Elementary School Comedy

The children were lined up for lunch at the cafeteria of a Catholic Elementary school.  At the head of the line was a big pile of apples.  A nun wrote a note that said, “Take only one.  God is watching.”

At the end of the table was a tray of cookies.  A young student made a note that said, “Take all you want.  God is keeping an eye on the apples.”

***

Most people don’t know this, but you can eat organic, gluten-free food, without telling everyone around you.

***

Police in Utah released video of an incident where a 4-year-old fired a single shot at them following an altercation involving the child’s father at a McDonald’s drive-thru. The restaurant manager said his Utah location had mistakenly received Happy Meal toys intended for Texas.

***

Three doctors were playing golf. The heartless cardiologist led the gutless gastroenterologist by 3 strokes. The dermatologist didn’t care because he had no skin in the game.

***

Funny, In Spite Of Everything
A farmer was standing by a fence along his property. Suddenly God appeared before him. God said “George, you have been a good man during your life. As a reward, I’m going to grant you one wish. But you must know that I will grant the same wish to your neighbor.” The farmer thought about it for a moment and said “kill my cow.”

***

A blonde complained to her friend, “It was terrible at the movies last night! I had to change seats five times.” “Why? Did some guy bother you?” “Yeah. Eventually.”

When my kids text me “plz” because it’s shorter than “please,” I text back “no” because it’s shorter than “yes!”

Joe answered the knock on the door. Some kids in costumes said, “Give us candy or we’ll bad mouth you on social media!” Joe was taken aback. “Huh?” he said. The kids concluded, “Sorry, man, it’s trick or tweet!”

My new blonde girlfriend got all angry on me last night when she saw my phone. “Who in the hell is this Amber Alert?!”

I purchased a Senior’s GPS. Not only does it tell me how to get there, but why I wanted to go there in the first place.

***

Dum Crinimals

I’ve stopped asking, “How stupid can you be?”
There is no upper limit!  Some people are taking it as a challenge.

Even more proof that crime doesn’t pay.

Next time, take off the blinders
Derek Pierson tried to rob a convenience store.  He walked in, looked directly at the clerk and told her to ‘give the money up.’  What he didn’t notice was that a member of an armed robbery task force – wearing a shirt marked ‘Shreveport Police’ on the front and back, as well as ‘Police’ on the sleeves – was standing in an aisle ten feet away.

The agent, who had stopped by on a routine security check, pulled his gun and arrested Pierson without incident.  The officer described him as looking ‘like a deer caught in the headlights.’  I guess I picked the wrong place Pierson told police.

Talking trash
Minutes after getting a report of two men trying to break into parking meters, police began looking for suspects.  It wasn’t hard.  Witnesses said one wore an all-black outfit, while the other was dressed in a bathrobe.  Police located one likely suspect near the scene of the crime.

They began searching the neighborhood for the second suspect, when they were attracted to a garbage dumpster by the sound of a ringing cell phone.  When they lifted the lid of the bin, they found the second man inside.

Ignoring the rule of thumb
A robbery at a Git-N-Go Convenience Store in Des Moines was called off for lack of convincing theatrics.  ‘Well, I could tell he didn’t have a gun.’ said the clerk at the store.  ‘I knew it was his finger.  I could see his thumb sticking out of his coat pocket.’  The would-be robber, who acted tough and even inserted a harsh expletive in his demand for cash, wanted to argue.

‘It is a gun,’ he told the clerk.  ‘No it isn’t,’ the clerk replied.  The frustrated suspect left the store, but paused a moment in the parking lot, perhaps to go over in his mind the argument he’d just lost.

Thief tracking made easier
Kurt Husfeldt and two others were arrested in Lindenhurst, NY in possession of 14 stolen electronic devices that they apparently assumed were cell phones.  However, they were actually global positioning devices from a nearby municipal facility, and police just followed their signals to Husfeldt’s house.

Googled
A man was arrested in connection with a 2005 bank robbery, after leaving a trail of cyber-clues.  Police said that he was staying with a woman at the time of the robbery, and spent a great deal of time on her computer.  He borrowed her car the day of the robbery, and returned with a lot of cash, claiming he’d won it at a casino.

