Dim Outlook

A man was very sick. Doctors feared the worst. He is at home one day, resting in his bed. He looks up and says, “Is my wife here?”

His wife replies, “Yes, dear, I’m here, next to you.”

The man goes, “Are my children here?”

“Yes, Daddy, we are all here,” say the children.

“Are my other relatives also here?”

And they say, “Yes, we are all here…”

The man sits up and says, “Then why in the world is the light on in the kitchen?”

Old age comes at a bad time. You finally know everything just in time to forget it.

Heard a rumor about peanut butter…don’t want to spread it.

I keep adjusting the brightness control on my TV but it’s still as stupid as ever.

First rule of cleaning while listening to music: The toilet brush is never a microphone…NEVER!

Did you know that 97% of the world is dumb? Luckily, I’m in the other 5%!

Letter To God

A Sunday School teacher challenged her children to take some time on Sunday afternoon to write a letter to God. They were to bring their letter back the following Sunday.

One little boy wrote, “Dear God, we had a good time at church today. Wish you could have been there.”

Mind Your Own  _________

Two businessmen walk into a diner in the countryside. They have decided to stop there for lunch, so without ordering anything they sit down, take out sandwiches from their bags and begin to eat them.

The waiter sees this and says to them, “You can’t eat your own sandwiches in here!”

So the businessmen look at each other, shrug, and swap sandwiches.

Battle of The Coral See

A man was stranded on the proverbial deserted Pacific island for years. Finally one day a boat comes sailing into view, and the man frantically waves and draws the skipper’s attention. The boat comes near the island and the sailor gets out and greets the stranded man.

After awhile the sailor asks, “What are those three huts you have here?”

“Well, that’s my house there.”

“What’s that next hut?” asks the sailor.

“I built that hut to be my church.”

“What about the other hut?”

“Oh, that’s where I used to go to church.”

For The Birds

Did you hear about the veterinarian who was barred from performing any surgery because he suffered from bouts of epilepsy? The cops busted him for attempting to operate on a sick predatory bird, but the case was thrown out on a technicality. It was an ill eagle surgeon seizure.

KNIT WHIT

A highway patrolman pulled alongside a speeding car on the freeway. Glancing at the car, he was astounded to see that the elderly woman behind the wheel was knitting!

The trooper cranked down his window and yelled to the driver, “PULL OVER!”

“NO!” the woman yelled back, “Cardigan!”

NAME GAME GIVES PLEASURE TO THOSE WITH EAR FOR IRONY

DEAR ABBY: I have enjoyed the columns you’ve printed about people whose names matched their professions, and wonder if you would be interested in an incident that happened to my sister. Her name is Dragony, and she works in a pharmacy located in a medical building. Her license plate reads DRAGONY. Well, someone went into the pharmacy and asked the girl at the counter, “Who is Dr. Agony?” I still laugh when I think about it. — KATHI IN CALIFORNIA

DEAR KATHI: Funny! Your sister’s license plate reminds me of one that belongs to my neighbor, who happens to be an anesthesiologist. Her license plate reads: EPIDURL.

I am still hearing from readers offering names — and some of them are a hoot. Read on:

DEAR ABBY: Years ago, I was office manager for a printing company that did work for the American Tobacco Co. in North Carolina. The purchasing agent’s assistant there was a woman by the name of Flicka Ashe. Can you believe it! — DOLORES IN SPARTANBURG, S.C.

DEAR ABBY: I have sold real estate for 18 years, and no one ever forgets my name. It’s … BETH NEWHOUSE, MAYVILLE, N.Y.

DEAR ABBY: My grandma fell and broke her hip last summer and had to have surgery. Her surgeon? Dr. Mark Cutright! — KATHY IN TENNESSEE

DEAR ABBY: Shame on you! How could you forget your fellow member of the Group for Advancement of Psychiatry — Dr. John Looney? — FRANCES ROTON BELL, DALLAS

DEAR ABBY: Here’s an item that might qualify. It’s from the Jan. 16 edition of our local newspaper: “Charles T. Sprinkle, 27, of Sandpoint was cited on a charge of urinating in public at 11:52 p.m. in the 200 block of Main Street.” — LARRY S. IN IDAHO

DEAR ABBY: Would you like more names that match? My optician was named Ralph Glance, my daughter’s allergist was Dr. Eitches, and my children’s dentist is Dr. Spitz. — SUSAN K., HAYWARD, CALIF.

DEAR ABBY: When I was in high school, there was a family with the last name “Braa.” Guess what the mom’s first name was? “Iona”! My initials are “B.S.,” but this story is not. — B.S., FARIBAULT, MINN.

DEAR ABBY: When my sister and I were children, we’d play a game called “I Spy” during road trips from Georgia to Alabama. On one of them we spotted a septic tank installation and maintenance company named “Seth Poole and Sons.” — LARRY IN DOERUN, GA.

DEAR ABBY: I used to work with a young woman named Linda Snow. She met and married a wonderful man. When she did, she became Mrs. Snow-White! — A FAN, SUN CITY, ARIZ.

DEAR ABBY: My salesman husband was dealing with a particularly difficult client who demanded to speak to the boss. The reply: “I’ll be happy to transfer you to him. His name is Robin Hood; if he isn’t in, you can speak with his secretary — Marian!” True story, real people. — JENNIFER IN HOUSTON

DEAR ABBY: This isn’t occupation-related, but I thought you might get a kick out of it anyway. I went to school with twins Esther and Lester Chester and their big brother, Chester Chester Jr. And no, I’m not kidding. — L. LEGGETT, MAGNOLIA, MISS.

