Rumormongering JOW #654

I packed away my winter clothes last week – it is late March and has been quite warm lately.  I visited Ruth in Edinburg last weekend and it was 99 degrees on Saturday!  So imagine my surprise when local weather was warning people to cover their plants against the cold last night.  Of course, they were as usual overstating the case, but it was nice to have a bit chill in the air. 

My JOW theme this week is from that great crusher of rumors, Snopes.com.  Yes it is a wonderful website, although they have successfully debunked a lot of great internet rumors that I really wanted to be true.  Gossip, innuendo, and outright lies have been with us as long as there has been communication; the net just lets it spread faster and more widely.  Snopes is one mechanism to check on things.  Often old stories are recirculated with the names changed to fit new administrations.  But be warned, wandering around in their list of stories can be addictive – look up and you realize an hour has gone by.

Here are some tidbits from Snopes followed by a couple of more ‘normal’ jokes.  Enjoy

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In case you need further proof that the human race is doomed because of stupidity, here are some actual label instructions on consumer goods. 

On a Sears hairdryer: Do not use while sleeping. (darn, and that's the only time I have to work on my hair). 
On a bag of Fritos: You could be a winner! No purchase necessary. Details inside. (the shoplifter special?) 
On a bar of Dial soap: "Directions: Use like regular soap." (and that would be how???...) On some Swanson frozen dinners: "Serving suggestion: Defrost." (but, it's "just" a suggestion). 
On Tesco's Tiramisu dessert (printed on bottom): "Do not turn upside down." (well...duh, a bit late, huh)!

On Marks & Spencer Bread Pudding: "Product will be hot after heating." (...and you thought????..)
On packaging for a Rowenta iron: "Do not iron clothes on body." (but wouldn't this save me more time?) 
On Boot's Children Cough Medicine: "Do not drive a car or operate machinery after taking this medication." (We could do a lot to reduce the rate of construction accidents if we could just get those 5-year-olds with head-colds off those forklifts.)
On Nytol Sleep Aid: "Warning: May cause drowsiness." (and...I'm taking this because???.....)
On a Japanese food processor: "Not to be used for the other use." (now, somebody out there, help me on this. I'm a bit curious.)

On Sunsbury's peanuts: "Warning: contains nuts." (talk about a news flash!) 
On an American Airlines packet of nuts: "Instructions: Open packet, eat nuts." (Step 3: maybe, uh...fly Delta?) 
On a child's superman costume: "Wearing of this garment does not enable you to fly." 
On a Swedish chainsaw: "Do not attempt to stop chain with your hands or genitals." (..was there a lot of this happening somewhere?) 

Two quick quips

·         What did George Washington say to his men before they crossed the Delaware River?
     “Get in the boat!”

·         How can you drop an egg four feet without breaking it? 
     Drop it from five feet. It won't break during the first four feet. 

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A guy goes into a clothing store to buy a new suit, but he doesn't want to spend too much money. The tailor shows him a really nice suit for $400, but the guy says it's too much. He shows him another suit for $200, and the guy says it's still too much. After showing him several others, he finally shows him one for $10. 
     "That's more like it!” the guy says, and he goes to try it on. He comes back and looks in the mirror and one sleeve is about two inches shorter than the other. 
     "No problem," says the tailor, "Just hunch up your right shoulder." 
     So the guy hunches his right shoulder way up, and the sleeves look OK, but the lapels are crooked. 
     "No problem," says the tailor, "Just stick out your left arm and cock it like a bird's wing." 
     So the guy sticks out his left arm and the lapels look OK. But then he notices that one pant leg is shorter than the other. 
     "Well, just keep that leg stiff," says the tailor, "and no one will notice." 
     "I'll take it!” the guy says. 
     So the guy leaves the tailor shop wearing the suit, walking with his left leg stiffened, one arm stuck out like a bird's wing, and one shoulder hunched way up. 
     As he's walking down the street he passes two orthopedic surgeons. One of the doctors says to the other, "I have never seen anyone in such bad shape in my twenty-five years of practice!" 
     "Me neither," the other doctor says. "But he sure has a nice suit!" 

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Dr. Woodall was a renowned physician who earned his undergraduate, graduate, and medical degrees in his home town and then left for Manhattan, where he quickly rose to the top of his field.

Soon he was invited to deliver a significant paper, at a conference, coincidentally held in his home town. He walked on stage and placed his papers on the lectern, but they slid off onto the floor. As he bent over to retrieve them, at precisely the wrong instant, he inadvertently farted.

The microphone amplified his mistake resoundingly through the room and reverberated it down the hall.

He was quite embarrassed but somehow regained his composure just enough to deliver his paper. He ignored the resounding applause and raced out the stage door, never to be seen in his home town again.

Decades later, when his elderly mother was ill, he returned to visit her. He reserved a hotel room under the name of Levy and arrived under cover of darkness.

