Too Much Candy

Little Johnny was on a park bench stuffing all of his Halloween candy in his mouth. An old lady came over and said, “Son, don’t you know that eating all of that candy will rot your teeth, give you acne, and make you sick?”

“My grandfather lived to be 105 years old!” replied Johnny.

“Did he eat five candy bars at a sitting?” the old lady retorted.

“No,” said Johnny, “but he minded his own business!”

 

PUN-KIN Thanksgiving Humor

 

Why did the cranberries turn red? Because they saw the turkey dressing!

 

What did the turkey say to the computer? “Google, google, google.”

 

What’s the difference between a pirate and a cranberry farmer? A pirate buries his treasure, but a cranberry farmer treasures his berries.

 

Actual Calls to The Butterball Hotline

 

When a Butterball Talk-Line staffer asked a caller what state her turkey was in (meaning how thawed was it) the caller responded with, “Florida.”

 

A woman in her seventies, cooking Thanksgiving dinner for the first time, called Butterball for help because her mother said she was tired of cooking and it was time her daughter learned how to prepare the Thanksgiving meal.

 

A proud gentleman called to tell the Butterball staff how he wrapped his turkey in a towel and stomped on it several times, breaking the bones so it would fit in his pan.

 

A gentleman called Butterball’s Thanksgiving Turkey Talk-Line to tell the operator he cut his turkey in half with a chain saw and wanted to know if the oil from the chain would adversely affect the turkey.

 

A disappointed woman called Butterball’s Thanksgiving Turkey Talk-Line wondering why her turkey had no breast meat. After a conversation with an operator, it became apparent that the woman’s turkey was lying on the table upside down.

 

“Thanksgiving dinners take 18 hours to prepare. They are consumed in 12 minutes. Half-times take 12 minutes. This is not coincidence.”—Erma Bombeck

 

Indian Givers

“I celebrated Thanksgiving in an old-fashioned way. I invited everyone in my neighborhood to my house, we had an enormous feast, and then I killed them and took their land.”

 

The Golden Door

A family from the hills of Kentucky was visiting the big city for the first time.

They stayed in a high-rise hotel with a big gold elevator right off of the lobby. The mother and daughter stared at it in amazement, wondering what it was. After staring at it in awe for a few minutes the girl looked up at her mom, “Ma, what do you reckon that there thing is?” she asked.

“I don’t rightly know, girl,” the mother replied.

Just then an old, frumpy man in a robe with messy hair walks up, steps in the elevator and the doors shut behind him. After about 30 seconds the doors opened again and a handsome, muscular young man in tight work-out clothes comes out.

The mother leans over to her daughter and says, “Girl, go and get your Pa!”

 

Sales Caller Comebacks

~ “I’m sorry, but I’m really busy right now. Give me your home number and I’ll call you back later tonight.”

~ “Shhh. Wait a minute. I’m here robbing the house. Whoa! I think the owners just got home. Can you hold?”

~ When someone asks whether a spouse is at home: “Yes, but I never allow him/her to talk to strangers.”

~ When someone asks how you are: “Well, I’m having an existential crisis at the moment. Let me explain . . .”

~ “You want to sell me insurance? I’ve been trying to get insurance for years, but nobody will sell me any!”

~ Use your touch-tone phone to annoy the caller by playing “Mary Had a Little Lamb”:
6-5-4-5
6-6-6
5-5-5
6-6-6.
6-5-4-5
6-6-6-6
5-5-6-5
4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4

                 ALL THE GOOD THINGS

He was in the first third grade class I taught at Saint Mary’s School in Morris, Minn. All 34 of my students were dear to me, but Mark Eklund was one in a million. Very neat in appearance, but had that happy-to-be-alive attitude that made even his occasional mischievousness delightful.

Mark talked incessantly. I had to remind him again and again that talking without permission was not acceptable. What impressed me so much, though, was his sincere response every time I had to correct him for misbehaving: “Thank you for correcting me, Sister!” I didn’t know what to make of it at first, but before long I became accustomed to hearing it many times a day.

One morning my patience was growing thin when Mark talked once too often, and then I made a novice-teacher’s mistake. I looked at him and said, “If you say one more word, I am going to tape your mouth shut!”

It wasn’t ten seconds later when Chuck blurted out, “Mark is talking again.” I hadn’t asked any of the students to help me watch Mark, but since I had stated the punishment in front of the class, I had to act on it.

