I stopped believing in Santa Claus when my mother took me to see him in a department store, and he asked for my autograph. --Shirley Temple

If all the cars in the United States were placed end to end, it would probably be Labor Day Weekend. --Doug Lars

A bank is a place that will lend you money if you can prove that you don't need it. --Bob Hope

I know that there are people in this world who do not love their fellow man, and I hate people like that! --Tom Lehrer

I was going to buy a copy of The Power of Positive Thinking, and then I thought: What good would that do? --Ronnie Shakes

It is difficult to produce a television documentary that is both incisive and probing when every twelve minutes one is interrupted by dancing rabbits singing about toilet paper. --Rod Serling

Somewhere on this globe, every ten seconds, there is a woman giving birth to a child. She must be found and stopped. --Sam Levenson (1911-1980)

Television - a medium. So called because it is neither rare nor well-done. --Ernie Kovacs

Always remember this: If you don't attend the funerals of your friends, they will certainly not attend yours. --H.L. Mencken

This isn't right. It isn't even wrong. --Wolfgang Pauli, on a paper submitted by a physicist colleague

The trouble with being punctual is that nobody's there to appreciate --Franklin P. Jones

Red meat is NOT bad for you. Now, blue-green meat, that's REALLY BAD for you. --Tommy Smothers

When you go into court you are putting your fate into the hands of twelve people who weren't smart enough to get out of jury duty. --Norm Crosby

I told the doctor I broke my leg in two places. He told me to quit going to those places. --Henny Youngman

It matters not whether you win or lose; what matters is whether I win or lose. --Darrin Weinberg

Remember that as a teenager you are in the last stage of your life in which you will be happy to hear that the phone is for you. --Fran Lebowitz

A cynic is a man who, when he smells flowers, looks around for a coffin. --H.L. Mencken

Although I can accept talking scarecrows, lions and great wizards of emerald cities, I find it hard to believe there is no paperwork involved when your house lands on a witch. --Dave James

Let face facts, shall we? There is a very real possibility that this could also be the *last* day of the rest of your life. --Dave Henry

Sometimes I think astronauts are the luckiest people on earth, but only when they're in space. --Alan Smithee

If at first, you don't succeed, does it depress you that no one is surprised? --Jim Lockwood

Whenever someone asks me what two plus two equals, I just shake my head and laugh at them for asking such a dumb question, even though I really don't know the answer. What gullible fools. --Will Gillespie

Sometimes when I'm sitting in my car at a stop light, I imagine myself as Luke Skywalker, and I close my eyes and concentrate on using The Force. Sometimes I have to concentrate longer than others, but I know it works, 'cause the light always turns green. --Troy Peterson

One day, I'm gonna finally get up enough courage to actually go skydiving, rather than just being thrown out of the plane like last time. --LeMel Hebert-Williams

One night Mike's parents overheard this prayer: "Now I lay me down to rest, and hope to pass tomorrow's test, If I should die before I wake, that's one less test I have to take."

 

I started with nothing. I still have most of it.

If all is not lost, where is it?

It is easier to get older than it is to get wiser.

If at first you do succeed, try not to look astonished.

I tried to get a life once. They were out of stock.

It was so different before everything changed.

Nostalgia isn't what it use to be.

A day without sunshine is like a day in Seattle.

Living on Earth is expensive, but it does include a trip around the sun each year.

The only time the world beats a path to your door is if you're in the bathroom.
Never knock on death's door.  Ring the bell and run. (He hates that!)

An unbreakable toy is useful for breaking other toys.

A closed mouth gathers no feet.

Health is merely the slowest possible rate at which one can die.

It's not hard to meet expenses; they are everywhere. 

 

Dear Mom,

Our scout master told us all write to our parents in case you saw the flood on TV and worried. We are OK. Only 1 of our tents and 2 sleeping bags got washed away. Luckily, none of us got drowned because we were all up on the mountain looking for Chad when it happened. Oh yes, please call Chad's mother and tell her he is OK. He can't write because of the cast. I got to ride in one of the search & rescue jeeps. It was neat. We never would have found him in the dark if it hadn't been for the lightning.

Scoutmaster Webb got mad at Chad for going on a hike alone without telling anyone. Chad said he did tell him, but it was during the fire so he probably didn't hear him. Did you know that if you put gas on a fire, the gas can will blow up? The wet wood still didn't burn, but one of our tents did. Also some of our clothes. John is going to look weird until his hair grows back.

We will be home on Saturday if Scoutmaster Webb gets the car fixed. It wasn't his fault about the wreck. The brakes worked OK when we left. Scoutmaster Webb said that a car that old you have to expect something to break down; that's probably why he can't get insurance on it. We think it's a neat car. He doesn't care if we get it dirty, and if it's hot, sometimes he lets us ride on the tailgate. It gets pretty hot with 10 people in a car. He let us take turns riding in the trailer until the highway patrolman stopped and talked to us.

