When my wife and I went up to New England a couple of years ago we decided to stay in one of those quaint little inns.
The clerk at the inn asked me if we wanted a room with a shower or a tub.
“What’s the difference?” I asked.
“Well, sir, in a tub, you can sit down.”
A screenwriter comes home to a burned down house.
His sobbing wife is standing outside. “What happened, honey?” the man asks.
“Oh, John, it was terrible,” she weeps. “I was cooking when the phone rang. It was your agent. Because I was on the phone, I didn’t notice the stove had caught on fire. It went up in seconds. Everything is gone. I nearly didn’t make it out of the house. Poor Fluffy is gone……..”
“Wait! Back up a minute,” the man says. “My agent called?”
A small display at the fish hatchery where I work describes a now-extinct fish called the Michigan Grayling. Last summer, I had the following conversation with a tourist…
“Is the Grayling still extinct?”
“Yes, sir,” I replied, “it no longer exists.”
“Any thought of bringing it back?”
“I don’t think that’s possible.”
“Why not?”
“Because it’s extinct.”
Waiting for our aerobics class to begin, several of us were standing around in our leotards chatting about fitness and diets. One woman said that her brother-in-law had quit smoking, gone on a diet and lost weight all at the same time.
Thinking to myself that no human being could possibly do this without acquiring at least one other undesirable habit for compensation, I jokingly asked her, “What did he start doing instead of these things?”
After a slight pause, she smiled and said, “Well, my sister is pregnant now.”
All he asked for was a little good-night kiss, but she haughtily rebuffed him with, “I don’t do that sort of thing on my first date!”
“Well,” he replied with sarcasm, “how about on your last?”
My partner and I were in our police car when we were dispatched to break up a domestic dispute.
We spoke with the couple, and the problem was quickly resolved.
On leaving, I was admiring the craftsmanship of their turn-of-the-century home and reached for what I thought was the front door.
Realizing my mistake, I was turning away in embarrassment when my partner tried to cover for me by saying…
“If you have any more problems, we’ll be in your closet.”
A church-going cowboy lost his favorite Bible while he was mending fences out on the range.
The next morning a cow walked up carrying the Bible in it’s mouth. The cowboy couldn’t believe his eyes!
He took the book out of the cow’s mouth, raised his eyes heaven-ward and exclaimed, “Praise God! It’s a miracle!”
“Not really….” said the cow. “Your name was written inside the cover.”
Our daughter Wendy stayed home to housesit while my wife and I went away for our anniversary. As she was eating dinner, the phone rang. It was a telemarketer.
Wendy: “Hello?”
Telemarketer: “Good evening. May I speak to Mr. Gallamore?”
Wendy: “I’m sorry, but he’s out of town celebrating his wedding anniversary.”
Telemarketer: “Oh, I understand. Well, then, may I please speak to Mrs. Gallamore?”
Rummaging through her attic one day, my friend Kathryn found an old shotgun. Unsure how to dispose of it, she called her parents.
“Take it to the police station,” her mother suggested. My friend was about to hang up when her mom added….
“And, Kathryn?”
“Yes, mom?”
“Call them first and let them know you’re coming.”
A steam locomotive passing through Poland one night was running low on coal.
The engineer said to his fireman, “We’re coming to a town, let’s stop and send the porter out to get more coal. Can you see the name of the town on the depot sign?”
The fireman replied, “It appears to be Danzig in the dark.”
And the engineer shouted, “Buy coal, Porter!”
As a history buff, I was looking forward to staying in a hotel in Salisbury, England, that dated back to the 13th century.
But when I arrived, the hotel clerk gave me some bad news — my room was in the new section.
Disappointed, I asked when the ‘new’ section had been built.
“In the 1600s,” she replied apologetically.
A local newspaper was doing a story about how housing developments were eating up farmland, putting the livelihood of local farmers in jeopardy.
They interviewed Arthur Brown, a well-known and respected farmer who lived on the outskirts of town. He had received numerous high-dollar offers for on particular field which bordered a nearby housing development.
The photographer took a picture of Farmer Brown standing on the controversial piece of land. The picture appeared in the story and mentioned Farmer Brown as….
..”a man out-standing in his field.”
A woman was getting swamped with calls from strangers. The reason? A billing service had launched an 800 number that was identical to hers. When she called to complain, she was told to get a new number.
“I’ve had mine for twenty years,” she pleaded. “Couldn’t you change yours?”
The company refused, so she said, “Fine. From now on, I’m going to tell everyone who calls that their bill is paid in full.”
The company got a new number the next day.
Most elementary school children will be able to tell you that the first American flag was made by Betsy Ross.
What they are not taught was that she was also a social scientist who developed the techniques now used by Gallop and others.
It started when she asked a group of colonists what they thought of the flag she had made. This was the origin of … the flag poll.
On a business trip, my father approached a security check point at the airport. The National Guard shift was rotating, and a guard in full uniform was in line in front of him. As with everybody else, the soldier was ordered to go through the metal detector.
Before doing so, he handed his M-16 rifle to the security personnel along with other items such as handcuffs and a flashlight. Still, the alarm sounded when he walked through.
Further inspection revealed a little Swiss army knife inside one of his pockets. “Sorry Sir, but this item is prohibited,” security said to the soldier. Taking the knife away, the airport worker handed him back the M-16.