Police say that he walked into a Liberty Bank branch and handed the teller a note demanding money.  A week later, his woman friend contacted police, saying she recognized him from a surveillance photo on a newspaper website.  A police search of the computer revealed numerous searches concerning bank robberies, including one for the branch he hit, and another for ’How To Rob A Bank.’

Banks for telling me
A would-be robber in Austria, was arrested after he tried to hold up his local town hall, mistaking it for a bank.  Wearing a mask, and waving a toy gun the unemployed man burst into the town hall, and shouted, ‘Hold-up!  Hold-up!’  The building has a sign indicating that it has an ATM, on the outside wall.

He realized his mistake when a town employee explained to him where he was, and he then fled into the nearby woods.  He was arrested when he came back to pick up his motorbike, which he had parked outside the town hall.

😳   😆

Skool Daze

My wife asked me to help prepare our 4-year-old for his first day at school….
….So I stole his lunch

Whenever it rains, my wife just stands at the window looking sad….
….Do you think I should let her in?

If anyone knows how to fix broken hinges….
….My door is always open.

There’s nothing like a brisk fall morning….
….To keep me in bed till noon.

There’s no excuse for laziness….
….But if you find one, let me know.

What did the drunk driver die of?….
….Texting.

I just tripped over my wife’s bra….
….It was a booby trap

Where do you take someone who’s been injured in a peek-a-boo accident?….
….To the I.C.U.

Doctor: I’m sorry, I had to remove your colon….
….Me Why

Did you know that before the crowbar was invented….
….Crows had to drink alone, at home.

Instant gratification….
….Takes too long.

I admit that I live in the past….
….But only because the housing is so much cheaper.

If you are not yelling at your kids….
….You are not spending enough time with them.

USER: The word computer professionals use….
….When they mean idiot.

As soon as the hospital put me in one of those little gowns….
….I knew the end was in sight.

It is better to live one day as a lion….
….Than 100 years as a sheep.

The lion shall lie down with the lamb….
….But the lamb won’t get much sleep.

Bigamy is having one wife too many….
….Monogamy is the same thing.

I have Van Gogh’s ear for music.

They say that marriages are made in Heaven….
….But then, so are thunder and lightning.

I know a man who gave up smoking, drinking, sex, and rich food….
….He was healthy right up to the day he killed himself.

The only flair I have, is in my nostrils.

People who think they know everything….
….Are a great annoyance to those of us who do.

Be careful about reading health books….
….You might die of a misprint.

Johnny, where’s your homework?….
….Still inside the pencil.

I like local jokes….
….They’re right up my street.

I felt uncomfortable, driving into the cemetery….
….The GPS declared, “You have reached your final destination.”

When I was young, I was told that anyone could become President….
….I’m beginning to believe it.

I didn’t realize how unsocial I was until there was a pandemic….
….And my life didn’t really change all that much.

LOST IN THE U.S.A.

No vacation is truly an adventure, until something goes wrong.

Based on that statement, our recent excursion into the Excited States was actually a roaring success.  It all started just after we crossed the Niagara River, and pulled up to the American Customs booth.

I had packed our Koolatron, a mini, portable refrigerator, the night before we left, with all kinds of drinks, Pepsi, iced tea, bottled water, orange juice….  As I was packing the car, the wife added some snacks to keep a diabetic’s blood sugar up – snap peas, baby carrots and cherries.

The border guard asked if we had any fruits or vegetables.  I said ‘no,’ and the wife startled.  He wasn’t worried about the peas or carrots, but Canada has cherry mites.  Wifey says, ‘That’s okay.  They’re Washington State cherries.’  ‘Let’s see them.’  The bag she had just finished was Washington, but the replacements she brought along were from British Columbia.  ‘They have to be quarantined.’ he says, and into the garbage they went.

Still distracted and smarting from the loss of the cherries, I was one lane too far right, and ended up heading south towards Buffalo, instead of swinging east towards the New York Turnpike.  A situation usually easily rectified, at the next exit I pulled up, over, and back down.  I practiced a bit of Zen driving, by following a Greyhound bus that looked like it knew where I was going.  I was right.  He led me well into Pennsylvania.