I remember the scene as if it had occurred this morning. I walked to my desk, very deliberately opened my drawer and took out a roll of masking tape. Without saying a word, I proceeded to Mark’s desk, tore off two pieces of tape and made a big X with them over his mouth.

I then returned to the front of the room. As I glanced at Mark to see how he was doing he winked at me.

That did it! I started laughing. The class cheered as I walked back to Mark’s desk, removed the tape and shrugged my shoulders. His first words were, “Thank you for correcting me, Sister.”

At the end of the year I was asked to teach junior-high math. The years flew by, and before I knew it Mark was in my classroom again. He was more handsome than ever and just as polite. Since he had to listen carefully to my instructions in the “new math,” he did not talk as much in ninth grade as he had in the third.

One Friday, things just didn’t feel right. We had worked hard on a new concept all week, and I sensed that the students were frowning, frustrated with themselves–and edgy with one another. I had to stop this crankiness before it got out of hand. So I asked them to list the names of the other students in the room on two sheets of paper, leaving a space between each name. Then I told them to think of the nicest thing they could say about each of their classmates and write it down.

It took the remainder of the class period to finish the assignment, and as the students left the room, each one handed me the papers. Charlie smiled. Mark said, “Thank you for teaching me, Sister. Have a good weekend.”

That Saturday, I wrote down the name of each student on a separate sheet of paper, and I listed what everyone else had said about that individual. On Monday I gave each student his or her list. Before long, the entire class was smiling. “Really?” I heard whispered. “I never knew that meant anything to anyone!” “I didn’t know others liked me so much!”

No one ever mentioned those papers in class again. I never knew if they discussed them after class or with their parents, but it didn’t matter. The exercise had accomplished its purpose. The students were happy with themselves and one another again.

That group of students moved on. Several years later, after I returned from vacation, my parents met me at the airport. As we were driving home, Mother asked me the usual questions about the trip–the weather, my experiences in general. There was a light lull in the conversation. Mother gave Dad a sideways glance and I simply said, “Dad?” My father cleared his throat as he usually did before something important. “The Eklunds called last night,” he began.

“Really?” I said. “I haven’t heard from them in years. I wonder how Mark is.”

Dad responded quietly. “Mark was killed in Vietnam,” he said. “The funeral is tomorrow, and his parents would like it if you could attend.” To this day I can still point to the exact spot on I-494 where Dad told me about Mark.

I had never seen a serviceman in a military coffin before. Mark looked so handsome, so mature. All I could think at that moment was, Mark, I would give all the masking tape in the world if only you would talk to me.

The church was packed with Mark’s friends. Chuck’s sister sang “The Battle Hymn of the Republic.” Why did it have to rain on the day of the funeral? It was difficult enough at the graveside. The pastor said the usual prayers, and the bugler played taps. One by one those who loved Mark took a last walk by the coffin and sprinkled it with holy water.

I was the last one to bless the coffin. As I stood there, one of the soldiers who had acted as pallbearer came up to me. “Were you Mark’s math teacher?” he asked. I nodded as I continued to stare at the coffin. “Mark talked about you a lot,” he said.

After the funeral, most of Mark’s former classmates headed to Chuck’s farmhouse for lunch. Mark’s mother and father were there, obviously waiting for me. “We want to show you something,” his father said, taking a wallet out of his pocket. “They found this on Mark when he was killed. We thought you might recognize it.”

Opening the billfold, he carefully removed two worn pieces of notebook paper that had obviously been taped, folded, and refolded many times. I knew without looking that the papers were the ones on which I had listed all the good things each of Mark’s classmates had said about him. “Thank you so much for doing that” Mark’s mother said. “As you can see, Mark treasured it.”

Mark’s classmates started to gather around us. Charlie smiled rather sheepishly and said, “I still have my list. It’s in the top drawer of my desk at home.”

Chuck’s wife said, “Chuck asked me to put this in our wedding album.”

“I have mine too,” Marilyn said. “It’s in my diary.”

Then Vicki, another classmate, reached into her pocketbook, took out her wallet, and showed her worn and frazzled list to the group. “I carry this with me at all times,” Vicki said without batting an eyelash. “I think we all saved our lists.”

That’s when I finally sat down and cried. I cried for Mark and for all his friends who would never see him again.