READ FOR FUN ( 5 )

An auto mechanic received a repair order that said to check for a clunking noise when going around corners.

He took the car out for a test drive and made two right turns, each time hearing a loud clunk.

Back at the shop, he returned the car to the service manager with this note: "Removed bowling ball from trunk."

A football coach walked into the locker room before a game, looked over to his star player and said, "I"m not supposed to let you play since you failed maths, but we need you in there. So, what I have to do is ask you a maths question, and if you get it right, you can play."

The player agreed, so the coach looked into his eyes intently and asked, "Okay, now concentrate hard and tell me the answer to this. What is two plus two?"

The player thought for a moment and then answered, "4?"

"Did you say 4?" the coach exclaimed, excited that he had got it right.

Suddenly all the other players on the team began screaming, "Come on coach, give him another chance!"

The engineer of a train passing through Poland could see no lights because the power had been knocked out by a severe ice storm. 

"We"re running out of coal," he said to his trainman, "but I think we"re coming to Gdansk or Danzig, or whatever they call it now. Let"s stop and send the porter out to buy some more fuel."

The train stops and the trainman gets out to investigate.

"Can you see a sign on the depot that says Gdansk in this dim light?" calls the engineer.

The trainman replied, "It appears to be Danzig in the dark." 

And the engineer shouted, "Buy coal, Porter!"

Steven Spielberg was busy discussing his new action adventure about famous classical composers. Bruce Willis, Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger were in the room. 

"Who do you want to play?" Spielberg asked Bruce Willis. 

"I"ve always been a big fan of Chopin," said Bruce. "I"ll play him." 

"And you, Sylvester?" asked Spielberg. 

"Mozart"s the one for me!" said Sly. 

"And what about you?" Spielberg asked Arnold Schwarzenegger. 

"I"ll be Bach," said Arnie.

Three professors (a physicist, a chemist and a statistician) are called in to see their dean. Just as they arrive the dean is called out of his office, leaving the three professors there. The professors see with alarm that there is a fire in the wastebasket.

The physicist says, "I know what to do! We must cool down the materials until their temperature is lower than the ignition temperature and then the fire will go out."

The chemist says, "No! No! I know what to do! We must cut off the supply of oxygen so that the fire will go out due to lack of one of the reactants."

While the physicist and chemist debate what course to take, they both are alarmed to see the statistician running around the room starting other fires. They both scream, "What are you doing?"

To which the statistician replies, "Trying to get an adequate sample size."

READ FOR FUN 4

Little Johnny"s kindergarten class was on a field trip to their local police station where they saw pictures tacked to a bulletin board of the 10 most wanted criminals. One of the youngsters pointed to a picture and asked if it really was the photo of a wanted person.

"Yes," said the policeman. "The detectives want very badly to capture him."

Little Johnny asked, "Why didn"t you keep him when you took his picture?"

An MIT student spent an entire summer going to the Harvard football field every day wearing a black and white striped shirt, walking up and down the field for ten or fifteen minutes throwing birdseed all over the field, blowing a whistle and then walking off the field.

At the end of the summer, it came time for the first Harvard home football game, the referee walked onto the field and blew the whistle, and the game had to be delayed for a half hour to wait for the birds to get off the field. The student wrote his thesis on this and graduated.

My mother taught me TO APPRECIATE A JOB WELL DONE -
"If you"re going to kill each other, do it outside. I just finished cleaning!"

My mother taught me RELIGION -
"You better pray that will come out of the carpet."

My mother taught me LOGIC -
"Because I said so, that"s why."

My Mother taught me more LOGIC -
"When that lawn mower cuts off your toes, don"t come running to me."

My mother taught me about STAMINA -
"You"ll sit there "till all that spinach is finished."

My mother taught me about HYPOCRISY -
"If I"ve told you once, I"ve told you a million times - Don"t Exaggerate!!!"

My Mother taught me about ANTICIPATION -
"Just wait until we get home."

My Mother taught me MEDICAL SCIENCE -
"If you don"t stop crossing your eyes, they"re going to freeze that way."

My mother taught me how to BECOME AN ADULT -
"If you don"t eat your vegetables, you"ll never grow up."

My Mother taught me about GENETICS -
"You"re just like your father."

