Laugh Yourself Healthy

by Charles Hunter

  Looking in

  A man had his first appointment with the psychiatrist, and when asked why he was there, the man said, “Doctor, I’m tired of being on the outside looking in.”

  “Well,” responded the doctor, “sounds like we have to try to improve your self-image. Let’s get a few basic facts first. What do you do for a living?”

  The patient replied, “I’m a window washer.”

  Random thoughts

  • Isn’t it odd that the person with the strongest beliefs in hard work and dedication by employees is usually the boss?

  • Money is not everything—there’s American Express, MasterCard, and Visa.

  The interview

  “Well, sir,” said the interviewer to the job applicant, “for a man with no retail experience, you are certainly asking for a high wage.”

  “Well,” responded the applicant, “the work will be a lot harder for me since I won’t know what I’m doing.”

  Following orders

  My company posted a notice next to the time clock. It said that the company calendar had a typo, and that the union-won holiday wasn’t really a holiday at all. The company blamed the printer for this mistake. The first line of the notice read, “Please Take Notice.” So the guy standing next to me did!

  Rethinking

  A manager of a large office noticed a new man one day and told him to come into his office. “What’s your name?” he asked the new guy.

  “John,” the new guy answered.

  The manager scowled, “Look, I don’t know what kind of a namby-pamby place you worked for before, but I don’t call anyone by their first name. It breeds familiarity, and that leads to a breakdown in authority. I refer to my employees by their last name only—Smith, Jones, Baker—that’s all. I am to be referred to only as Mr. Robertson. Do you understand?”

  As the new man nodded, the manager continued, “Now that we got that straight, what’s your last name?”

  The new guy sighed, “Darling. My name is John Darling.”

  “OK, John. Now the next thing we need to discuss is . . . ”

  Cutting in line

  A local department store was having a big sale. The publicity department had done a great job advertising, and on the morning of the sale a long line formed in front of the store waiting for the 8:30 a.m. opening. A small man pushed his way to the front of the line, only to be pushed back amid loud and colorful curses. On the man’s second attempt, he was punched square in the jaw and knocked around a bit, and then thrown to the end of the line.

  As he got up the second time, he said to the person at the end of the line, “That does it! If they hit me one more time, I don’t open the store!”

  Free enterprise

  A city boy moved to the country and bought a mule from an old farmer. The farmer agreed to deliver the mule the next day.

  The next day, the farmer drove up and said, “Sorry, but I have some bad news. The mule is dead.”

  “Well, then, just give me my money back.”

  “Can’t do that. I went and spent it already.”

  “OK, then,” said the city boy, “just unload the mule.”

  “What ya gonna do with him?”

  “I’m going to raffle him off.”

  “You can’t raffle off a dead mule!” protested the farmer.

  “Sure I can. Just watch me. I just won’t tell anybody he’s dead.”

  A month later, the farmer met up with the city boy and asked, “Whatever happened with that dead mule?”

  “I raffled him off. I sold a hundred tickets at two dollars apiece and made a ninety-eight dollar profit.”

  “Didn’t anyone complain?”

  “Just the guy who won. So I gave him the two dollars back.”

  That special word

  The manager of a ladies’ dress shop called in one of her clerks. “Jane, your figures are well below those of the other clerks.”

  “I’m sorry, ma’am,” mumbled Jane. “Can you give me any advice on how to do better?”

  “Well, there is an old trick that might help. Look through a dictionary until you come to a word that has a particular power for you. Memorize that word, and work it into your sales pitch.”

  Sure enough, Jane’s sales figures went way up. At the end of the month, Jane explained. “It took me all weekend to find the right word, but I discovered fantastic. My first customer on Monday told me that her girl had been accepted to an exclusive prep school, so I said, ‘Fantastic!’ When she told me her daughter made As, I said ‘Fantastic!’ She then bought $800 worth of clothes. The second customer needed a new formal for her evening at the country club. I said, ‘Fantastic,’ and she bought a dress and hundreds of dollars worth of clothes for other events. It’s been like that all week; the customers keep boasting; I keep saying, ‘Fantastic,’ and they keep buying.”

  “Excellent,” said the manager. “By the way, what did you used to say to customers before you discovered your power word?”

  Jane answered, “I used to say ‘So what?’”

  Rave

  Years ago I once went for a job at an airline. The interviewer asked me why I wanted to be a stewardess. Quite honestly I told her it would be a great chance to meet men.

  She looked at me and said, “But you can meet men anywhere.” I quickly answered, “Not strapped down.”

  Pat and Mike landed themselves a job at the sawmill. Just before morning break, Pat yelled, “Mike! Help! I’ve lost my finger!”

  “Have you now,” said Mike. “And how did you do it?”

  Pat replied, “I just touched this big, shiny thing here like this . . . whoops! There goes another one!”

  Too much

  Reaching the end of a job interview, the human resources person asked a young engineer fresh out of MIT what kind of a salary he was looking for.

  “In the neighborhood of $140,000 a year, depending on the benefits package.”