Our Canadian cell phone plan won’t talk to American cell towers.  Several miles down the Turnpike, the wife’s phone rang.  Is the car haunted??   It was our Canadian Virgin Mobile plan.  “For a mere $7/day, we’ll contract AT&T to provide you full phone service.  We realized that you were outside Canada by GPS tracking your cell phone.”  Great idea! and I didn’t hardly feel stalked at all.  We got Google GPS on the wife’s phone.  I wanted to call the new voice Navigator Nancy, but that name was already taken.  She became just Google Girl, and I now have three female voices in the car, telling me where to go.

The second episode of Lost, was filmed in Wilkes-Barre, PA, where we stopped for the night.  Frenchmen and ballerinas call it wilks – bar, but the locals insist that it’s wilks-berry. The address of our motel was right on a main access road, but we couldn’t find it.  By finally asking a convenience-store clerk, we discovered that it was actually up a hill, behind a U-Haul storage facility, and accessed from a small side-road, by going through a TGI Friday’s parking lot.

We didn’t learn that until we’d been past it 4 times.  I pulled into a small side-road to turn around, only to discover that it was the entry ramp for the Interstate.  We went nine miles back North.  I tried my patented up-over-and down maneuver©, only to find that the down ramp took me to a narrow, twisty State highway which only eventually got me back to what passes for civilization.

I must have earned some positive Karma points.  The next day’s highway mishap actually brought me out ahead – still behind, but not as far.  We wanted to go from an Interstate, to a State Highway, in Harrisburg, PA, to save about 60 miles.  All three female voices told me to take exit 5B.  I thought that 5B would be on the far side of the overpass, but like the one I missed in Buffalo a few years ago, both were on the near side.

Just as I realized this, and tried to reach the off-ramp, a local air-conditioning repair truck swooped out of the outside lane and cut me off.  Oh well, we’ll go down to exit 4.  No ‘up-over-and-down’ in the middle of a city, Ethel’s directions took me ‘down here,’ and then ‘across there.’  The wife complained that, if I must get lost, I should at least do it in an area with stately, historical homes, not the grubby factory and warehouse route we took.

When I reached the highway up-ramp, I manage to insert my vehicle into a ‘volume of traffic’ jam.  When I looked in my mirror, I found the air-conditioning van 3 or 4 spaces behind me.  After inching along for 3 miles, because of two more feeder ramps, we finally got back to ‘highway speed.’

In a previous blogging challenge, I’ve said that Life makes me happy.  Just before we leaked out of Pennsylvania into the Maryland panhandle, we curled around the base of a small mountain, just in time to see 10 colorful hot-air balloons rising up its sides.  The long, smooth, descending curve allowed us to observe them from a variety of angles and elevations.  Perhaps not as large or exciting as the Taos, NM hot air balloon festival, I still took it as a sign of apology and reward for the travails of the previous day.

There’s more to come, so I’d like you to come back.  😀

’18 A To Z Challenge – M

By dark and dreary mundane passings, are clipped.  (Psst!  Wanna read some poetry?)

A travelling salesman approaches an old codger, sitting in a chair outside the flyspeck-town’s general store.
“Excuse me sir, do you know what time it is?”
“Oh, ‘bout Tuesday, ah reckon.”
“No sir, I need to know the correct time.  I have a train to catch.”
“Tuesday’s close enough.  Ain’t no train till Friday.”

Once, people toiled from sunup to sundown, not caring what time it was, and only vaguely knowing, when the church bells rang, to tell them that it was time to tithe.

As towns and cities grew, it became more important that most folks were doing things at the same time, so the Latin horas became English language hours.

Passing Time was chopped up into 1/60^th pieces of the hours.  Compared to the ‘hours’, these little chunks were MINUTE (my-nyoot), and that’s what they were called.  The original meaning of, tiny, small, is still pronounced that way.  Centuries of mush-mouth slide have changed these chunks of time into MINUTES (minnits).

With the arrival of the Industrial Revolution, especially steam trains and their schedules, even smaller bits of time became necessary, and the MINUTES got carved into 60 smaller bits.  Since these were the SECOND smaller sections of the hour to be established, that was what they were called.