My Mother taught me about my ROOTS -
"Do you think you were born in a barn?"

My Mother taught me about WISDOM OF AGE -
"When you get to be my age, you"ll understand."

And ... JUSTICE -
"One day you"ll have kids ... and I hope they turn out just like you!"

After returning to the building site from purchasing supplies at the local hardware shop, the foreman addressed his workmen and delegated the day"s duties.

"Tom, take Jim and Chris down and finish digging out the drainage ditch. Bill, keep running the electricity leads, and Wong, you"re in charge of the supplies."

The men went about their designated duties, and it wasn"t until some hours later that the foreman realized that the supplies were still in the back of the truck. Not seeing Wong anywhere around, the foreman went in search of his wayward worker.

Just as the foreman had given up hope, Wong jumped out from behind a drum and yelled, "SUPPLIES!"

Read for fun 3

A man arrived on a dive with a brand new pair of super flippers (swim fins), and his friend asked why he needed them for the leisurely dive they had planned.

"In case of a shark attack, I want to be able to swim as fast as possible," was the reply.

"Don"t be stupid! You"ll never outswim a shark!" said the mate.

"I don"t have to," said the man, "I just have to outswim you." 

The staff nurse of an emergency department calls in the next patient. He"s badly cut and bruised and visibly shaken. She asks him what happened while she attends to his injuries.

"Well, I was driving along, minding my own business, when out of nowhere, this fridge smashed through the windscreen! I"m lucky to be alive!"

She bandages him up and calls in the next patient, who walks in with cuts to his hands and a back injury. "What happened to you?" she asks.

"Oh, I feel such a fool," says the man, "I"ve never trusted my dear wife and I get fits of jealousy even though she"s completely innocent. I got home early this afternoon and burst through the door thinking I might catch her with another man but she was alone in the kitchen ironing her skirt ready for work. 

"She shouted at me for being an idiot and ruining the door, and I went into a fit of rage and ended up picking the fridge up and throwing it out of the window! I"m such an idiot, someone could have been killed! AND I"ve done my back in with the strain of it!"

The nurse tut tuts and gives him some pain killers and tells him to rest.

Finally a third man is wheeled in, he"s broken both his legs and an arm and he"s naked and covered in milk.

"What happened to you!" she exclaims.

"Well," he begins, "I was in this fridge ..."

Once some robbers broke into a bank, one of them pointed the gun at the cashier said, "Give me all your money, or you"ll be GEOGRAPHY!" 

The cashier laughed and said, "You mean "HISTORY."" 

The robber answered, "Don"t change the subject."

One night a teenage girl brought her new boyfriend home to meet her
parents, and they were appalled by his appearance: leather jacket,
motorcycle boots, tattoos and more piercings than they wanted to
count.

Later, the parents pulled their daughter aside and confessed their
concern. "Dear," said the mother diplomatically, "he doesn"t seem
very nice."

"Oh please, Mom," replied the daughter, "if he wasn"t nice, why would
he be doing 500 hours of community service?"

The Japanese eat very little fat and suffer fewer heart attacks than the British or Americans.

The French eat a lot of fat and also suffer fewer heart attacks than the British or Americans.

The Japanese drink very little red wine and suffer fewer heart attacks than the British or Americans.

The Italians drink excessive amounts of red wine and also suffer fewer heart attacks than the British or Americans.

The Germans drink a lot of beers and eat lots of sausages and fats and suffer fewer heart attacks than the British or Americans.
Conclusion: Eat and drink what you like. Speaking English is apparently what kills you.

The coach was in despair at his side"s fielding. Match after match, they dropped every chance that came their way. Finally one day the coach called his men together and told them that he was taking them fishing.

"What for?" they asked.

"To make sure you catch something this season!" he said.

After she woke up, a woman told her husband, "I just dreamed that you gave me a pearl necklace. What do you think it means?"

"You"ll know tonight," he said.

That evening, the man came home with a small package and gave it to his wife. Delighted, she opened it . . . and found a book entitled "The Meaning of Dreams."

A church service was in full swing, the pews were packed.

Suddenly, Satan appeared at the front of the church. Everyone started screaming and running for the front entrance, trampling each other in a frantic effort to get away from evil incarnate.

