At a meeting in an iron curtain country, one of the party members, Comrade B, got up and said, “Comrade leader, I have only three questions to ask: ‘If we are the greatest industrial nation, what happened to our cars? If we have the best agriculture, what happened to our bread? If we are the finest cattle raisers, what happened to our meat?’”
The presiding chairman stared at Comrade B and replied, “It is too late to reply tonight. At our next meeting I will answer your questions fully.”
When the meeting opened the following week, another party member rose and said, “I have just one question: What happened to Comrade B?”
A policeman at a train station noticed a lady bowed over the steering wheel of her car in discomfort. He walked over and asked if she was all right.
Half crying and half laughing, the woman said, “For ten years I’ve driven my husband to catch his train. This morning I forgot him!”
The sneeze
They walked in tandem, each of the ninety-three students filing into the already crowded auditorium. With rich maroon gowns flowing and wearing the traditional caps, they looked almost as grown up as they felt.
Dads swallowed hard behind broad smiles, and moms freely brushed away tears.
This class would not pray during the commencement—not by choice but because of a recent court ruling prohibiting it. The principal and several students were careful to stay within the guidelines allowed by the ruling. They gave inspirational and challenging speeches, but no one mentioned divine guidance, and no one asked for blessings on the graduates or their families.
The speeches were nice, but they were routine until the final speech received a standing ovation.
A solitary student walked proudly to the microphone. He stood still and silent for just a moment, and then he delivered his speech . . . an astounding sneeze!
The rest of the students rose immediately to their feet, and in unison they said, “God bless you!”
The audience exploded into applause. The graduating class had found a unique way to invoke God’s blessing on their future with or without the court’s approval.
PRESIDENT: Is our advertising getting results?
VICE PRESIDENT: It sure is! Last week we advertised for a night watchman, and the next night we got robbed!
LIFE IN THE MILITARY
Quick thinking
A new army recruit was given guard duty at 2:00 a.m. He did his best for a while, but about 4:00 a.m. he couldn’t fight it and went to sleep. He awakened to find the officer of the day standing before him. Remembering the heavy penalty for being asleep on guard duty, this smart young man kept his head bowed for another moment.
Then he looked upward and reverently said, “A-a-men!”
War progress
A large group of enemy soldiers was moving down a road when they heard a voice call from behind a huge boulder, “One U.S. Marine is better than ten enemy soldiers.”
The enemy soldiers’ commander quickly ordered ten of his best men around the boulder, whereupon a gun battle broke out and continued for several minutes. Then complete silence reigned.
The voice again called out, “One U.S. Marine is better than one hundred enemy soldiers.”
Furious, the commander of the enemy soldiers sent his next best hundred troops around the boulder, and instantly a huge gunfight began.
After ten minutes of battle, again silence.
The voice called out again, “One U.S. Marine is better than one thousand enemy soldiers.” The enraged enemy commander mustered one thousand fighters and sent them to the other side of the boulder.
Rifle fire, machine gun, grenades, and cannon fire rang out as a terrible battle was fought . . . then silence.
Eventually one wounded enemy fighter crawled out from behind the boulder. He struggled over to his commander and, with his dying words, told his commander, “Don’t send any more men . . . it’s a trap. There’s two of them.”
Military matters
As we stood in formation at the Pensacola Naval Air Station, our flight instructor said, “All right! All you idiots fall out.”
As the rest of the squad wandered away, I remained at attention. The instructor walked over, stood eye to eye with me, and raised a single eyebrow.
I smiled and said, “Sure was a lot of ’em!”
Rifle range
At one army base, the annual trip to the rifle range had been canceled for the second year in a row, but the semiannual physical fitness test was still on as scheduled.
One soldier mused, “Does it bother anyone else that the army doesn’t seem to care how well we can shoot, but they are extremely interested in how fast we can run?”
Going for help
A number of new air force recruits were being taken on their first training flight. The plane had just leveled out after taking off when one of the engines locked up and another began smoking badly.
Adjusting his parachute, the instructor strove for nonchalance as he made his way to the hatch door. “Now I want you men to keep perfectly calm,” he said, “while I go for help.”
Pilot
The chief of staff of the U.S. Army decided that he would intervene in the recruiting crisis affecting all armed services. He directed an air force base to be opened and that all eligible young men and women be invited for a tour. As he and his staff were standing near a new M-1 battle tank, twin brothers who were well built and neatly dressed walked up. The two of them looked as if they had just stepped out of a recruiting poster. The chief of staff walked up to them, stuck out his hand, and introduced himself. He looked at the first young man, “Son, what skills can you bring to the best army in the world?”
The young man looked at him and said, “I’m a pilot.”
The general excitedly turned to his aide and said, “Get him in today! See to it!”
He then turned to the second young man and asked, “What skills can you bring to the best army in the world?”
