A Featheral Offense

Wanda’s dishwasher quit working so she called a repairman. Since she had to go to work the next day, she told the repairman, “I’ll leave the key under the mat. Fix the dishwasher, leave the bill on the counter, and I’ll mail you a check.”

“Oh, by the way don’t worry about my bulldog Spike. He won’t bother you. But, whatever you do, do NOT, under ANY circumstances, talk to my parrot!” “I REPEAT, DO NOT TALK TO MY PARROT!!!”

When the repairman arrived at Wanda’s apartment the following day, he discovered the biggest, meanest looking bulldog he has ever seen. But, just as she had said, the dog just lay there on the carpet watching the repairman go about his work.

The parrot, however, drove him nuts the whole time with his incessant yelling, cursing and name calling. Finally the repairman couldn’t contain himself any longer and yelled, “Shut up, you stupid, ugly bird!”

To which the parrot replied, “Get him, Spike!”

MADRID, Spain – A most unusual court case of attempted murder has captivated this historic city. A man, Jorge Fuentes, and his pet bird, have been charged with the attempted murder of his wife.

It seems Jorge trained their talking bird to try and drive his wife to suicide. The bird would constantly repeat, “End it all” and “Life is not worth living.”

The bird was brought in to court and “performed” for the judge. After hearing the bird, the judge and jury convicted Jorge.

The bird however, was not convicted because it was only a Minah.

Under Charged

All my husband wanted was to pay for some batteries, but none of the clerks in the electronics store seemed interested in helping him.

“I’ve got an idea,” I said, and pulled a tape measure out of my purse. I stepped over to one of the giant plasma-screen TVs and started to measure it.

Faster than you can say high definition, a young man came running over. “May I help you?” he asked breathlessly.

“Yes,” I said. “I’d like to buy these batteries.”

                                       Toilet Talk
I was driving along the interstate when I decided to stop at a comfort station.

The first stall was occupied, so I went into the second one. I was no sooner seated than I heard a voice from the next stall, “Hi. How are you doing?”

Well, I am not the type to chat with strangers in highway comfort stations, and I really don’t know quite what possessed me, but anyway, I answered, a little embarrassed, “Not bad.”

Then the stranger said, “So, what are you up to?” Talk about your dumb questions! I was really beginning to think this was too weird, so I said, “Well, just like you I’m driving east.”

Then, I heard the stranger, all upset, say, “Look, I’ll call you back later. There’s some idiot in the next stall answering all the questions I am asking you!”

Inn Crowd

We had been on the road for fifteen hours en route from New York to California and were looking for a place to spend the night. At four different motels, however, we were told, “Sorry, no vacancies.”

Heading back to the car, my seven-year-old son asked solemnly, “Mommy, are we vacancies?”

                                      Falling For Earth

Nights in England are coal black, making parachute jumps difficult and dangerous. So we attach small lights called chemlites to our jumpsuits to make ourselves visible to the rest of our team. Late one night, lost after a practice jump, we knocked on the door of a small cottage. When a woman answered, she was greeted by the sight of five men festooned in glowing chemlites.

“Excuse me,” I said. “Can you tell me where we are?”

Terrified and in a thick English accent, the woman replied, “Earth!”

                                          No Dummy

A young ventriloquist is touring and finds himself entertaining in a small town.

He’s going through his usual run of blonde jokes with his puppet, like:

Q: Why does a blonde nurse carry a red Magic Marker?

The Puppet answers: In case she has to draw blood.

A large, blonde woman in the fourth row stands on her chair and says, “I’ve heard just about enough of your denigrating blonde jokes! 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?”

The ventriloquist looks on in amazement.

“It’s guys like you who keep women like me from being respected at work and in my community,” she continued, “and 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.

The blonde interjects, “You stay out of this, mister. I’m talking to that little guy on your knee!”

WISE CRACKS

A third grade teacher collected well-known proverbs. She gave each child in her class the first half of a proverb and asked them to come up with the remainder of the proverb. Their insight may surprise you.

  • Better to be safe than … Punch a 5th grader
  • Strike while the … Bug is close
  • It’s always darkest before … Daylight Savings Time
  • You can lead a horse to water but … how?
  • Don’t bite the hand that … looks dirty
  • You can’t teach an old dog new … math
  • If you lie down with dogs, you’ll … stink in the morning
  • The pen is mightier than the … pigs
  • An idle mind is … The best way to relax
  • Where there’s smoke there’s … pollution
  • Happy the bride who … gets all the presents
  • A penny saved is … not much
  • Two’s company, three’s … the Musketeers
  • Laugh and the whole world laughs with you, cry and … you have to blow your nose
  • Children should be seen and not … spanked or grounded
  • If at first you don’t succeed … get new batteries
  • When the blind leadeth the blind … get out of the way
  • You get out of something what you … see pictured on the box
  •  

Joy in the morning

I had a fairly dysfunctional childhood. Dad was a merchant marine and his rare visits home were very stressful for all of us. We hardly knew him, yet he expected us to know his standards of behavior for us and to behave accordingly.

Mom and Dad divorced when I was seven, my sister nine, and my baby brother was six months old. Dad rarely sent money home, so Mother tried various ways to provide for us. In our small “railroad town” there just wasn’t much work, and there wasn’t any public assistance available then. Mother did the best she could, but there came a day when she realized that it wasn’t enough, and she sent my sister and me to live with separate relatives “for a while,” just until she “got on her feet.” We were never together as a family after that.

I lived at one time or another with every relative we had, and with non-relatives too. I found out early on that learning and obeying the “rules of the house” in which I lived made things a lot easier for me. I had a hard time trusting anyone and didn’t make friends very easily. By the time I reached my early teens I felt unloved, abandoned, lonely and unsure of my future.

God had a plan for me though. I lived in a Christian home for a while when I was 12 years old. Church attendance was part of life there, and one day God used the sermon to show me that He loved me unconditionally. Jesus started a relationship with me that day that replaced and exceeded all others missing in my life.

Periodically, Dad floated in and out of my life; once when I was 14 years old, he came through the town where I lived and called me on the telephone. Then, when I was a wife and mother of two toddlers, he just showed up at my door, out of work and needing a place to stay. He stayed about three months, and then one day he just didn’t come home from his job. I had five children the next time he “dropped in.” He stayed several months, long enough for a bonding to take place with my children.

The last time Dad came to visit, I had graduated from a nursing program and was working as a Registered Nurse. He was terminally ill and needed someone to take care of him. He said to me, “I’ve lived my life just exactly as I wanted to, and it cost me everything that was dear to me. I wouldn’t wish my life on my worst enemy! I’m not afraid to die, but this isn’t living!”

My answer to him was “Dad, I can hardly bear to think of going to Heaven and not finding you there!” He told me he had “made peace with the Lord a long time ago.”

But I had no peace after Dad died. I knew of nothing that provided evidence of his relationship with Jesus. Whenever I thought of him, I saw him as he was when he died; helpless, sick, and struggling to breathe. I could not shake the sadness I felt.

Exactly one year after my Dad’s death, I was sitting in my Sunday School class thinking about him. We had just received our new Learner’s Guides for the next quarter. I was casually leafing through the book while praying, “Oh Lord! I am so sad about Dad! I wish I knew if he was with you!”

Suddenly something on one of the pages caught my eye, but it had passed so quickly that I couldn’t quite tell exactly what it was. I started turning the pages slowly, looking for whatever I had seen. Suddenly I was staring at a half-page picture of my Dad!

Geri A.                Eight Mile, A

 

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