Little Old Lady From Pasadena

Two elderly women were out driving in a large car – both could barely see over the dashboard. As they were cruising along, they came to an intersection. The stoplight was red, but they just went on through.

The woman in the passenger seat thought to herself “I must be losing it. I could have sworn we just went through a red light.” After a few more minutes, they came to another intersection and the light was red again.

Again, they went right through. The woman in the passenger seat was almost sure that the light had been red but was really concerned that she was losing it. She was getting nervous. At the next intersection, sure enough, the light was red and they went on through. She turned to the other woman and said, “Mildred, did you know that we just ran through three red lights in a row? You could have killed us both!”

Mildred turned to her and said, “Oh, crap, am I driving?”

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A man called the hotel manager. He said “Come up quickly, I fought with my wife and now she wants to throw herself out the window!”
The manager replied “Sir this is a personal matter and we can’t get involved. I can call sec…”
The man interrupted “No! This is a maintenance issue. The window won’t open!”.

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People have to stop putting flyers on my car.  I don’t want to see a band called “Parking Violation” at the “Courthouse.”

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Society is just full of double standards.

For example, when Ariel from The Little Mermaid swims around half naked, singing with her underwater friends, people say that she is “sweet” and “beautiful”

But when I do it, people say that I’m “drunk” and “no longer welcome at the aquarium”.

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Yesterday I accidentally sent a naked picture of myself to everybody in my address book.  Not only was it embarrassing but it cost a fortune in stamps.

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I prefer not to call my toilet the John. I call it the Jim instead.  It sounds better to say I hit the Jim first thing in the morning.

***

A man is incomplete until he is married. After that, he is finished.

***

As long as there are tests, there will be prayer in public schools

***

A man rushes into his house and yells to his
wife, ‘Martha, pack up your things! I just won
the California lottery!’

Martha replies, ‘Shall I pack for warm weather
or cold?’

The man responds, ‘I don’t care. Just so long as
you’re out of the house by noon!’

***

Why did you leave your last job?
It was because of something my boss said.
What did he say?
You’re fired!

***

The Twenty And The One
A well-worn one-dollar bill and a similarly distressed twenty-dollar bill arrived at a Federal Reserve Bank to be retired. As they moved along the conveyor belt to be burned, they struck up a conversation.

The twenty-dollar bill reminisced about its travels all over the country. “I’ve had a pretty good life,” the twenty proclaimed. “Why I’ve been to Las Vegas and Atlantic City, the finest restaurants in New York, performances on Broadway, and even a cruise to the Caribbean.”

“Wow!” said the one-dollar bill. “You’ve really had an exciting life!” “So tell me,” says the twenty, “where have you been throughout your lifetime?” The one dollar bill replies, “Oh, I’ve been to the Methodist Church, the Baptist Church, the Lutheran Church.”

The twenty-dollar bill interrupts, “What’s a church?”

***

 

Paper Or Plastic?

 

That used to be the question when grocery stores asked how you wanted your purchases packed. Now, here in Canada, it could be the question of how you want your change.

In my Funny Money post of about a year ago, I mentioned that Canada was switching over from paper money, to bills made of polymer plastic.  Working from the Hundred, they’ve finally changed all the bills over, down to the Five, which is the smallest Canadian bill printed, since we replaced the One and Two-Dollar bills with coins several year ago.

Often kidded by Americans about our “Monopoly Money”, I thought they, and perhaps other non-Canadians, might like to see the changes.  These are the most recent, non-plastic 20s, 10s and 5s, first the fronts, and the backs.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

These are the new polymer versions, again, first fronts, then backs, showing the uneven-shaped clear strip, the security strip, and (hopefully) the holograms.  The first thing I found is that they “talk” to your computer/scanner, and refuse to resolve, to prevent color-copier counterfeiting – after the third try, and checking the computer, and then the scanner.  I finally had to use the digital camera, upload to the computer and hope that they publish.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

At our income levels, hundred-dollar bills don’t enter the house very often, but thanks to a son who lives at home and doesn’t have to rely on government pensions, and the wife’s stash from selling candles, we have the three most recent iterations of the fifty-dollar bill, the ten-year-old, pure-paper version, the modified version with the security strip, and the new, all-polymer edition, bottom to top.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Despite some snide, condescending, redneck comments about our cash, Canada doesn’t even come close to having the most flamboyant bills.  I have some very pretty, and colorful, foreign examples with my coin collection.  Perhaps later I could publish pictures of bills from places where it’s a good thing you’re already wearing sunglasses.