The desk clerk asked him, "Is this your first visit to our city, Mr. Levy?"

Dr. Woodall replied, "Well, young man, no, it isn't. I grew up here and received my education here, but then I moved away."

Why haven't you visited?" asked the desk clerk.

Actually, I did visit once, many years ago, but an embarrassing thing happened and since then I've been too ashamed to return."

The clerk consoled him. "Sir, while I don't have your life experience, one thing I have learned is that often what seems embarrassing to me isn't even remembered by others. I bet that's true of your incident too."

Dr. Woodall replied, "Son, I doubt that's the case with my incident."

"Was it a long time ago?"

"Yes, many years."

The clerk asked, "Was it before or after the Woodall Fart?"

Growing JOW #653

It is spring, the normal time for things to blossom and bloom.  The trees are budding, filling the air with fragrant allergens.  The expression ‘you can hear things growing’ probably refers to my sneezing.  Spring is pretty here, though.  The highway medians in Texas are full of beautiful wild flowers.  Does this mean I have a beautiful yard – no.  An untended median strip can do better job growing things than I can.  I have no luck with gardening.  I have a rock garden - last week three of the rocks died.  “Annuals” mean disappointment only once a year.  As far as I can tell, the best way to make sure you are removing a weed instead of a valuable plant is to pull on it.  If it comes out of the ground easily, it is not a weed.  And how do we define weeds?  As far I can tell weeds are plants that have mastered every survival skill except for learning how to grow in rows.  Of course my wife is no better with plants than I am.  She is an earth sign; I’m a water sign. Together we make mud.

But here are a few jokes with a general theme of the newly awakening life as we head toward warmer, then hotter, then the stifling days of summer

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A man approached a gardener at a vegetable stand. "My wife asked me to buy ORGANIC vegetables.  These vegetables are for her. Have they been sprayed with any poisonous chemicals?'"

"The gardener said: 'No, you'll have to do that yourself.'"

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·         What did the lawyer say to the judge? Iris my case!

·         What does one call a country where people only drive pink cars? A pink carnation!

·         Why did the butterfly get a cell phone? She wanted to cauliflower.

·         What does the letter ‘A’ have in common with a flower? Both are followed by bees!

vvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvv

A flower vendor was normally quite successful at unloading his last few bunches of flowers.
Appealing to a businessman who was walking by on his way home, the vendor said, "How about a nice bunch of roses to surprise your wife?"
"I don't have a wife," the businessman replied gruffly.
"Well then, how about some beautiful carnations for your girlfriend?" suggested the vendor, without missing a beat.
"I don't have a girlfriend," snapped the businessman.
"You lucky fellow!" the vendor said, as he broke into a big smile. "Buy both bunches to celebrate!"

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This report is from Dan

Friends, with all of today’s news casters telling us about the flu epidemic and the hundreds who may die, a story has come to light one that Doctor Doom cannot possibly make up.

It is not a pretty story.... it concerns over 200 dead crows being found on the highways around Boston.

The first report came from the City Health Dept. was that the birds probably died of Avian Flu; the City was in panic mode.

Then a Federal Bird Pathologist was brought in to examine the remains of all the crows, and he confirmed that the “kill” was definitely NOT the Avian Flu, to everyone's relief.

However, he determined that 98% of the crows had been killed by impact with trucks, and only 2% were killed by car impact.

Feeling that the Federal Bird Pathologist’s explanation was not detailed enough, the City then hired an Ornithological Behaviorist to study and determine the the disproportionate percentages of Crows killed by trucks, versus car kills.

The Ornithological Behaviorist study took 6 months, at a cost of $200,000 to the tax payers, this is his report:

Crows often eat road-kill or grain that spilled from farm trucks onto the roadways.

When the crows are eating on the roads, they always post a "look-out crow" in a nearby tree, to warn of impending danger.

The Ornithological Behaviorist conclusion was that the lookout crow could only say "Cah", but they could not say "Truck”.

This tidbit is from Tom and has nothing to do with anything else

Police in Detroit last night announced the discovery of an arms cache of 20 automatic rifles with 25,000 rounds of ammunition, 200 pounds of heroin, $5 million in forged US banknotes, and 15 Latino prostitutes - all in a semi-detached house behind the Public Library on Woodward Ave.

 Local residents were stunned.

A community spokesman said: "We're all shocked; we never knew we had a library."

And to end with a whimper

An Arkansas redneck won a big off-shore fishing boat in a raffle.

"What you gonna do with that. There ain't no water deep enough to float that big a boat within 100 miles of here." 
He says, "I won it and I'm a-gonna keep it." 
His brother came over to visit several days later. He sees the wife and asks where his brother is. 
She says, "He's out there in the pasture in his boat", pointing to the field behind the house. 
The brother heads out behind the house and sees his brother in the middle of a big field sitting in the boat fiddling with a fishing rod.
He yells out to him, "Whatcha doin'?" 
His brother replies, "I'm a-fishin'. What does it look like I'm a doin'?" 
His brother yells, "It's people like you that give people from our state a bad name, makin' everybody think we're stupid. 
“Yeah.” His brother shouted back, “If-n I could swim, I'd go over there and whip-yo ass!" 