As modern technology relies more on computerized electronics, and even quantum services, time must be chopped up into finer and finer little portions.  The state-of-the-art technologists of even only a half century ago, would probably be astounded by the use of millisecond – thousandth, microsecond – millionth, nanosecond – billionth, and picosecond – trillionth.

It’s no wonder that Ethel GPS put me in Oregon, instead of Ohio.  She probably just needs new batteries in her watch.  I’ll watch to see if you stop by again soon.  😀

‘17 A To Z Challenge – W

WTF!

Out of the pile of ‘W’ prompts that I downloaded, including the WTF one above, I’ve decided to choose Word Count.

I sometimes (Okay, often) tend to get a bit verbose, so I’ve chosen to keep this little epistle to a maximum of 250 words.

I could watch and wait, as long as I don’t do it too close to my snacks.  Then, I would have to watch my weight, something that you could do from the next county.  When I sit around the house, I really sit AROUND the house.

I downloaded both the word wrench, and the word wench.  While they may seem very similar, they are both quite different in meaning….although, if you played your cards right, both of them would tighten your nuts for you.

I’ve never had wanderlust.  I’m quite satisfied with, ’wherever I go – there I am.’  With me, it’s more like wander lost??!  Even with the few vacation/sightseeing trips I’ve taken, my poor GPS unit is seeing a counsellor.

Now that the wife is recovering from her second knee-replacement surgery, the physiotherapist suggested that she get more exercise, to build up her strength and stamina. The wife is pushing me to go with her for a walk around the block each day.  I said, “Why??  I’m already here….and I’ll still be here when you get back.”  I am such a wimp.

Oops, this thing is running a bit long. I’d better check my word…..

 

On-Line One-Liners

How can you tell if a blonde is having a bad day?

She has a tampon behind her ear and she forgot
where she put her pencil.

***

How many dead hookers does it take to change a light bulb? Apparently, more than two three, because my basement is still dark.

***

If everything is under control, you’re moving too slowly.

***

Couch potato? Sounds delicious; does anyone have a recipe? I’d look for one, but I’m reclining in front of the TV.

***

Cutting a gateau into slices looks difficult; turns out it’s a piece of cake.

***

Don’t worry about parallel lines and vanishing points. It’s all a matter of perspective.

***

Yesterday, I was washing the car with my son. He said: ‘Dad, can’t you just use a sponge?’

***

Amputations cost an arm and a leg these days.

***

Atoms are made up of small subatomic particles called protons, neutrons, electrons and morons. My atoms have extra morons.

***

Never trust what an atom tells you. They make up everything.

***

You know you’re a bad driver when your GPS says, “In 400 feet, stop and let me out.”

***

I almost borrowed a book from the library called HOW to HUG; until I noticed it was volume twelve of an encyclopedia…

***

I also foolishly invested in a failing graffiti business; I didn’t see the writing on the wall.

***

I have one of those memory foam cushions, but I can’t remember where I put it.

***

Eco-friendly computers can be constructed from the outer layers of tree trunks, but they turn out to be all bark and no byte.

***

Did you hear about the scientist who froze himself down to absolute zero? He’s OK now.

***

I can’t decide if I like this variable temperature hair dryer; I’m blowing hot and cold.

***

I found a great site that sells sausages online; but the link’s broken.

***

I got out of the wrong side of the bed this morning. Now I’m trapped in a tiny gap next to the wall.

***

How do we know that the Earth isn’t flat? If it were, cats would have pushed everything off the edge by now.

***

I just joined the Flat Earth Society. We have members all around the globe.

 

Flash Fiction #121

PHOTO PROMPT © Roger Bultot

I HAVE SEEN THE LIGHT

“What are we doing here? If we were any further east, we’d have to trade the car for a rowboat.”

“I told you! To get a little piece of real American Patriotism.  Look at that menu.  They still offer Freedom Fries, and Freedom Toast.  I want to make America great again too, but I think we can do it without building walls, restricting immigration, or Trump’s paranoia.

Trump probably can’t even spell Woonsocket, RI, and thankfully, neither his GPS nor his handlers paraded him through here during his election tour. Order up, and we’ll go talk to some original Patriots.”

***

Go to Rochelle’s Addicted to Purple site and use her Wednesday photo as a prompt to write a complete 100 word story.

