While standing watch in the Coast Guard station in Juneau, Alaska, I got a call from the Navy in the nearby city of Adak. They had lost contact with one of their planes and needed the Coast Guard to send an aircraft to find it.
I asked the man where the Navy aircraft had last been spotted so we would know where to search.
“I can’t tell you,” the Navy man said. “That’s classified.”
Vacationing in Alaska, I couldn’t help but notice all the warnings about bears posted in campgrounds, visitors centers and rest areas advising people not to feed the bears, how to avoid bears, what to do if a bear sees you, what to do if a bear attacks, and so on.
My favorite, however, was a hand-lettered sign on the door of a small gas station in a remote area. It said: “Warning! If you are being chased by a bear, don’t come in here!”
At the outpatient surgery center where I work, the anesthesiologist often chatted with patients before their operations to help them relax.
One day he thought he recognized a woman as a co-worker at the VA hospital where he had trained.
When the patient confirmed that his hunch was correct, he said, “So, tell me, is the food still as bad there as it used to be?”
“Well, I suppose,” she replied, “I’m still cooking it.”
A supposedly true story out of San Francisco (but who knows):
A man, wanting to rob a downtown Bank of America, walked into the branch & wrote “this iz a stikkup. Put all your muny in this bag.”
While standing in line, waiting to give his note to the teller, he began to worry that someone had seen him write the note and might call the police before he reached the teller’s window. So he left the Bank of America and crossed the street to Wells Fargo.
After waiting a few minutes in line, he handed his note to the Wells Fargo teller. She read it and surmising from his spelling errors that he wasn’t the brightest light in the harbor, told him that she could not accept his stickup note because it was written on a Bank of America deposit slip and that he would either have to fill out a Wells Fargo deposit slip or go back to Bank of America.
Looking somewhat defeated, the man said, “OK” and left. He was arrested a few minutes later, as he was waiting in line back at Bank of America.
While I was dining out with my children, a friend of my neighbor, who recognized us, came over to our table, and we started talking.
He asked where my kids go to school. I told him we home-schooled them.
With a raised eyebrow, he asked if my husband is the sole breadwinner for our family.
I said, “No, I also work… but out of our home.”
Then, noticing our two-month-old son, he mentioned that his daughter had just had a baby, and he wondered what hospital our son was born in.
“He was born at home,” I answered.
The man looked at me and said, “You don’t get out much, do you?”
I was scrubbing the bulkhead on the USS Kitty Hawk one Sunday morning when the loud-speaker announced:
“Religious services. Maintain silence about the decks. Discontinue all unnecessary work.”
An hour later, the opinion many of us held regarding our daily routine, was confirmed with this announcement:
“Resume all unnecessary work.”
For our honeymoon my fiancee and I chose a fashionable hotel known for its luxurious suites.
When I called to make reservations, the desk clerk inquired, “Is this for a special occasion?”
“Yes, it’s our honeymoon,” I replied.
“Oh, wonderful! And how many adults will there be?” she asked.
My Dad and I were talking the other night about love and marriage. He told me that he knew as early as their wedding what marriage to my Mom would be like.
The way he tells it, the minister asked my Mom, “Do you take this man to be your husband.” And she said, “I do.”
Then the minister asked my Dad, “Do you take this woman to be your wife,” and my Mom said, “He does.”
Hospital regulations require a wheelchair for patients being discharged.
However, while working as a medical student, I found one elderly gentleman — already dressed and sitting on the bed with a suitcase at his feet — who insisted he didn’t need my help to leave the hospital.
After a chat about rules being rules, he reluctantly let me wheel him to the elevator. On the way down I asked him if his wife was meeting him.
“I don’t know,” he said. “She’s still upstairs in the bathroom changing out of her hospital gown.”
A man pacing back and forth glanced at his watch and yelled upstairs to his wife, “Honey, are you ready yet?”
Shouting back, the woman replies,
“For crying out loud, Ed, I’ve been telling you for the last half hour…I’ll be ready in a minute!”
My mother and I were walking down the street when a man stopped us.
“I’m taking a survey,” he said. “Do you think there is too much sex in movies?”
“I’m not sure,” replied my mother. “I’m usually too wrapped up in the film to notice what the rest of the audience is doing.”
My daughter Marina worked in my law office while she attended graduate school. One morning a call came in for her. I said she wasn’t in yet and offered to take a message. The caller said she’d phone back later.
At 11:00 a.m., the caller tried again, and I reported that Marina had gone to lunch.
The last call came at 3:30 p.m. “I’m sorry,” I said, “she’s left for the day. May I take a message?”
“Yes,” the caller replied. “How can I get a job with you?”
A wealthy investor walked into a bank and said to the bank manager, “I would like to speak with Mr. Reginald Jones, who I understand is a tried and trusted employee of yours.”
The banker said, “Yes he certainly was trusted. And he will be tried as soon as we catch him.”
I was waiting tables at a country club when an elegantly dressed woman spilled Manhattan clam chowder all over her white linen skirt. She began furiously dabbing at it with a napkin.
Having plenty of experience with getting out food stains, I asked, “Can I bring you some club soda?”
“Young lady,” she barked, “I’ll be the judge of when I’ve had enough to drink. Bring me another martini!”
I overheard my father telling a family friend about my newly-assigned mission in the U.S. Coast Guard.
I work on a cutter that escorts cruise ships and international vessels under the bridges in California’s Bay Area. But what my father told his friend was, “She’s involved in some sort of escort service.”