Scoutmaster Webb is a neat guy. Don't worry, he is a good driver. In fact, he is teaching Terry how to drive. But he only lets him drive on the mountain roads where there isn't any traffic. All we ever see up there are logging trucks.

This morning all of the guys were diving off the rocks and swimming out in the lake. Scoutmaster Webb wouldn't let me because I can't swim and Chad was afraid he would sink because of his cast, so he let us take the canoe across the lake. It was great. You can still see some of the trees under the water from the flood. Scoutmaster Webb isn't crabby like some scoutmasters. He didn't even get mad about the life jackets.

He has to spend a lot of time working on the car so we are trying not to cause him any trouble. Guess what? We have all passed our first aid merit badges. When Dave dove in the lake and cut his arm, we got to see how a tourniquet works. Also Wade and I threw up. Scoutmaster Webb said it probably was just food poisoning from the leftover chicken, he said they got sick that way with the food they ate in prison. I'm so glad he got out and become our scoutmaster. He said he sure figured out how to get things done better while he was doing his time.

I have to go now. We are going into town to mail our letters and buy bullets. Don't worry about anything. We are fine.

Love, Cole

 

 

Shooting the breeze down at the Veteran's hospital, a trio of old timers ran out of tales of their own heroic exploits and started bragging about their ancestors. "My great grandfather, at age 13," one declared proudly, "was a drummer boy at Shiloh."

"Mine," boasted another, "went down with Custer at the Battle of Little Big Horn."

"I'm the only soldier in my family," confessed vet number three, "but if my great grandfather was living today he'd be the most famous man in the world."

"What'd he do?" his friends wanted to know.

"Nothing much. But he would be a hundred 165 years old."

 

This is an excerpt from Dave Barry's book A Guide to Guys.

On the differences between men and women...

Let's say a guy named Roger is attracted to a woman named Elaine. He asks her out to a movie; she accepts; they have a pretty good time. A few nights later he asks her out to dinner, and again they enjoy themselves. They continue to see each other regularly, and after a while neither one of them is seeing anybody else.

And then, one evening when they're driving home, a thought occurs to Elaine, and, without really thinking, she says it aloud: "Do you realize that, as of tonight, we've been seeing each other for exactly six months?"

And then there is silence in the car. To Elaine, it seems like a very loud silence. She thinks to herself: Geez, I wonder if it bothers him that I said that. Maybe he's been feeling confined by our relationship; maybe he thinks I'm trying to push him into some kind of obligation that he doesn't want, or isn't sure of.

And Roger is thinking: Gosh. Six months.

And Elaine is thinking: But, hey, I'm not so sure I want this kind of relationship, either. Sometimes I wish I had a little more space, so I'd have time to think about whether I really want us to keep going the way we are, moving steadily toward ... I mean, where are we going? Are we just going to keep seeing each other at this level of intimacy? Are we heading toward marriage? Toward children? Toward a lifetime together? Am I ready for that level of commitment? Do I really even know this person?

And Roger is thinking: ... so that means it was... let's see.... February when we started going out, which was right after I had the car at the dealer's, which means ... lemme check the odometer ... Whoa! I am way overdue for an oil change here.

And Elaine is thinking: He's upset. I can see it on his face. Maybe I'm reading this completely wrong. Maybe he wants more from our relationship, more intimacy, more commitment; maybe he has sensed -- even before I sensed it -- that I was feeling some reservations. Yes, I bet that's it. That's why he's so reluctant to say anything about his own feelings. He's afraid of being rejected.

And Roger is thinking: And I'm gonna have them look at the transmission again. I don't care what those morons say, it's still not shifting right. And they better not try to blame it on the cold weather this time. What cold weather? It's 87 degrees out, and this thing is shifting like a darn garbage truck, and I paid those incompetent thieves $600.

And Elaine is thinking: He's angry. And I don't blame him. I'd be angry, too. I feel so guilty, putting him through this, but I can't help the way I feel. I'm just not sure.

And Roger is thinking: They'll probably say it's only a 90-day warranty. That's exactly what they're gonna say, the scumballs.

And Elaine is thinking: Maybe I'm just too idealistic, waiting for a knight to come riding up on his white horse, when I'm sitting right next to a perfectly good person, a person I enjoy being with, a person I truly do care about, a person who seems to truly care about me. A person who is in pain because of my self-centered, schoolgirl romantic fantasy.

And Roger is thinking: Warranty? They want a warranty? I'll give them a darn warranty. I'll take their warranty and stick it right up their ....

"Roger," Elaine says aloud.

"What?" says Roger, startled.