***

Have a Happy/Merry/Drunken Whatever-you-wish-to-celebrate.  😎

Invasion USA

Recently Chuck Norris the wife and I executed a quick little raid into American territory for cultural observation and retail therapy.

We were barely outside the city limits, when trouble first arose.  It wasn’t long before there was a knock-down, drag-out, cursing and swearing, screaming and yelling, hair pullin’, eye-gougin’ match going on over in the passenger seat, between the wife, and Ethel, the snotty GPS.

The last little village we went through before getting on the Superhighway, was Roseville, ON. Our destination, north of Detroit, was Roseville, MI.  When the wife tried to enter that, Ethel insisted, “You’re already there.” The wife finally punched Ethel in the button that read ‘Change State or Province.’  Suddenly, Ethel knew all about Roseville….California.  No! No!  No!  I finally suggested adding the Michigan ZIP-code, and the fight ended with no serious injuries.

The Windsor/Detroit crossing is the most heavily-used border point between Canada and the US, and the one we’ve been using for years. Security is strict.  Since we were going well north of Detroit, we chose to cross from Sarnia, to Port Huron, MI, and work our way south.  Between a less-busy crossing, and the passage of 15 years since 9/11, it was quick, easy and almost informal.

Our border guard was a young, white male, who wasn’t suffering from testosterone poisoning from listening to Donald Trump speeches. When the wife volunteered that we were staying three days, he replied, “I don’t care how long you stay, as long as it’s not more than six months.”  When he found that we were going to strew cash into the economy, we got waved through before The Donald could collect enough Mexican pesetas to erect his wall.

Hotels/motels and restaurants cluster around Interstate exits. The better ones are usually right up front, while the Eats Diners huddle a little further back.  Right across from my Red Roof Inn, was a Days Inn, while the Victorian Inn was half a block south.

While searching for a Taco Bell, on the next main road over, and a block north, we drove past the Alibi Inn….because apparently the name Divorce Depot was already taken.  They oughta warn a fellow about things like that.  Trying to drive a car while giggling hysterically, looks a lot like DUI.

We went to a Wal-Mart to get some work jeans for Shimoniac, in his ‘big and tall’ size that Ontario Wal-Marts no longer carry. The first one we tried was down towards Eminem’s Eight Mile, surrounded by ‘houses made of ticky-tack, and they all look just the same,’ occupied mostly by melanin-rich folks.

It wasn’t dirty, but had the feel of dowdy, and unkempt.  In the Men’s Wear section, there were shelves and shelves of jeans.  Regular fit, Boot cut, Relaxed fit, Carpenter style and Flex-waist were all inter-mixed in the same piles, as well as waist sizes from 28 to 48, and inseams from 30 to 48.  After 20 minutes of frustrated searching, we managed to find one pair.

We then drove north and west to another Wal-Mart. Soon the homes were $500,000+, with gated drives and manicured lawns.  The area mall shone like Xanadu.  I’m surprised that we were allowed in, and disappointed that they didn’t have valet parking and shuttles to the shops.

This store gleamed. In the Men’s Wear section, all the styles were carefully kept separate, and sizes ran from smallest at the top, to largest on the bottom.  They have a much-different clientele.  It took only 30 seconds to find another pair of jeans, leaving the wife time to peruse the ladies’ sweaters.

You know you’re having an interesting vacation when you look out your motel window in the morning to see a State Trooper putting his steel battering-ram door opener back into the Police sport-ute.  He didn’t have to use it.  A local woman rented a room for a couple of visitors.  They partied too rowdy.  Instead of calling the front desk, who would have had to call the Police anyway, the outraged neighbors called the cops themselves.

While I was gabbing with a room-clerk, a young man came in to get another keycard. “I didn’t mean to pull the door all the way closed.”  Fortunately, he didn’t do it while dressed only in his Calvin Kleins, ‘cause she wanted ID.

The motel leaves a printed sheet, reminding guests to flip the ‘privacy’ switch on the inside of the door, so that no-one can enter, even with a keycard. While doing my usual wandering around, I found a keycard which someone had dropped just outside their door while entering.  I turned it in at the office.