  “Well, what would you say to a package of five weeks vacation, fourteen paid holidays, full medical and dental, company matching retirement fund to 50 percent of salary, and a company car leased every two years . . . say, a red Corvette?” asked the interviewer.

  “Wow! Are you kidding?” exclaimed the recruit.

  “Yeah,” admitted the interviewer, “but you started it.”

  Sales on top

  Two bowling teams, one made up of accountants and one made up of salespeople, chartered a double-decker bus for a weekend bowling tournament in Atlantic City.

  The accountants rode in the bottom of the bus. The salespeople rode on the top level. The team made up of accountants down below was having a great time when one of them realized that there was no noise coming from up above.

  One of the accountants went up to investigate. When he got to the top, he found all the salespeople frozen in fear, staring straight ahead at the road, and clutching the seats in front of them with white knuckles.

  He asked, “What’s going on up here? We’re having a great time down below.”

  One of the salespeople looked up and answered, “Yeah, but you’ve got a driver!”

  Banking arrangements

  A banker fell overboard from a friend’s sailboat. He floundered in the water.

  The friend grabbed a life preserver, held it up, not knowing if the banker could swim, and shouted, “Can you float alone?”

  “Well, you would need some sort of collateral,” the banker replied, “but this is a bad time to discuss business.”

  Boarding

  At the airport for a business trip, I settled down to wait for the boarding announcement at Gate 35. Then I heard an announcement: “We apologize for the inconvenience, but Delta Flight 570 will board from Gate 41.”

  So I hurried over to Gate 41. Not ten minutes later, another announcement: “Delta Flight 570 is indeed boarding at Gate 35. Sorry for the inconvenience.” So I hurried back to Gate 35.

  Soon I again heard the public address system say, “Thank you for participating in
Delta’s physical fitness program.”

  Who’s who?

  A photographer for a national magazine was assigned to take pictures of a great forest fire. He was advised that a small plane would be waiting at a local airfield to fly him over the fire.

  The photographer arrived at the airstrip just an hour before sundown.

  Sure enough, a small Cessna airplane was waiting. He jumped in with his equipment and shouted, “Let’s go!”

  The tense man sitting in the pilot’s seat swung the plane into the wind and soon they were in the air, though flying erratically.

  “Fly over the north side of the fire,” said the photographer, “and make several low-level passes until I tell you to stop.”

  “Why?” asked the nervous pilot.

  “Because I’m going to take pictures!” yelled the photographer. “I’m a photographer, and photographers take pictures.”

  After a long pause, the “pilot” replied, “You mean you’re not my flight instructor?”

  Easy question

  At the end of an exhausting road trip, a salesman pulled into his last motel. Because of the lateness of the hour, he left his luggage at the desk and went to the dining room to eat. After a leisurely dinner, he reclaimed his luggage and realized he had forgotten his room number.

  “Excuse me,” he spoke to the desk clerk. “Could you please tell me which room I’m in?”

  “Certainly, sir,” replied the desk clerk pleasantly. “You’re in the lobby.”

  Traveling

  A skycap, loaded down with suitcases, followed the couple, also loaded with luggage, to the airline check-in counter.

  As they approached the line, the husband glanced at the pile of luggage and said to the wife, “Honey, why didn’t you bring the piano too?”

  “Are you trying to be funny?” she said.

  “No,” he sighed forlornly. “I think I left the tickets on it.”

  Whatever you say

  Two attorneys went into a diner, sat down, and ordered two Cokes.

  Then they produced sandwiches from their briefcases and started to eat.

  The owner became quite concerned, marched over to them, and told them, “You can’t eat your own sandwiches in here!”

  The attorneys looked at each other, shrugged their shoulders, and then exchanged sandwiches.

  The right person

  “In this job we need someone who is responsible,” said the employer. “I hope you fit that description.”

  “Yes, sir, I’m your man,” answered the potential employee. “On my last job, every time anything went wrong, they said I was responsible.”

  New on the job

  Late one night during bad weather, the following was heard over the radio at an airport control tower:

  HELICOPTER PILOT: Tower, I’m holding at 3000 over Heli-pad 1.

  SECOND VOICE: NO! You can’t be doing that! I’m holding at 3000 over that pad!

  There was a brief moment of radio silence.

  First voice began again, “Uh, tower, please ignore last message. That’s just my new copilot on his first flight.”

  Pride

  As one of the relatively few female airline pilots, I’ve often been mistaken for a flight attendant, ticket agent, or even snack bar employee. Occasionally people who see me in uniform ask if I’m a real pilot. Still others congratulate me for making it in a male-dominated field.

  One day, I was in the restroom before a flight. I was at the sink, brushing my teeth, when a woman walked through the door and looked over at me. “My sister would be so proud of you!” she remarked.

  I figured her sister must be in the airline business, so I smiled and asked why.

  Replied the woman, “She’s a dentist.”

  Trading jobs

  A cardiologist developed a new operating procedure that would cut down the time that heart surgery would take. He began to make more money lecturing on his new procedure than actually using the procedure. So he decided to lecture full-time. He hired a driver and purchased a limousine. After about six months of lecturing, his driver turned to him and said, “You know, this is not completely fair.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, you get paid $50,000 every time you do this lecture, and that’s more than I get paid in a year,” complained the driver.