Soon everyone had left the church except for one elderly gentleman who sat calmly in his pew without moving, seeming
oblivious to the fact that the Devil was in his presence.

So Satan walked up to the old man and said, "Don"t you know who I am?

The man replied, "Yep, sure do."

"Aren"t you afraid of me?" Satan asked.

"Nope, sure ain"t." said the man.

"Don"t you realize I can kill you with a word?" asked Satan.

"Don"t doubt it for a minute," returned the old man, in an even tone.

"Did you know that I could cause you profound, horrifying AGONY for all eternity?" persisted Satan.

"Yep," was the calm reply.

"And you"re still not afraid?" asked Satan.

"Nope," said the old man.

More than a little perturbed, Satan asked, "Well, why aren"t you afraid of me?"

The man calmly replied, "Been married to your sister for 48 years."

READ FOR FUN

After being away on business, Tim thought it would be nice to bring his wife a little gift. "I"d like some perfume," he said to the cosmetics clerk. 

She showed him a bottle costing $50.00. "That"s a bit much," said Tim, so she returned with a smaller bottle for $30.00.

"That"s still quite a bit," Tim complained.

Growing annoyed, the clerk brought out a tiny $15.00 bottle.

"What I mean," said Tim, "is I"d like to see something really cheap."

The clerk handed him a mirror.

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A dog ran into a butcher shop and grabbed a roast off the counter. Fortunately, the butcher recognized the dog as belonging to a neighbor of his. The neighbor happened to be a lawyer.

Incensed at the theft, the butcher called up his neighbor and said, "Hey, if your dog stole a roast from my butcher shop, would you be liable for the cost of the meat?" 

The lawyer replied, "Of course, how much was the roast?" 

"$7.98," said the butcher.

A few days later the butcher received a check in the mail for $7.98. Attached to it was an invoice that read: Legal Consultation Service: $150.

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Spanish singer, Julio Iglesias was on television with British TV host Anne Diamond when he used the word "manyana". Diamond asked him to explain what it meant. He said that the term means, "Maybe the job will be done to-morrow, maybe the next day, maybe the day after that. Perhaps next week, next month, next year. Who cares?" 

The host turned to Irishman, Shay Brennan who was also on the show and asked him if there was an equivalent term in Irish. 

"No. In Ireland we don"t have a word to describe that degree of urgency," replied Brennan.

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A scientist was complaining to a fellow scientist that his colony of fruit flies, for some unknown reason, had never mated in his glass enclosure. Given that his experiment required several generations to complete, this was causing quite a problem. The visiting scientist told him that he had experienced a similar problem at his lab and it resulted from the slick glass walls of the enclosure. Apparently the flies mate while crawling along the glass walls of the enclosure. 

"Your glass is too slick," he told him, "but I have just the remedy". 

The second scientist asked for a bottle of table salt and some flour and water. He mixed the concoction and brushed it on the glass walls. The flies began crawling along the surface and mated immediately.

"My problem is solved," exclaimed the first scientist, "If only I had known that flies need monosodium glue to mate!"

Read For Fun

A woman gets on a bus with her baby. The bus driver says, "That"s the ugliest baby that I"ve ever seen. Ugh!"
The woman goes to the rear of the bus and sits down, fuming. She says to a man next to her, "The driver just insulted me!"
The man says, "You go right up there and tell him off – go ahead, I"ll hold your monkey for you."

A bus conductor was sentenced to the electric chair as he deliberately ran over one of his passengers. When the prison governor flicked the switch, nothing happened, and after trying this many times, still nothing happened. He survived and was eventually released. Later, a journalist asked him if he knew what had stopped him from being electrocuted. "Oh that"s simple," he replied. "I"ve always been a bad conductor!"

And ...
A woman dressed in a smart magenta and pink outfit boarded a local bus. The light-hearted driver commented: "You look just like one of our smart new low floor buses!" 

"Maybe so," replied the woman, "but you won"t get on and off me for thirty pence."

As their first assignment, the English students are asked to write a paper about their summer. 