The young man replied, “I chop wood!”
“Son, we don’t need wood choppers in the army of the twenty-first century. What else can you do?”
“I don’t understand. You hired my brother!”
“Of course we did,” explained the general. “He’s a pilot.”
The young man rolled his eyes. “Well, I have to chop it before he can pile it!”
The exact truth
An army private was filling out a questionnaire for a bank loan and had to answer the question: “How long has your present employer been in business?”
He thought for a minute, then wrote, “Since 1776.”
Advice
A young, freshly minted lieutenant was sent to Bosnia as part of the peacekeeping mission. During a briefing on land mines, the captain asked for questions.
Our intrepid soldier raised his hand and asked, “If we do happen to step on a mine, sir, what do we do?”
“Normal procedure is to jump two hundred feet in the air and scatter oneself over a wide area.”
The draftee was awakened roughly by his platoon sergeant after the rookie’s first night in the army barracks. “It’s four-thirty!” roared the sergeant.
“Four-thirty!” gasped the recruit. “Man, you’d better get to bed. We’ve got a big day tomorrow!”
Bragging
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. Each vet wanted to top the other.
“My great-grandfather, at age thirteen,” 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 were living today, he’d be the most famous man in the world.”
“What’d he do?” his friends wanted to know.
Taking his time, the vet finally answered, “Nothing much. But he would be 165 years old.
”
Mind reader
A general and a colonel were walking down the street. They met many privates, and each time the colonel would salute he would mutter, “The same to you.”
The general’s curiosity soon got the better of him, and he asked, “Why do you always say that?”
The colonel answered, “I was once a private, and I know what they’re thinking.”
Traction
During an army war game, a commanding officer’s jeep got stuck in the mud. The CO saw some men lounging around nearby and asked them to help him get unstuck.
“Sorry, sir,” said one of the loafers, “but we’ve been classified dead, and the umpire said we couldn’t contribute in any way.”
The CO stared at them awhile and then turned to his driver and said, “Go drag a couple of those dead bodies over here and throw them under the wheels to give us some traction.”
Wrong again
During training exercises, a lieutenant driving down a muddy back road encountered another car stuck in the mud with a red-faced colonel at the wheel. “Your jeep stuck, sir?” asked the lieutenant as he pulled alongside. “Nope,” replied the colonel, coming over and handing him the keys, “Yours is.”
WAR ON YOU
“Hello, Mr. President. This is Paddy down in County Cavan, Ireland.
I’m ringing to inform you that we are declaring war on your nation.”
“Well, Paddy, this is news. How big is your army?”
“Hmm, there is myself, my cousin Sean, my next door neighbor Gerry, and the dominoes team from the pub—that makes eight.”
“Well,” the president sighed, “I have one million men at my command.”
“Begorra! I’ll call you back.”
The next day Paddy does indeed call back. “Mr. President, the war is still on. We have managed to acquire some equipment. We have two common harvesters, a bulldozer, and Murphy’s tractor.”
Again the president sighed. “But I have sixteen thousand tanks and fourteen thousand armored personnel carriers.”
“Really! I’ll call you back.”
The next day Paddy called back, “We have managed to get ourselves airborne with Ted’s ultra-light with a couple of rifles in the cockpit.”
“But Paddy, I have ten thousand bombers, twenty thousand MiG-19 attack planes, and now I have two million men.”
“I’ll call you back.”
The next day Paddy called the president back and canceled the war.
“I’m sorry to hear that,” said the president. “Why?”
“We’ve decided there’s no way we can feed two million prisoners.”
THE LAW OF TAXES
Questions
An IRS agent was interviewing a farmer. During the interview, the agent asked, “How much would you say your prize bull is worth?”
The farmer scratched his chin and answered, “Well, that depends—for tax purposes or has he been hit by a train?”
Short ones
A taxpayer received a strongly worded “second notice” that his taxes were overdue.
Hastening to the collector’s office, he paid his bill, saying apologetically that he had overlooked the first notice.
“Oh,” confided the collector with a smile, “we don’t send out first notices. We have found that the second notices are more effective.”
Relief
A nervous taxpayer was talking with the IRS tax auditor who had come to review his records. At one point, the auditor exclaimed, “Mr. Carr, we feel it is a great privilege to be allowed to live and work in the USA. As a citizen, you have an obligation to pay taxes, and we expect you to eagerly pay them with a smile.”
“Thank goodness,” returned the taxpayer with a giant grin on his face. “I thought you were going to want me to pay cash.”
Politics
Long ago there was a presidential election that was too close to call. No compromise or solution could be determined, so finally the two political parties decided to settle the election with an ice-fishing contest. The candidate who caught the most fish in three days would be declared the winner.
So the two candidates, Paul and Bob, were sent to Wisconsin in the dead of winter. At the end of the first day, Paul returned with ten fish. Bob, however, showed up with none. After the second day, Paul came back with ten more fish. Again, Bob showed up with none.