At the wife’s suggestion, we ate supper the first night at Taco Bell. Michigan stores offer nachos Bel Grande that Ontario outlets don’t have.  We followed that with Cracker Barrel, and then The Outback, finishing off the last morning with brunch at Denny’s.

The Cracker Barrel wasn’t really busy, but in our section, the Negro waitress stood around talking to a Negro friend, while the white waitress took orders, delivered food, and cleaned tables. When she finally rushed over to serve us, she apologised for taking so much time.

The wife assured her that we were in no hurry, “You’re busy.”  We had till closing time, and told her to take her time.  You could just see the stress flow away.  “Not a lot of people are like that.”  We each got two corn-meal biscuits.  I, of course, ate both of mine.  The wife ate one.  When the bill arrived, I asked for a bag to take the biscuit home in.  When she returned, the bag held three more fresh biscuits, “So that you’ll both have two for breakfast, and there’ll be no fight.”  Quid Pro Quo!

Finally, well-fed and happy, we headed our mule-train loaded with beet sugar and new clothes back towards the land of maple syrup, socialized medicine and good manners. I’m sorry if that offends any Americans.  Please accept my apology….and come back soon.   😉

 

TANKS FOR THE MEMORIES

That little Iraqi War thing was the first time the American military got to play with GPS on a large scale. Iraqi tank corps were ready….as long as it came down the road.  Out in the middle of the trackless desert, it’s easy to get lost.  GPS enabled American tanks to take off from Uncle Ibn Saud’s pool and spa, travel across hundreds of miles of open desert with no signposts, and still arrive at Saddam Hussein’s garden within a couple of yards.

One night, a trio of American tanks (one mission commander and two wingmen) were moving forward. They came to the crest of a small hill, near a bunker, spotted earlier by recon aircraft.  At the bottom of a small, bowl-like valley was a tank laager – 22 Iraqi battle tanks, parked in a rough circle, facing outward, in front of the bunker.

With 3 against 22, they might have inflicted serious damage, but with the possibility of losing one or more American tanks. Wars and battles are not won by getting killed.  The commanding officer was considering calling in the warplanes, but that would give up the glory to the flyboys, and dawn was fast approaching.  By the time the bombs and rockets arrived, these guys could be long gone.

Suddenly, one of the tankers had an inspiration. Abrams tanks can do over 60MPH on flat ground.  As the first Iraqis started exiting the bunker, there was no time to explain, or receive permission.  He just accelerated down the slope and dashed inside the ring of tanks, where he roared around a couple of times, raising a huge cloud of dust.

He now had the advantage. Everything he saw that moved, was a target, while the Iraqis couldn’t fire, for fear of hitting their friends.  Some of them scrambled for their tanks, but smashed into, and blocked others.  In the American tank, it was like shooting fish in a barrel.  Target – fire – boom.  Target – fire – boom.  Target – fire – boom.  Soft target – co-ax machinegun.  Splash one rag-head.

Suddenly in the night-vision screen, they saw a soldier running from the bunker, readying an RPG – a rocket-propelled-grenade. It’s possible that the grenade might have just clanged off the tank’s armor, but it’s better not to find out.  Too quick to activate the machinegun, the gunner simply fired the main cannon.

Rags fluttered to the ground. The 40-pound warhead, travelling at 2800 feet per second passed right through him, striking an already damaged tank.  The hydrostatic shock left a fine pink mist settling to the sand.

The other two Americans watched in awe and wonder. After about five minutes, everything got quiet.  Final score: USA-22 – Iraq-0!  One lone American tank had destroyed 22 Iraqi tanks, and heavily damaged the bunker.

Proudly, the lone wolf pranced back to the pack with no more than a few dings and scratches from bumping into, what was now, a pile of garbage. Essentially, the mission Commander told him, “I understand the need for quick action, but if you ever scare me like that again, I will shoot you myself.  By the way, here’s a commendation, and maybe a little medal.”

Technology, ingenuity and independent thinking, as well as grit and guts, prevented what might have become a nasty, protracted war, and turned it into more of a police action, with relatively few American casualties. The GroPos – ground-pounding infantry – are the ones who write the final chapter, but ya gotta love the tankers who clear the roads so that they can get there, and get the job done. Salute!   😎