  The surgeon explained that the procedure was very complicated, and he and only he could explain it.

  “That’s not true. I’ve heard your lecture so often, I know I could deliver it just as well.”

  “OK. Let’s see. You deliver this lecture.”

  So the driver and the surgeon traded places. The driver gave a wonderful presentation and answered many questions. Finally a member of the audience stood and asked a very complex question.

  The driver responded, “You know, I have done this lecture 187 times, and I have never been asked such an easy question. As a matter of fact, that question is SO basic that I am going to let my driver answer it.”

  Watchman

  A man got a job as a night watchman at a factory. The factory had been experiencing great losses lately, so the man was ordered to check the bags and pockets of the workers as they left. One evening one worker tried to leave the plant with a wheelbarrow full of newspapers. The night watchman was immediately suspicious.

  “Hey, bud,” he ordered. “Let me take a look at what’s under all those papers.” The night watchman diligently looked, but he found nothing but newspapers.

  “You see,” explained the worker, “I pick up all the extra newspapers in the lounges and take them to the recycle plant. That way I save a few trees and make a little money.”

  For the next few months, the worker left every night with a wheelbarrow full of newspapers, but the watchman remained alert and checked them every night.

  One evening the night watchman got a summons to his supervisor’s office. Without a word of explanation, the supervisor fired the night watchman.

  “What! As long as I was on duty, absolutely nothing was stolen from this plant!”

  “Oh, really?” said the supervisor. “Then how do you account for the fact that our recent audit shows that we have lost two hundred wheelbarrows?”

  Tough teacher

  A schoolteacher injured his back and had to wear a plaster cast around the upper part of his body. It fit under his shirt and was not noticeable at all. On the first day of the term, still with the cast under his shirt, he found himself assigned to the toughest students in the school.

  Walking confidently into the rowdy classroom, he opened the window as wide as possible and then busied himself with desk work. When a strong breeze made his tie flap, he took the desk stapler and stapled the tie to his chest.

  He had no trouble with unruly students that entire year.

  Educated lawyer

  An investment counselor went out on her own. She was shrewd and diligent, so business kept coming in. Pretty soon she realized she needed an in-house counsel, so she began interviewing young lawyers.

  “As I’m sure you can understand,” she started off with one of the first applicants, “in a business like this, our personal integrity must be beyond question. Mr. Peterson, are you an honest lawyer?”

  “Honest?” replied the job prospect. “Let me tell you about honest. Why, I’m so honest that my father lent me fifteen thousand dollars for my education, and I paid back every penny plus interest the minute after I tried my first case.”

  “Impressive! And what sort of case was that?”

  The lawyer squirmed in his seat and admitted, “My father sued me for the outstanding debt.”

  Inflation

  A little old lady sold pretzels on a street corner for twenty-five cents each. Every day a young lawyer would leave his office building at lunchtime and, as he passed her pretzel stand, he would leave her a quarter but would never take a pretzel.

  This went on for more than five years. The two of them never spoke, but each day the two would make eye contact.
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br />   One day, as the lawyer passed the old lady’s pretzel stand and left his quarter as usual, the pretzel woman spoke to him, “Sir, I appreciate your business. You are one of my best customers, but you need to know something. Our pretzel price has increased to thirty-five cents.”

  Sick-leave abuse

  Negotiations between union members and their employer were at an impasse. The union denied that their workers were flagrantly abusing the sick-leave provisions set out by their contract. The next day at the bargaining table, the company’s chief negotiator held aloft the morning newspaper, “This man,” he announced as he pointed at the paper, “called in sick yesterday!”

  There on the sports page was a photo of the supposedly ill employee who had just won a local golf tournament. Finally, the union negotiator broke the silence in the room. “Wow!” he said. “Just think—he might have broken the course record if he hadn’t been sick!”

  Cause and effect

  A man applying for a job asked the interviewer whether the company would pay for his hospital insurance.

  The interviewer said the worker would have to pay for it, but it was deducted from his check.

  “The last place I worked the company paid for it,” he said.

  “Did they pay for your life insurance too?” asked the interviewer.

  “Sure they did,” the man said. “Not only that, but we got unlimited sick leave, severance pay, three weeks’ vacation, a Christmas bonus, and coffee breaks.”

  “Then why did you leave such a perfect place?” the interviewer asked.

  “They went bankrupt,” the man admitted.

  Thoughts

  People say that hard work never killed anybody, but on the other hand, I’ve never known anybody who rested to death.

  Wisdom

  An angel appeared at a faculty meeting and told the dean that in return for his unselfish and exemplary behavior, the Lord would reward him with his choice of infinite wealth, wisdom, or beauty. Without hesitating, the dean selected infinite wisdom.

  “Done!” said the angel and disappeared in a cloud of smoke and a bolt of lightning. Then all heads turned toward the dean who sat surrounded by a faint halo of light. He seemed stunned and shocked as a cloud of silence encompassed the room.