken legs.
The next day, she needed to get chicken breasts. Again, she didn’t know how to say it, and so she clucked like a chicken and unbuttoned her blouse to show the butcher her breasts! The butcher understood again, and gave her some chicken breasts.
The third day, the poor lady needed to buy sausages. Unable to find a way to communicate this, she brought her husband to the store…
…
…
…
Now get your head out of the gutter. Her husband speaks English
After 35 years of marriage, a husband and wife came for counseling. When asked what the problem was, the wife went into a tirade listing every problem they had ever had in the years they had been married.
On and on and on: neglect, emptiness, loneliness, feeling unloved and unlovable, an entire laundry list of unmet needs she had endured.
Finally, after allowing this for a sufficient length of time, the
therapist got up, walked around the desk and after asking the wife to stand, he embraced and kissed her long and passionately as her husband watched - with a raised eyebrow. The woman shut up and quietly sat down as though in a daze.
The therapist turned to the husband and said, "This is what your wife needs at least 3 times a week. Can you do this?"
"Well, I can drop her off here on Mondays and Wednesdays, but on Fridays, I fish."
Here is a purported-to-be-true story someone found regarding exams at Cambridge University. It seems that during an examination one day, a bright young student popped up and asked the proctor to bring him cakes and ale. The following dialog ensued:
Proctor: I beg your pardon?
Student: Sir, I request that you bring me cakes and ale.
Proctor: Sorry, no.
Student: Sir, I really must insist. I request and require that you bring me cakes and ale.
At this point, the student produced a copy of the four hundred-year-old Laws of Cambridge, written in Latin and still nominally in effect, and pointed to the section that read (roughly translated): "Gentlemen sitting examinations may request and require cakes and ale." Pepsi and hamburgers were judged the modern equivalent, and the student sat there, writing his examination and happily eating and slurping away.
Three weeks later, the student was fined five pounds for not wearing a sword to the examination.
John Smith lived in Staten Island, New York and worked in Manhattan. He had to take the ferryboat home every night. One evening, he got down to the ferry and found there was a wait for the next boat, so John decided to stop at a nearby tavern. Before long he was feeling no pain.
When he got back to the ferry slip, the ferryboat was just eight feet from the dock. Smith, afraid of missing this one and being late for dinner, took a running leap and landed right on the deck of the boat.
“How did you like that jump, buddy?” said a proud John to a deck hand.
“It was great,” said the sailor. “But why didn’t you wait? We were just pulling in!
A lady on a commuter train was reading a newspaper article about life and death statistics. Fascinated, she turned to the man next to her and said, "Did you know that every time I breathe somebody dies?"
After being with her all evening, the man couldn't take another minute with his blind date. Earlier, he had secretly arranged to have a friend call him to the phone so he would have an excuse to leave if something like this happened.
When he returned to the table, he lowered his eyes, put on a grim expression, and said, "I have some bad news. My grandfather just died and I have to leave."
"Thank heaven!" his date replied. "If yours hadn't, mine would have had to."
Auditioning for a job at a circus were a young man and a young woman.
The woman said, “I’ll go first.” She walked past the chair, the whip, and the gun and stepped right into the lion’s cage. The lion started to snarl and pant and began to charge her. About half way there, she threw open her coat revealing her beautiful naked body.
The lion stopped dead in his tracks, sheepishly crawled up to her, and started licking her ankles. He continued to lick her calves, kissed them, and then rested his head at her feet.
The circus owner’s mouth was on the floor. He said, “I’ve never seen a display like that in my life.” He then turned to the young man and asked, “Can you top that?”
The young man replied, “No problem, just get that lion out of the way.”
A married couple was vacationing in Yosemite. The wife expressed her concern about camping because of bears and said she would feel more comfortable in a motel. The husband said that he'd like to camp. To calm her concerns, he suggested they talk to the park ranger to see what the likelihood of a bear encounter would be.
The ranger told them, "Well, we haven't seen any grizzlies in this area so far this year, or black bears, for that matter."
The wife shrieked, "There are TWO types of bears out here? How can you tell the difference? Which one is more dangerous?"
The ranger replied, "Well, that's easy -- see, if the bear chases you up a tree and it comes up after you, it's a BLACK bear. If it SHAKES the tree until you fall out, it's a grizzly."
My father was in the dentist's chair having a root canal done. Every so often, the dentist would stick a large toothpick-like object into the tooth's canal to see how far he had drilled. Each time, this thing caused my father great pain, but whenever he complained, the dentist replied, "Oh, that doesn't hurt -- it's just a measuring device."
This happened a couple more times. Again my father complained -- again he got the same response. Finally my father sat up in the chair, took all the stuff out of his mouth, and looked straight at the dentist. "Excuse me for a moment," Dad said. "I have to go out to my truck, get my tape measure, and whack you in the head with it. It shouldn't hurt, though. It's just a measuring device."
When my father-in-law decided to move after his retirement, he invited us to his home to take a few pieces of furniture he wanted us to have. One item was beautiful but very heavy -- an antique dining-room set. Our teenage son helped us wrestle the set into our truck. It took the whole day, but finally the table, chairs, and china cabinet were sitting in our dining room.
"Just think," I said as I admired the furniture while my son sat resting. "This set is 100 years old. And someday, it will belong to you."
"Oh, no!" he replied with a stricken look on his face. "You mean I'm going to have to move this thing AGAIN?"
A little girl asked her mother for a dollar to give to an old lady in the park. Her mother was touched by the child's kindness, and gave her the dollar.
"There you are, my dear," said the mother. "But, tell me, isn't the lady able to work any more?"
Three mice are sitting at a table in a pretty rough neighborhood late at night trying to impress each other about how tough they are.
The first mouse turns to the second mouse and says, "When I see a mousetrap, I lie on my back and set it off with my foot. When the bar comes down, I catch it in my teeth, bench press it twenty times to work up an appetite, and then make off with the cheese."
The second mouse replies, "Yeah, well, when I see rat poison, I collect as much as I can, take it home, grind it up to a powder, and add it to my coffee each morning so I can get going for the rest of the day."
The first mouse and the second mouse then turn to the third mouse.
The third mouse lets out a long sigh and says to the first two, "I don't have time for this. I've got a date with the cat."