Show and Tell

Stopping to pick up my daughter at kindergarten, I found out that the topic of "Show and Tell" that day had been parents' occupations.

The teacher pulled me aside. Whispering, she advised, "You might want to explain a little bit more to your daughter what you do for a living."

I work as a training consultant and often conduct my seminars in motel conference rooms.

When I asked why, the teacher explained, "Your daughter told the class she wasn't sure what you did, but said you got dressed real pretty and went to work at motels."

Truths About Life, learned by young children...

1. No matter how hard you try, you can't baptize cats.

2. When your mom is mad at your dad, don't let her brush your hair.

3. If your sister hits you, don't hit back. They always catch the second person.

4. Never ask your 3 year-old brother to hold a tomato.

5. You can't trust dogs to watch your food.

6. Reading what people write on desks can teach you a lot.

7. Don't sneeze when someone is cutting your hair.

8. Puppies still have bad breath even after eating a breath mint.

9. Never hold a vacuum and a cat at the same time.

10. School lunches stick to the wall.

11. You can't hide a piece of broccoli in a glass of milk.

12. Don't wear polka-dot underwear under white shorts - no matter how cute the underwear is.

Eating Strawberries

A farmer was driving along the road with a load of fertilizer. A child playing in front of his house saw him and called, "What are you hauling?"

"Fertilizer," the farmer replied.

"What are you going to do with it?" asked the child.

"Put it on strawberries," answered the farmer.

"You ought to live here," the child advised him.

"We put sugar and cream on them."

Problem Solving

A Software Engineer, a Hardware Engineer and a Departmental Manager were on their way to a meeting in Switzerland. They were driving down a steep mountain road when suddenly the brakes on their car failed. The car careened almost out of control down the road, bouncing off the crash barriers, until it miraculously ground to a halt, scraping along the mountainside.

The car's occupants, shaken but unhurt, now had a problem: they were stuck halfway down a mountain in a car with no brakes. What were they to do?

"I know", said the Departmental Manager, "Let's have a meeting, propose a Vision, formulate a Mission Statement, define some Goals, and by a process of Continuous Improvement find a solution to the Critical Problems, and we can be on our way."

"No, no", said the Hardware Engineer, "That will take far too long, and besides, that method has never worked before. I've got my Swiss Army knife with me, and in no time at all I can strip down the car's braking system, isolate the fault, fix it, and we can be on our way."

"Well", said the Software Engineer, "Before we do anything, I think we should push the car back up the road and see if it happens again."

Man and Wife

A man and his wife are sitting in the living room and he says to her, "Just so you know, I never want to live in a vegetative state dependent on some machine. If that ever happens, just pull the plug."

"OK," says his wife as she gets up and unplugs the TV.

Luck?

A 55-year-old man who was born on May 5, has been married 5 years, has 5 children, makes $55,555.55 a year, who's lucky number is 5 receives a phone call from a friend.

The friend informs the man that a horse named Lucky 5 will be running in the fifth race at the local track that evening. Excitedly, the man withdraws 5,555.00 cash from his bank account, goes to the races and bets on Lucky 5 to win.

Sure enough, the horse comes in fifth.

Carol's Gun

Rummaging through her attic one day, my friend Carol found an old shotgun. Unsure how to dispose of it, she called her parents.

"Take it to the police station," her mother suggested. My friend was about to hang up when her mom added....

"And, Carol?"

"Yes, mom?"

"Call them first and let them know you're coming."

Only In America

Only in America ... can a pizza get to your house faster than an ambulance.

Only in America ... are there handicap parking places in front of a skating rink.

Only in America ... do drugstores make the sick walk all the way to the back of the store to get their prescriptions while healthy people can buy cigarettes at the front.

Only in America ... do people order double cheeseburgers, large fries and a diet coke.

Only in America ... do banks leave both doors open and then chain the pens to the counters.

Only in America ... do we leave cars worth thousands of dollars in the driveway and put, our useless junk in the garage.