Messed UP JOW #652

This week’s JOW includes comments from Don and Tom.  I especially like words; hey, I am sort of an author so it is natural that I should be interested in words and how they are used.  That got me into various awful short puns (as opposed to awfully short puns).  But I start with definitions of

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HOSE CUTTER:
A tool used to make hoses too short.

HAMMER:
Originally employed as a weapon of war, the hammer nowadays is used as a kind of divining rod to locate the most expensive parts adjacent the object we are trying to hit.

DRILL PRESS:
A tall upright machine useful for suddenly snatching flat metal bar stock out of your hands so that it  smacks you in the chest and flings your beer across the room, denting the freshly-painted project which you had carefully set in the  corner where nothing could get to it.

PLIERS:
Used to round off bolt heads. 

VISE-GRIPS:
Generally used after pliers to completely round off bolt heads.

BELT SANDER:
An electric sanding tool commonly used to convert minor touch-up jobs into  major refinishing jobs.

HACKSAW:
One of a family of cutting tools built on the Ouija board principle... It transforms human energy into a crooked, unpredictable motion; the more you attempt to influence its course, the more dismal your future becomes.

SKIL SAW:
A portable cutting tool used to make studs too short.

TABLE SAW:
A large stationary power tool commonly used to launch wood projectiles for testing wall integrity.

BAND SAW:
A large stationary power saw primarily used by most shops to cut good aluminum sheet into smaller pieces that more easily  fit into the trash can after you cut on the inside of the line instead  of the outside edge

PHILLIPS SCREWDRIVER:
Normally used to stab the vacuum seals under lids or for opening old-style paper-and-tin oil cans and splashing oil on your shirt; but can also be used, as the name
implies, to strip out Phillips screw heads. 

STRAIGHT SCREWDRIVER:
A tool for opening paint cans. Sometimes used to convert common slotted screws into non-removable screws and butchering your palms.

Some assorted puns.

·         I tried to catch some fog.  I mist

·         When chemists die they barium

·         Puns about German sausage are the wurst

·         I went to a theatrical performance about puns.  It was a play on words

·         PMS jokes are not funny.  Period.

·         The class took a trip to the Coca-Cola factory.  Then there was a pop quiz.

·         When you get a bladder infection urine trouble.

·         What does a hungry clock do?  It goes back four seconds.

·         The Energizer Bunny was arrested and charged with battery.

·         I stayed up all night to see where the sun went.  Then it dawned on me.

·

·         If cattle had a sense of humor, would they be a laughing stock?

·         Abominable: word used to describe an explosive device swallowed by a male bovine.

"It cost 75 cents to put air in my tire at a gas station where it used to be free. I asked the attendant why the cost for air went up to 75 cents. He said, 'Inflation.'"

Some guy tried to sell me Xenia, Lara Croft and Wonder Woman. I think he might have been a heroine dealer.

And finally

PHENOMENAL 2 LETTER WORD: UP
This two-letter word in English has more meanings than any other two-letter word, and that word is ‘UP.' 

It is listed in the dictionary as an [adv], [prep], [adj], [n] or [v].
It's easy to understand UP, meaning toward the sky or at the top of the list, but when we awaken in the morning, why do we wake UP?
At a meeting, why does a topic come UP?   Why do we speak UP, and why are the officers UP for election (if there is a tie, it is a toss UP) and why is it UP to the secretary to write UP a report? We call UP our friends, brighten UP a room, polish UP the silver, warm UP the leftovers and clean UP the kitchen.  We lock UP the house and fix UP the old car.
At other times, this little word has real special meaning.  People stir UP trouble, line UP for tickets, work UP an appetite, and think UP excuses.
To be dressed is one thing but to be dressed UP is special..
And this UP is confusing: A drain must be opened UP because it is blocked UP.
We open UP a store in the morning but we close it UP at night.  We seem to be pretty mixed  UP about UP!
To be knowledgeable about the proper uses of UP, look UP the word ‘UP’ in the dictionary. In a desk-sized dictionary, it takes UP almost 1/4 of the page and can add UP to about thirty definitions.
If you are UP to it, you might try building UP a list of the many ways UP is used. It will take UP  a lot of your time, but if you don't give UP, you may wind UP with (UP to) a hundred or more.
When it threatens to rain, we say it is clouding UP.  When the sun comes out, we say it is clearing UP.  When it rains, it soaks UP the earth. When it does not rain for awhile, things dry UP.  One could go on and on, but I'll wrap it UP,  for now . . . My time is UP!
Oh . . . One more thing: What is the  first thing you do in the morning and the last thing you  do at night?
U
P!

Did that one crack you UP?