Dear Abby is written by Abigail Van Buren, also known as Jeanne Phillips, and was founded by her mother, Pauline Phillips. Write Dear Abby at www.DearAbby.com or P.O. Box 69440, Los Angeles, CA 90069.

COPYRIGHT 2007 UNIVERSAL PRESS SYNDICATE

                                     Kid Wisdom

When your dad is mad and asks you, “Do I look stupid?” don’t answer.

Never tell your mom her diet’s not working.

Stay away from prunes.

Don’t pull your dad’s finger when he tells you to.

Never leave your three-year-old brother in the same room as your school assignment.

If you want a kitten, start out by asking for a horse.

Felt-tip markers are not good to use as lipstick.

Don’t pick on your sister when she’s holding a baseball bat.

When you get a bad grade in school, show it to your mom when she’s on the phone.

Jelly Jam

Next time you have a bad day at work, think of this guy. Rob is a commercial saturation diver for Global Divers in Louisiana. He performs underwater repairs on offshore drilling rigs. Below is an e-mail he sent to his sister. She then sent it to radio station 103.2-FM in Ft. Wayne, Indiana, which was sponsoring a worst job experience contest. Needless to say, she won.

Hi Sue, just another note from your bottom-dwelling brother. Last week I had a bad day at the office. I know you’ve been feeling down lately at work, so I thought I would share my dilemma with you to make you realize it’s not so bad after all. Before I can tell you what happened to me, I first must bore you with a few technicalities of my job.

As you know, my office lies at the bottom of the sea. I wear a suit to the office. It’s a wet suit. This time of year the water is quite cool, so what we do to keep warm is this: we have a diesel-powered industrial water heater. This $20,000 piece of equipment sucks the water out of the sea. It heats it to a delightful temperature. It then pumps it down to the diver through a garden hose, which is taped to the air hose.

Now this sounds like a pretty good plan, and I’ve used it several times with no complaints. What I do, when I get to the bottom and start working, is take the hose and stuff it down the back of my wet suit. This floods my whole suit with warm water. It’s like working in a Jacuzzi.

Everything was going well, until all of a sudden, my rear end started to itch. So, of course, I scratched it. This only made things worse.

Within a few seconds, it started to burn. I pulled the hose out from my back, but the damage was done. In agony, I realized what had happened.

The hot water machine had sucked up a jellyfish and pumped it into my suit. When I scratched what I thought was an itch, I was actually grinding the jellyfish into myself.

I informed the dive supervisor of my dilemma over the communicator. His instructions were unclear because he and five other divers were all laughing hysterically. Needless to say, I aborted the dive. I was instructed to make three agonizing in-water decompression stops, totaling thirty-five minutes, before I could reach the surface to begin my chamber dry decompression.

When I arrived at the surface and climbed out of the water, the medic, with tears of laughter running down his face, handed me a tube of cream and told me to rub it onto the affected area as soon as I got into the chamber. The cream put the fire out, but it took two days before I could sit down again.

So, next time you’re having a bad day at work, think about how much worse it would be if you had a jellyfish shoved down your pants. Now repeat to yourself, “I love my job, I love my job, I love my job.”

Now, whenever you have a bad day, ask yourself: Is this a jellyfish bad day?

May you NEVER have a jellyfish bad day!!!!!


His Favorite Green Rubber Boots

I loved the slick inside of the boot, and wiggling my toes around all the space in the toe.

Nothing screamed freedom for me as a kid like green rubber boots. Each winter meant new boots for my little brother and me. Sometimes they were Christmas presents, but more often they were simply necessities for two boys who took their job of getting dirty very seriously and whose feet grew like they were steeped in fertilizer each night.

Sometimes we would go with our folks to pick them right off the shelf at the store. The boots generally stood straight and proud on metal shelves with a little forward lean, giving them an air of bowing soldiers ready for service. They came shackled together with a length of thin white cord or plastic thread.

Depending on the model, they might sport long yellow laces all the way up the front and a strip of yellow rubber around the top. Sometimes we got the plain slip-on kind, but I liked the lace-up version better.

I loved threading those laces in and out and in and out and then cinching them down tight at the top to lock the legs of my overalls or jeans in place and make the denim puff out at the knee.

You couldn’t maintain the billowy effect with the slip-on kind, so you couldn’t look like a British soldier for very long with those.

The only drawback to the laces was that over time the plastic tip would wear off and the laces would fray. Then threading them through the eyes got to be a chore—especially when cockleburs and beggar’s lice would grab hold of the ends and make a spiky wad.

Getting boots at the store was nice, but nothing was better than getting boots in a wrapped-up box. Rubber boot boxes are big. They are wide. They can double as a lap desk. The best ones have a hinged lid and open like a treasure chest.

I still remember several Christmases, putting a wonderfully wide box in my lap—with the faint scent of vulcanized rubber seeping through the bright wrapping paper—and awaiting the command for my brother and me to open our boxes together.

Of course we knew what was inside. We knew the weight distribution of heavy on both ends but light on the sides meant new boots hiding in a cardboard treasure chest. Sometimes a big sticker with a picture of the boots greeted us from under the shredded paper. But every time, raising the lid released a sweet smell of rubbery goodness. We folded back that sheet of paper and pulled out the cardboard inserts before trying them on.

I loved the slick inside of the boot, and wiggling my toes around all the space in the toe. There was always plenty of space for growing feet. You just had to wear more socks. Then came the requisite walk around the room and up and down the hall, booming along on the hardwood floor.

Best of all was the bang of the back door, the clumping down steps, and the heavy, thunderous thunk, thunk across the yard to the nearest hole of Mississippi mud and freedom.

 

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