One student wrote a paper about going to the coast and getting a summer job on a fishing boat. He described how, without any skills, he was still able to obtain work as a "bait boy" on the boat. It was his job to make sure the bait was provided, cut up, if necessary, and even put on the hooks if the customers wanted him to do that. 

He did well, was given more responsibilities, and advanced quickly in the job. By the summer, he had done so well that he was made "master baiter."

Two robins were sitting in a tree. "I"m really hungry" said the first one. "Let"s fly down and find some lunch." They flew down to the ground and found a nice plot of newly plowed ground that was full of worms. They ate and ate and ate till they could eat no more. 

"I"m so full. I don"t think I can fly back up into the tree," said the first one. 

"Let"s just lie back here and bask in the warm sun," said the second.

"OK," said the first. 

So they plopped down basking in the sun. No sooner than they had fallen asleep when a big fat tomcat sneaked up on them and ate them both. As the cat sat washing his face after his meal, he thought, "I just love Baskin Robins."

An English major at a university was taking an astronomy course to satisfy the science requirement. During the last lecture of the semester, the professor spoke about some of the more exotic s in the universe including black holes. 

Despite his teacher"s enthusiasm, the student showed no interest, as was the case for all his astronomy classes during the semester. When the bell rang, the student turned to his friend and said, "The prof says that black holes are interesting, but I think they suck."

A clown moved into an apartment block reserved solely for circus performers. He liked everything about the apartment. The kitchen was modern, the bedroom was comfortable and the lounge was spacious. And there were plenty of facilities -- cooker, vacuum cleaner, refrigerator, washing machine. The only thing that was missing was an ironing board, something on which he could press his circus uniform after washing it.

"Why is there no ironing board?" he asked the agent. "The lion tamer and the juggler have both got one." 

"You use the window ledge, like the other clowns," explained the agent. "It"s in your contract. Every clown has a sill for ironing."

"What do you want to be when you grow up? Chances are if you ask that question in any third grade class, your answers will include at least one fireman, one policeman, one cowboy and an assortment of other jobs that are glamorized on television and books.

"But there are far more jobs than those that make good reading and television. Some of the most interesting and unusual jobs are those that most third graders have never heard of - unless, of course, a relative happens to be a flavorist or a research chef."

A Texan woman had a wedding cake made into a life-sized model of herself. Chidi Ogbuta, 35, had the 5ft cake made to renew her vows after 10 years of marriage to husband, Innocent.

The £3,000 cake took five weeks to make, needed two gallons of amaretto, 50lbs of sugar, 200 eggs and weighed a whopping 400lb, and it needed four men to lift it into the wedding venue.

And here"s why some men marry ...

Every man needs a wife, because things sometimes go wrong that you can"t blame on the government.

The hostess was getting worried because there were too many people and not enough refreshments. She was sure that not all of these people had been invited but didn"t know how to tell which ones were the crashers.

Then her husband got an idea ...

He turned to the crowd of guests and said, "Will those who are from the bride"s side of the family stand up please?" About twenty people stood.

Then he asked, " Will those who are from the groom"s side of the family stand up as well?" And about twenty-five people stood up.

Then he said, "Will all those who stood please leave, because this is a birthday party!"

When young José, newly arrived in the United States, made his first trip to Yankee Stadium, there were no tickets left for sale. Touched by his disappointment, a friendly ticket salesman found him a perch near the American flag. 

Later, José wrote home enthusiastically about his experience: "And the Americans, they are so friendly! Before the
game started, they all stood up and looked at me and sang "José, can you see?""

"This boat is leaking," said Tom balefully.

"I have to keep this fire alight," Tom bellowed.

"This is mutiny!" said Tom bountifully.

"Skool is grate," said Tom comprehensively.

"A Greek woodland deity is no more," said Tom, with a deadpan expression

Q. What"s the difference between a one-winged angel and a two-winged angel? 

A. It"s a matter of a pinion! 

And did you hear about the three English professors who left a conference together? On their way to dinner they passed some ladies of the night and began wondering what the collective term for such a group would be. 

The first proposed "a flourish of strumpets." 

Another suggested "an essay of Trollopes." 

But the third topped them all with "an anthology of prose."

A couple of Florida redneck hunters are out in the woods when one of them falls to the ground. He doesn"t seem to be breathing, and his eyes are rolled back in his head.