That night, Bill came into Bob’s cabin with some savvy political advice. “I think, Bob, you need to find out what’s going on. Tomorrow morning you need to spy on Paul to see if he’s cheating.”
At the end of the third day, Paul returned with fifty fish. Bob crept up to Bill and whispered, “You were right. He’s cheating! He’s cutting holes in the ice!”
Trying to please Mama
The first woman was elected U.S. president. She called her mom to make sure she was coming to the inauguration.
“I don’t know, dear. What would I wear?”
“Don’t worry, Mom. I’ll send a designer to help you.”
“But you know I need special foods for my diet.”
“Mom, I’m going to be president. I can get you the food you need.”
“But how will I get there?”
“I’ll send a limo, Mom. Just come!”
“OK, OK, if it makes you happy.”
The great day came, and Mama was seated with the future cabinet members. She nudged the man on her right. “See that girl, the one with her hand on the Bible? Her brother’s a doctor!”
twelve
LIVING LIFE WITH A SMILE
KEEPING UP WITH THE TIMES
Changes in America
In a logic discussion group, the professor was trying to explain how society’s ideals change with the time. “For example,” he said, “take the 1921 Miss America. She stood 5 feet 1 inch tall, weighed 108 pounds, and had measurements of 30-25-32. How do you think she’d do in today’s version of the contest?”
The class fell silent for a moment. Then one student piped up, “She would never have entered the contest today.”
“Why is that?” asked the professor.
“For one thing,” the student pointed out, “her grandchildren would never let her.”
Interesting modern definitions
• College—the four-year period when parents are permitted access to the telephone.
• Kissing—a means of getting two people so close together that they can’t see anything wrong with each other.
Groan
Back in the sixties when the economy was suffering in England, some consideration was given to selling the Rock of Gibraltar to the French. All negotiations were halted when the British learned the French were planning to rename it “De Gaulle Stone.”
WORKPLACE LAUGHTER
He has spoken
Two men were down on their luck and decided to paint houses to earn some extra money. To start their business, they asked the minister of a local church if he would be interested in their services. He agreed, and the men went out to buy the paint.
As they drove to the paint store, they decided that they would mix half paint and half water to try to increase their profits. When they finished the job, they called the minister outside to look at their work.
“It looks wonderful,” the minister said. As he started to hand them the check, a small rain cloud appeared. All at once, there was lightning and thunder, and the church area was drenched with rain. As the rain hit, the new church paint started running.
Suddenly the three of them stood there in disbelief as a voice from above roared, “Repaint! Repaint! And thin no more!”
What a sale
When the store manager returned from lunch, he noticed his clerk’s hand was bandaged, but before he could ask about the bandage, the clerk spoke up, “Guess what! I finally sold that terrible, ugly suit we’ve had so long!”
“You mean that repulsive pink-and-blue double-breasted thing?”
“That’s the one!”
“Great!” cried the ma
nager. “But why is your hand bandaged?”
“Oh,” the clerk replied, “after I sold that guy the suit, his guide dog bit me.”
Plotting
One worker said to another, “How long have you been working here?” He answered, “Since they threatened to fire me.”
Service
Arnold and his wife were cleaning out the attic one day when he came across a ticket from the local shoe repair shop. The date stamped on the ticket showed it was over eleven years old. They both laughed and tried to remember which of them might have forgotten to pick up a pair of shoes over a decade ago.
“Do you think the shoes will still be in the shop?” Arnold asked.
“Not very likely,” his wife said.
“It’s worth a try,” Arnold said, pocketing the ticket. He went downstairs, hopped into the car, and drove to the store.
With a straight face, the man said, “Just a minute. I’ll have to look for these.”
He disappeared into a dark corner at the back of the shop. Two minutes later, he called out, “Here they are!”
“No kidding!” Arnold called back. “That’s terrific! Who would have thought they’d still be here after all this time.”
The man came back to the counter, empty-handed. “They’ll be ready Thursday,” he said calmly.
Repeat performance
Carrying three pieces of luggage, a young lady walked up to the airport check-in counter and requested,“ I want the first piece to go to Cleveland, the second to go to Toronto, and this last piece of luggage to go to Florida.”
The agent said, “I’m sorry, we can’t do that.”
The young lady swiftly replied, “Last month you did it.”
I took a part-time job as an opinion poll sampler. On my first call, I said, “Hello, this is a telephone poll.”
And the man replied, “Yeah, and this is a street lamp.”
Employment found
A guy came home to his wife and said, “Guess what! I’ve found a great job. A 10:00 a.m. start, 2:00 p.m. finish, no overtime, no weekends, and it pays $800 a week!”
“That’s great,” his wife said.
“Yeah, I thought so too,” he agreed. “You start Monday.”
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