"Please don't torture yourself like this," she says, her eyes beginning to brim with tears. "Maybe I should never have ... Oh my, I feel so ..."

(She breaks down, sobbing.)

"What?" says Roger.

"I'm such a fool," Elaine sobs. "I mean, I know there's no knight. I really know that. It's silly. There's no knight, and there's no horse."

"There's no horse?" says Roger.

"You think I'm a fool, don't you?" Elaine says.

"No!" says Roger, glad to finally know the correct answer.

"It's just that ... It's that I ... I need some time," Elaine says.

(There is a 15-second pause while Roger, thinking as fast as he can, tries to come up with a safe response. Finally he comes up with one that he thinks might work.)

"Yes," he says.

(Elaine, deeply moved, touches his hand.)

"Oh, Roger, do you really feel that way?" she says.

"What way?" says Roger.

"That way about time," says Elaine.

"Oh," says Roger. "Yes."

(Elaine turns to face him and gazes deeply into his eyes, causing him to become very nervous about what she might say next, especially if it involves a horse. At last she speaks.)

"Thank you, Roger," she says.

"Thank you," says Roger.

Then he takes her home, and she lies on her bed, a conflicted, tortured soul, and weeps until dawn, whereas when Roger gets back to his place, he opens a bag of Doritos, turns on the TV, and immediately becomes deeply involved in a rerun of a tennis match between two Czechoslovakians he never heard of. A tiny voice in the far recesses of his mind tells him that something major was going on back there in the car, but he is pretty sure there is no way he would ever understand what, and so he figures it's better if he doesn't think about it. (This is also Roger's policy regarding world hunger.)

The next day Elaine will call her closest friend, or perhaps two of them, and they will talk about this situation for six straight hours. In painstaking detail, they will analyze everything she said and everything he said, going over it time and time again, exploring every word, expression, and gesture for nuances of meaning, considering every possible ramification. They will continue to discuss this subject, off and on, for weeks, maybe months, never reaching any definite conclusions, but never getting bored with it, either.

Meanwhile, Roger, while playing racquetball one day with a mutual friend of his and Elaine's, will pause just before serving, frown, and say:

"Norm, did Elaine ever own a horse?"

 

My friend is a rather old-fashioned lady, always quite delicate and elegant, especially in her language. She and her husband were planning a week's vacation in Florida, so she wrote to a particular campground and asked for a reservation

She wanted to make sure the campground was fully equipped, but didn't quite know how to ask about the toilet facilities. She just couldn't bring herself to write the word "toilet" in her letter. After much deliberation she finally came up with the old-fashioned term "bathroom commode." But when she wrote that down, she still felt that she was being too forward. So she started all over again, rewrote the entire letter, and referred to the bathroom commode merely as the B.C. "Does the campground have its own B.C.?" is what she finally wrote.

Well, the campground owner wasn't old-fashioned at all, and when he got the letter he just couldn't figure out what the woman was talking about. That B.C. business really stumped him. After worrying about it for a while, he showed the letter to several campers, but no one could imagine what the lady meant, either. So the campground owner, finally coming to the conclusion that the lady must be asking about the location of the Baptist Church, sat down and wrote the following reply:

Dear Madam: I regret very much the delay in answering your letter, but I now take the pleasure of informing you that a B.C. is located nine miles north of the campground, and is capable of seating 250 people at one time. I admit it is quite a distance away if you are in the habit of going regularly, but no doubt you will be pleased to learn that a great number of our people take their lunches along and make a day of it. They usually arrive early and stay late. If you don't start early, you probably will not make it in time. The last time my wife and I went was six years ago, and it was so crowded we had to stand up the whole time we were there. It may interest you to know that right now, there is a supper planned to raise money to buy more seats. They're going to hold it in the basement of the B.C. I would like to say it pains me very much not being able to go more often, but it surely is no lack of desire on my part. As we grow older, it seems to be more of an effort, particularly in cold weather. If you decide to come down to our campground, perhaps I could go with you the first time you go, sit with you, and introduce you to all the other folks. Remember, this is a friendly community!

 

It was a celebratory mood with the boys at NASA -- they had just made the scientific achievement of a lifetime. As they were uncorking a bottle of champagne, the head scientist at NASA asked everyone to be quiet as he was receiving a congratulatory phone call from the President of the United States.

He picked up a special red phone, and spoke into it. "Mr. President," he said with a broad smile on his face, "After twelve years of hard research and billions of dollars spent, we have finally found intelligent life on Mars."

He listened for a second, and his smile gradually disappeared, replaced by a frown. He said, "But that's impossible... we could never do it... yes, Mr. President," and hung up the phone.

He addressed the crowd of scientists staring at him curiously. "I have some bad news," he said, "the President said that now that we've found intelligent life on Mars, he wants us to try to find it in the Congress."