Only in America ... do we use the word 'politics' to describe the process so well: 'Poli' in Latin meaning 'many' and 'tics' meaning 'bloodsucking creatures'.

Only in America ... do they have drive-up ATM machines with Braille lettering.

Luggage

I couldn't find my luggage at the airport baggage area. So I went to the lost luggage office and told the woman there that my bags never showed up.

She smiled and told me not to worry as they were trained professionals and I was in good hands. "Now," she asked me, "has your plane arrived yet?"

Art Supply

I used to work in an art supply store. We sold artists' canvas by the yard, and you could get it in either of two widths: 36 inches or 48 inches.

Customer: "Can you please cut some canvas for me?"

Me: "Certainly, what width?"

Customer: (confused and slightly annoyed) "Scissors?"

Eye Surgery

Working in an ophthalmology practice that specializes in LASIK surgery, I am expected to comfort nervous patients. But prior to one operation, the patient was so nervous she was actually shaking.

Nothing I said to her would comfort her so after the doctor finished on the first eye and before he began on the second I wanted her to know the surgery was going well.

There, I said, patting her hand reassuringly, "Now you only have one eye left."

The Manager

Our manager at the restaurant where I worked was a friendly, jovial man. But there was one subject you didn't dare discuss in front of him--his height. Or, should I say, his lack of it.

One day he stormed through the door and announced angrily, "Someone just picked my pocket!"

Most of my fellow waitresses and I were speechless, except for one who blurted out, "How could anyone stoop so low?"

Smart Cat

A man absolutely hated his wife's cat and decided to get rid of him one day by driving him 20 blocks from his home and leaving him at the park.

As he was getting home, the cat was walking up the driveway.

The next day he decided to drive the cat 40 blocks away. He put the beast out and headed home.

Driving back up his driveway, there was the cat!

He kept taking the cat further and further and the cat would always beat him home. At last he decided to drive a few miles away, turn right, then left, past the bridge, then right again and another right until he reached what he thought was a safe distance from his home and left the cat there.

Hours later the man calls home to his wife: "Jen, is the cat there?"

"Yes", the wife answers, "Why do you ask?"

Frustrated, the man answered, "Put that critter on the phone. I'm lost and need directions!!!"

Gender Roles

A journalist had done a story on gender roles in Kuwait several years before the Gulf War, and she noted then that women customarily walked about 10 feet behind their husbands.

She returned to Kuwait recently and observed that the men now walked several yards behind their wives.

She approached one of the women for an explanation. "This is marvelous," said the journalist. "What enabled women here to achieve this reversal of roles?"

To which the Kuwaiti woman replied: "Land mines."

One blonde joke too far

A young ventriloquist is touring the clubs and stops to entertain at a bar in a small town.

He's going through his usual run of stupid blonde jokes, when a big blonde woman in the fourth row stands on her chair and says: "I've heard just about enough of your denigrating blonde jokes, Asshole. What makes you think you can stereotype women that way?

What does a person's physical attributes have to do with their worth as a human being?

It's guys like you who keep women like me from being respected at work and in my community, of reaching my full potential as a person because you and your kind continue to perpetuate discrimination against not only blondes but women at large ... all in the name of humor."

Flustered, the ventriloquist begins to apologize, when the blonde pipes up, "You stay out of this. Mister, I'm talking to that little jerk on your knee!"

Ham Dinner

A young woman was preparing a ham dinner. After she cut off the end of the ham, she placed it in a pan for baking. Her friend asked her,"Why did you cut off the end of the ham"? And she replied ,"I really don't know but my mother always did, so I thought you were supposed to."

Later when talking to her mother she asked her why she cut off the end of the ham before baking it, and her mother replied,"I really don't know, but that's the way my mom always did it."

A few weeks later while visiting her grandmother, the young woman asked, "Grandma, why is it that you cut off the end of a ham before you bake it?"