DisAnDat

Spring is sprung.

The grass is riz.

I wonders where the birdies is?

The birds is on the wing, I’ve heard.

Hmm, I thought the wings was on the bird.

It’s official weather fans, at least in this part of Southern Ontario, the back of winter is officially broken.  Oh, we may still get a cold snap, or even another good snowfall, but we’ve had almost a week of above-freezing temps, and clear sunny days.  My driveway is finally devoid of any snow or ice.  There’s a foot and a half of grass at the edge of the driveway, and the path I pounded down in the backyard for the dog, is turning green.  I have heard, though not actually seen, robins, for the last two weeks.  Houselights which used to be turned on by 4:30, are now not needed till after six.

This is the type of spring where I used to have my motorcycle on the road by March 15, instead of April 1.  The son and I went to a Chapters bookstore on Sunday, and there were several bikes out, enjoying the first decent riding day.

On Saturday, March 2, we took a slightly different route to the farmers’ market.  Just after our most recent snowstorm, we passed a house where, instead of building the usual snowman, someone had carved 6 or 7 Easter Island Moas out of snow.  We weren’t the only ones impressed.  Monday morning a picture was on the front page of the local paper.  The wife downloaded it for me, and I’ve included it to show local artistic talent.

“Lost” shopping carts, taken off the property by various people, for various reasons, are a problem for supermarkets.  There’s a man near the daughter’s place, who made part of his earnings by driving around in his pick-up, and returning carts to stores.  Several local markets have installed a buried magnetic strip around the property.  If a cart crosses the mag-strip, it causes one of the wheels to lock.  The number of abandoned carts has decreased significantly.

My favorite market decided to go a different way.  They got rid of their old carts, and brought in a new batch which require the insertion of a quarter to release a chain, which not everybody likes, or has a ready quarter for.  This not only reduces the number removed from the property, but tends to insure that they’re not abandoned in parking spaces….or so the theory says.

In practice, lazy, inconsiderate fools will continue to be lazy, inconsiderate fools, even when it costs them 25 cents.  I was in the store last week, and two asshats had abandoned carts which were blocking the exit doors.  I’ll put them away for 50 cents.  The next day, I went back for something else, and removed two from parking spots, including a handicap spot.  I’m still doing what I used to do and bitch about, only now I get paid for it.  C’monnn  asshats!  Retirement is expensive.

I was in a different market last week, and saw the backs of several boxes of different spices.  The identification on the boxes simply read, Mt. Scio Farm, Mt. Scio Road, and gave a 7-digit phone number, no town, city, province or state, and no area code.  Always curious, I plugged it into an internet search-engine.  Man, you can find anything on the webz, if you know how to ask.  Turns out this farm is about a mile from KayJai’s place in Newfoundland.  Anything’s possible, but gourmet spices and The Rock, just don’t seem likely to happen in the same sentence.

The Pope has resigned, and the Catholic Church is in the midst of choosing another Pope.  Anyone who wants some God/Pope jokes, ask, and I’ll email them to you privately.  All I’m going to say is:  There is a Bishop in England, who has been accused of homosexually assaulting three priests and an ex-priest.  (You can be an ex-priest??  I thought it was like the Mafia, or the Hells Angels, you were in it till you were dead.)

The man who is most responsible for hushing up the story, and allowing this man time to quietly resign from the Church, is Cardinal Marc Ouellette, the Canadian with a good chance of becoming the next Pope.  It’s depressing to see that it’s still business as usual for the Holy, infallible Church.

Several years ago, while visiting Niagara Falls, I picked up what appeared to be a folded American one-dollar bill.  When I unfolded it, I saw a message which read, “Disappointed?  Not as disappointed as you’ll be, when you find that you’re going to Hell, because you haven’t accepted Jesus as your savior.”

Recently, I picked up a “Smart Card”, a business-card sized document.  Good thick card-stock, rounded corners, gloss finish on both sides and an inch-square fractal-metallic “hologram” area on the front.  This is an expensively produced artifact.  The card instructed the finder to press his/her thumb on the square “for exactly 15 seconds” to see if you were a “good person”.  If you are, the square will turn bright green.

