An April Fools Joke

Well, maybe it wasn’t April Fool’s day, but it was a good joke.

All the April Fools stuff going around the Internet today got me thinking about some of the jokes I’ve played on people in the past. This one came to mind and I thought I’d share it.

Municipal Building (from Wikipedia)Back in the mid 1980s, I worked for the New York City Comptroller’s Office, Bureau of Financial Audit. I was a Field Audit Supervisor, with a cubicle on the 22nd floor of the Municipal Building.

In my cubicle, I had a small basket filled with hard candies. I didn’t eat them very often and didn’t recall seeing any of my cubicle visitors eat them very often. Yet the supply of candies was steadily declining. I realized that someone was pinching candies when I wasn’t around.

That made the culprit eligible to be a victim.

CandiesI went to a gag shop in Queens, NY, where I lived at the time. I bought a small package containing four garlic-filled hard candies. They were individually wrapped with shiny gold paper and cellophane — very easy to distinguish from my other candies. I brought them to the office and dropped them in the bowl.

Time went by. Every morning, I’d peek into the bowl and count the gold-wrapped candies. Four. Four. Four. More time passed. Four. Four. Three.

The day I arrived and found only three candies in the basket, I knew the trap had been sprung.

I never did find out who was pinching the candies…but they did stop disappearing.

Computer Gender

Start the New Year with a laugh.

I got this from a relative of mine who occasionally sends funnies in e-mail. I thought I’d reproduce it here. I have no idea what the source is, but if you know or if it’s yours, let me know. I’ll either properly attribute it or remove it as required. (Unlike other Web site owners out there, I comply with copyright law.)

A Spanish teacher was explaining to her class that in Spanish, unlike English, nouns are designated as either masculine or feminine.

House for instance, is feminine: la casa. Pencil, however, is masculine: el lapiz.

A student asked, “What gender is computer?”

Instead of giving the answer, the teacher split the class into two groups, male and female, and asked them to decide for themselves whether computer’ should be a masculine or a feminine noun.  Each group was asked to give four reasons for its recommendation.

The men’s group decided that computer should definitely be of the feminine gender (la computadora), because:

  1. No one but their creator understands their internal logic;
  2. The native language they use to communicate with other computers is incomprehensible to everyone else;
  3. Even the smallest mistakes are stored in long term memory for possible later retrieval; and
  4. As soon as you make a commitment to one, you find yourself spending half your paycheck on accessories for it.

The women’s group, however, concluded that computers should be Masculine (el computador), because:

  1. In order to do anything with them, you have to turn them on;
  2. They have a lot of data but still can’t think for themselves;  
  3. They are supposed to help you solve problems, but half the time they ARE the problem; and
  4. As soon as you commit to one, you realize that if you had waited a little longer, you could have gotten a better model.

The women won.

Apologies to the men out there.

And to keep thing straight, I need to point out that my computer’s built-in translator claims computer, in Spanish, is el ordenador.

What the Grand Canyon Sees

A look up from below the rim.

On my most recent trip to the Grand Canyon, I did a little bit of climbing around below the rim. Some of the lookout points have places where it’s relatively safe to climb in for different views.

At one of these places, I looked back at all the people behind me, at the lookout and slightly below it. Most of them had cameras pointed into the canyon. I snapped this shot as a sort of humorous reminder of what the Grand Canyon sees when it looks out at us.

What the Grand Canyon Sees

It’s Too Punny

Real groaners for folks who love puns.

My friend, Tom, sent me these in e-mail today. Thought I’d share them with blog readers. Enjoy!

  • The roundest knight at King Arthur’s round table was Sir Cumference. He acquired his size from too much pi.
  • I thought I saw an eye doctor on an Alaskan island, but it turned out to be an optical Aleutian.
  • She was only a whiskey maker but he loved her still.
  • A rubber band pistol was confiscated from algebra class because it was a weapon of math disruption.
  • The butcher backed into the meat grinder and got a little behind in his work.
  • No matter how much you push the envelope, it’ll still be stationery.
  • A dog gave birth to puppies near the road and was cited for littering.
  • A grenade thrown into a kitchen in France would result in Linoleum Blownapart.
  • Two silk worms had a race. They ended up in a tie.
  • Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana.
  • A hole has been found in the nudist camp wall. The police are looking into it.
  • Atheism is a non-prophet organization.
  • Two hats were hanging on a hat rack in the hallway. One hat said to the other, “You stay here, I’ll go on a head.”
  • I wondered why the baseball kept getting bigger. Then it hit me.
  • A sign on the lawn at a drug rehab centre said: “Keep off the Grass.”
  • A small boy swallowed some coins and was taken to a hospital. When his grandmother telephoned to ask how he was, a nurse said, “No change yet.”
  • A chicken crossing the road is poultry in motion.
  • It’s not that the man did not know how to juggle, he just didn’t have the balls to do it.
  • The short fortune-teller who escaped from prison was a small medium at large.
  • The man who survived mustard gas and pepper spray is now a seasoned veteran.
  • A backward poet writes inverse.
  • In democracy it’s your vote that counts. In feudalism it’s your count that votes.
  • When cannibals ate a missionary, they got a taste of religion.
  • Don’t join dangerous cults: Practice safe sects!