Her grandmother replied ,"Well dear, it would never fit into my baking pan."

Grocery Shopping

Coming out of the supermarket the other day, I saw a scary sight. As a woman loaded groceries into her trunk, her shopping cart began to roll away.

The scary part? It was heading straight for my car.

She ran after it, but was too late. The cart slammed into my driver's side door.

"How bad's the damage"? I called out, running toward her.

"Bad," she said, gathering her groceries. "I broke at least a dozen eggs."

New Pants, Stewardess!!

A plane was taking off from Kennedy Airport. After it reached a comfortable cruising altitude, the captain made an announcement over the intercom, "Ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain speaking. Welcome to Flight Number 293, nonstop from New York to Los Angeles. The weather ahead is good and therefore we should have a smooth and uneventful flight. Now sit back and relax—OH MY...!"

Then silence.

Soon, the captain came back on the intercom and said, "Ladies and Gentlemen, I am so sorry if I scared you earlier but while I was talking, the flight-attendant brought me a cup of very hot coffee and she spilled it in my lap. You should see the front of my pants!"

A passenger in Coach said, "That's nothing. He should see the back of mine!"

Energy

Engineering classes at the University of Maryland are tough, and struggling students sometimes go to extremes in order to pass. Grading exams one semester, I got to this question: "What is the relationship between kinetic and potential energy?"

One student, obviously stumped, decided to get clever and wrote, "As far as I know, they're just friends, but there could be something else going on there."

My Name is "Quits"

When Brandon's mother found out she was pregnant, she told the good news to anyone who would listen. But Little Brandon overheard some of his parents' private conversations.

One day, when Brandon and his mother were shopping, a woman asked the little boy if he was excited about the new baby.

"Yes!" Brandon answered, "and I know what we're gonna name it, too. If it's a girl, we're going to call her Christina, and if it's another boy we're going to call it quits!"

Month's Over!

Kurt sat at a bar, drinking slowly. On his face was the saddest hangdog expression.

The bartender asked, "What's the matter? Are you having troubles with your wife?"

Kurt replied, "We had a fight, and she told me that she wasn't going to speak to me for a month."

The bartender responded, "That should make you happy."

"No, the month is up today!"

Buying Fabric

Walking up to a department store's fabric counter, a pretty girl asked, "I want to buy this material for a new dress. How much does it cost?"

"Only one kiss per yard, " replied the smirking male clerk.

"That's fine," replied the girl. "I'll take ten yards."

With expectation and anticipation written all over his face, the clerk hurriedly measured out and wrapped the cloth, then held it out teasingly.

The girl snapped up the package and pointed to a little old man standing beside her. "Grandpa will pay the bill," she smiled.

Planet Sun

This redhead, brunette, and blonde were talking about space travel. They started talking about which planet they'd go to if they could travel in space.

The redhead said,"I'd go to Mars, because it is red, like my hair."

Then the brunette, not to be outdone, said,"Well I'd go to Saturn, because it's got all those groovy rings."

Finally, the blonde spoke up. She said,"I'd go to the Sun."

The redhead and the brunette laughed.

The redhead said,"Number one, the sun is not a planet." "And number two," the brunette finished,"you'd burn up."

The blonde said,"Well duh! I'd go at night!!!"

Blind Date

Joe sets up his friend Michael to go on a blind date with a friend of a friend of his. But Mike is a little worried about going out with someone he's never seen before. "What do I do if she's ugly?" says Mike, "I'll be stuck with her all night."

"Don't worry," Joe says, "just go up to her door and meet her first. If you like what you see, then everything goes as planned. If you don't just shout 'Aaaaaauuuggghhh!' and fake an asthma attack. That'll give you an excuse to cancel the date right then and there."

So that night, Mike knocks at the girl's door and when she comes out he is awe-struck at how beautiful and sexy she is. He's about to speak when the girl suddenly shouts:

"Aaaaaauuuggghhh!"