The back of the card, which is covered in fine print, says, “Sorry….you’re just like the rest of us.  The dictionary says “good” is to be “morally excellent.”  Let’s check the standard – The Ten Commandments.”  It then rambles on for about 500 words about, accept Jesus, obey God, don’t lie, don’t lust, forgive sins and read the Bible, but assumes that the only way to be “good”, was through the Ten Commandments.

I am singularly unimpressed with any organization, or those who claim to represent the agency, who feel that this degree of trickery is needed to advance their moral position.

 

 

Ironically Christian

I found a Saint Jude’s medal the other day….and laughed until I could barely breathe.  I guffawed until I was bent over, and my sides hurt.  Why all the mirth and merriment you ask, at least you’d better, if you know what’s good for me.

At first, I thought that I’d found a dime wedged behind a railing at a French-fry wagon.  It was small, round and shiny, with printing on it.  Not until I read it, did I realize what it really was.  I keep my eye open wherever people handle money, and am often rewarded with a stray coin.

People often won’t bother to bend down to pick up a dropped penny, and now the Canadian penny is on its way to extinction.  I also find nickels, dimes, quarters and sometimes even bills.  One day I got 40 pennies from the overflow chute of a coin-counting machine.  My best day was when I picked up a hundred-dollar bill that two other shoppers had walked on, at my Detroit Meijer’s.

The first irony is that someone lost a St. Jude’s medal.  The Catholics followed Church instruction, and, for years, prayed to St. Jude, among their plethora of single-use saints, to help them find lost items.  That’s the second piece of irony.  St. Jude is not the patron saint of lost things; he is/was the patron saint of lost causes.  That’s the third piece of religious irony.  If finding your car keys is a lost cause, what good would come from praying to the guy who represents failure?

I was going to use the word final, but will settle for fourth, because the Catholic Church, and all churches, and all religions, are a rich source of irony and hypocrisy.  The fourth bit of irony is that, after years – centuries, of mindless Church-ordered supplication to St. Jude, the Catholic Church downgraded him, just like the Astronomical Society did to poor minor-planetoid Pluto.

Despite being the go-to guy for the church, apparently they did some checking on his marriage licence.  They found that he didn’t have one.  In a time and place where it was common to take a wife without the Official Blessing of the Church, Jude lived with a woman in a common-law relationship.  After having centuries to discover that fact, and despite the good that the Church claimed he did, suddenly the Unchanging Church revoked his sainthood.  It is now especially ironic that he represented lost causes.  Now, if you lose your car-keys, you have to pray to your husband or wife.  Sorry Jude, no offence.

From this general area of the planet, the Catholic Church has appointed its first Native American (Indian) saint.  A woman, no less, she was born in northern New York, and lived near Montreal.  I don’t know what the big rush is, she’s only been dead since 1680, but you know the Catholic Church, always right on top of things.

She is Saint Kateri, AKA Katherine, Catherine and Kateri Tekawitha.  I’m not sure what she did to win on the big Church show, “So You Think You Can Bless,”…. or was it, “Anointing With The Stars”?  Perhaps she helped Sacajawea get Lewis and Clarke one of those, Buy One Bison, Get The Second One Free, coupons at Wal-Mart.  The Church claims that a young man in the 1700s was cured of smallpox, by being touched with a piece of Kateri’s decayed coffin.  Of course, the beneficent Church insisted that he renounce Protestantism, and become a Catholic before they would treat him.  Sort of the same loving game they played with Pat Morita in 1943.

I’m not sure why, but a local school, full of white kids, was named for this Indian woman, who lived five hundred miles away. The name used to be The Blessed Kateri School.  Now that she’s been given a big promotion into management, the local Catholics want to bask in all the reflected glory they can get.  Despite her only being “Blessed” when the school was named, and the expenses involved, the Church is upgrading the name to The Sainted Kateri School.  I wait for scholastic results to rise.

As you may have surmised, I am greatly underwhelmed by the bureaucratic side of religions.  The reason that I take the occasional swipe at them, is that I unthinkingly believe that they deserve it.  And we all know that the churches are big on unthinking belief.