The other fellow whips out his cell phone and calls 911.

He gasps to the operator, "My friend is dead! What can I do?"

The operator, in a calm smoothing voice says, "Just take it easy. I can help. First, let"s make sure he"s dead."

There is a silence, and then, a shot is heard.

The hunter says, "OK, now what?"

An engineer, a physicist, a mathematician and a mystic were debating the subject of the greatest invention of all time.

The engineer chose fire, which gave humanity power over matter.

The physicist chose the wheel, which gave humanity the power over space.

The mathematician chose the alphabet and numerals which gave humanity power over symbols.

The mystic chose the Thermos bottle.

"Why the Thermos Bottle?" the others asked.

"Because it keeps hot liquids hot in the winter and cold liquids cold in the summer," the mystic answered.

"Yeah, so?" the others replied.

"Think about it," said the mystic reverently. "That little bottle ... how does it know?"

When the waitress in a New York City restaurant brought him the soup du jour, the Englishman was a bit dismayed. "Good heavens," he said, "what is this?" 

“Why, it"s bean soup," she replied. 

"I don"t care what it has been," he sputtered, "What is it now?"

How Does Your Vocabulary Measure Up in Today"s Fast-Paced Society?

by Marilyn Estelle

Whilst studying, my daughter attended an interview for a weekend reception position. The interviewer indicated that she would need to work “alternative” weekends! Of course the word used should have been “alternate”. In conversation, people frequently use similar sounding words in the wrong context. Often, it isn’t poor intelligence that causes word misuse; it is simply that the person never took the time to properly acquaint himself with the English language. Sadly, he may never know the mistakes he makes!!

Do you consider yourself a well-read and well-spoken individual? Does your spoken language convey the complete extent of the ideas and vitality of your mind and allow you to comprehend the spoken and written word fully? In other words, have you enough understanding of the English language to achieve your goals in life?

Contemplate for a moment whether your vocabulary comes up to scratch and ask yourself how many words you skip over when reading a newspaper or book? The test of knowing a word is undoubtedly the confidence to use it.

Knowledge is power and word power shows knowledge.

Why should you improve your vocabulary?

"We are standing on the seashore.

"A ship at our side spreads her white sails to the morning breeze and starts for the blue ocean. She is an of beauty and strength and we stand and watch her until at length she is a speck of white cloud just where the sea and the sky come to mingle with each other.

"Then someone at our side says, "There! She is gone. There, she is gone."

"Gone where?

"Gone from our sight, that is all.

"She is just as large in mast and hull and spar as she was when she left our side and she is just as able to bear her load of living weight to her destined harbour.

"Her diminished size is in us, not in her, and just at the moment when someone at our side shouts, "There! She is gone. There, she is gone," there are other eyes watching her coming and other voices ready to take up the glad shout, "Here she comes. At long last, here she comes!"

"And that is dying."

There was once a man from the city who was visiting a small farm, and during this visit he saw a farmer feeding pigs in a most extraordinary manner. The farmer would lift a pig up to a nearby apple tree, and the pig would eat the apples off the tree directly.

The farmer would move the pig from one apple to another until the pig was satisfied, then he would start again with another pig. The city man watched this activity for some time with great astonishment.

Finally, he couldn"t resist saying to the farmer, "This is the most inefficient method of feeding pigs that I can imagine. Just think of the time that would be saved if you simply shook the apples off the tree and let the pigs eat them from the ground!"

The farmer looked puzzled and replied, "What"s time to a pig?"

A group of office co-workers decided one day to share a ride to work. What they did not realise was that they also shared the same fear -- claustrophobia. 

As they were driving through a mountain tunnel, all began to scream wildly! The car went out of control, but finally,
they were able to slow down and pull over to the side of the road. 

A psychologist who was driving behind the car saw everything and stopped to see if he could help. He immediately ascertained what the problem was -- they were suffering from carpool tunnel syndrome.

A woman had gained a few pounds. It was most noticeable to her when she squeezed into a pair of her old blue jeans. Wondering if the added weight was obvious to everyone else, she asked her husband, "Honey, do these jeans make me look like the side of the house?"

"No, dear, not at all," he replied, "Our house isn"t blue."