An Indian chief had three wives, each of whom was pregnant.
The first gave birth to a boy. The chief was so elated he built her a teepee made of deer hide.
A few days later, the second gave birth, also to a boy. The chief was very happy. He built her a teepee made of antelope hide.
The third wife gave birth a few days later, but the chief kept the details a secret. He built this one a two-story teepee, made out of a hippopotamus hide. The chief then challenged the tribe to guess what had occurred.
Many tried, unsuccessfully. Finally, one young brave declared that the third wife had given birth to twin boys.
"Correct," said the chief. "How did you figure it out?"
The warrior answered, "It's elementary. The value of the squaw of the hippopotamus is equal to the sons of the squaws of the other two hides."
In the great desert lived a band of nomads. Their leader, Benny, had risen to his rank due to his magnificent beard. His people believed a man's strength and courage came from his beard, and thus the man with the biggest beard was their chief.
After leading the band for many years, Benny began to fell uncomfortable wearing the beard, in this hot and dusty land. He wanted to shave it off, so he called his council together to get their advice.
When he said he wanted to shave, the councilmen were shocked. One said, "Do you not remember the ancient legend, Sire. The leader who removes his beard is cursed and made into a piece of earthenware."
Benny had heard this legend, but being a modern man, he scoffed at the tale.
Being headstrong, he went ahead and cut and scraped away his once magnificent beard. As the final whisker was cut off, a huge dust storm came up. It lasted only a few seconds, and when it cleared, there was a man-sized clay vessel where only moments before had stood their leader.
The council then knew the legend must be true. Their conclusion? "A Benny shaved is a Benny urned."
There was once an island kingdom whose people were all fabulously wealthy. Even though they could have afforded to live anywhere they wanted, tradition dictated they stay on their tiny island home.
Eventually, their king became frustrated and called a meeting of the tribe's elders. He said he wanted them to figure out a way he could enjoy his wealth, and stay within traditional guidelines.
After much consideration, the elders suggested he build a magnificent throne. When he objected there was not enough room in his hut for a throne, the elders suggested he call in an engineer to solve the problem.
Soon, the king's tiny hut was rigged with an elaborate system of ropes and pulleys. He could lower the huge throne for use during the day, and at night, he could haul the throne up, and lower his bed. This was truly the best of both worlds for the king.
Unfortunately, after a few months of constant use the roopes frayed, and one night, the throne slipped and came crashing down on the king, killing him.
The wise men of the island recognized a lesson in this experience and added to the lore of their people this statement: "People who live in grass houses should not stow thrones."
Veteran Pillsbury spokesman Pop N. Fresh died Wednesday of a severe yeast infection. He was 71.
He was buried Friday in one of the biggest funerals in years. Dozens of celebrities turned out including Mrs. Butterworth, the California Raisins, Hungry Jack, Betty Crocker, and the Hostess Twinkies.
The graveside was piled high with flours, as longtime friend Aunt Jemima delivered the eulogy, describing Fresh as a man who "never knew he was kneaded".
Fresh rose quickly in show business, but his later life was filled with turnovers. He was not considered a smart cookie, and wasted much of his dough on half-baked schemes.
Still, even as a crusty old man, he was a roll model to millions. Fresh is survived by his second wife. They had two children, and one in the oven.
The funeral was at 3:50 for 20 minutes.
A woman answered the knock at her door and found a destitute man. He wanted to earn money by doing odd jobs, so she asked, "Can you paint?"
"Yes," he said, "I'm a pretty good painter."
"Well, here's a gallon of green paint and a brush. Go behind the house and you'll see a porch that needs repainting. Be very careful. When you are done, I'll look it over and pay you what it's worth."
It wasn't more than an hour before he knocked again. "All finished!" he reported with a smile.
"Did you do a good job?" she asked.
"Yes, but lady, there's one thing I'd like to point out to you. That's not a Porsche back there. That's a Mercedes."
A businessman from Wisconsin went on a business trip to Louisiana. His wife, after taking care of work-related matters, would fly there as well. Upon arrival, he immediately plugged his laptop into the hotel room port and sent a short email back home to his wife, Jennifer Johnson, at her address, JennJohn@world.net.
Unfortunately, in his haste, he mistyped a letter and the email ended up going to JeanJohn@world.net.
A Jean Johnson in Duluth was the wife of a preacher who had just passed away and was buried that day. The preacher's wife took one look at the email and promptly fainted.
It read, "Arrived safely, all prepared for your arrival. Sure is hot down here!"
During Nicaragua's war between the Sandinistas and the Contras, an American speech therapist decided to help the Contras.
After his arrival, he spoke with an officer in the army and asked, "What can I do to help?"
"You're in speech therapy?" was the reply. "How about helping with some Contra diction?"
A young man had been working as a bag boy in a supermarket for several years.
One day the supermarket got new orange juice machines.
The bag boy was excited and asked the manager if he could work the juice machines.
The manager turned him down.
The bag boy said, "But I've been working here for five years. Why can't I run the juice machines?"
The manager said, "I'm sorry, but baggers can't be juicers."
A Scotsman, Englishman, Irishman and Chinese man are taking a flight from Glasgow, Scotland to Paris.
The Scotsman looks out the window and says, "Ahhh, now there's a wonderful piece of Scotland".
A little farther, the Englishman puts down his teacup and looks out the window and remarks, "Oooh, what a wonderful piece of England".
Farther still, the Irishman glances down and points, "now there's a wonderful piece of Ireland".
The Chinese man is feeling distinctly far from home, so he smashes his window, throws out a saucer, and says with a big smile, "now there's a piece of china".
A sailor was caught AWOL as he tried to sneak on board his ship at about 3 am. The chief petty officer spied him and ordered the sailor to stop. The officer ordered the sailor, "Take this broom and sweep every link on this anchor chain by morning or it's the brig for you!"
The sailor picked up the broom and started to sweep the chain.
Just then, a tern landed on the broom handle. The sailor yelled at the bird to leave, but it didn't. The lad picked the tern off the broom handle, giving the bird a toss.
The bird left, only to return and light once again on the broom handle. The sailor went through the same routine all over again, with the same result.
He couldn't get any cleaning done because he could only sweep at the chain once or twice before the silly bird came back.
When morning came, so did the chief petty officer, to check up on his wayward sailor.
"What on earth have you been doing all night? This chain is no cleaner than when you started! What have you to say for yourself, sailor?" barked the chief.
"Honest, chief," came the reply, "I tossed a tern all night and couldn't sweep a link!"
In the 1900s an English town had fallen on really hard times. For decades its primary industry had been its textile mills, but now the mills were all closed and unemployment was at an all-time high.
Desperate, the town's mayor looked frantically around for other industries to bring to his town. He found that there was a man in Germany who was looking for someone to take over his thriving hunting dog breeding business. The man had made a fortune raising the animals and was not willing to unload it for a fraction of its value, so that he could retire.
The mayor used his influence to have the mills converted to kennels and all of the dogs transported to his town. Employment skyrocketed and the town prospered. Everyone was happy, even though, sometimes--especially on the nights with a full moon--the animals got a little noisy, keeping some residents awake.
But, even these unfortunate few learned to sigh and say, "The mills are alive with the hounds of Munich".
A panda walks into a restaurant, sits down and orders a sandwich. He eats the sandwich, pulls out a gun and shoots the waiter dead. As the panda stands up to go, the manager shouts, "Hey! Where are you going? You just shot my waiter and you didn't pay for your sandwich!"
The panda yells back at the manager, "Hey man, I'm a PANDA! Look it up!"
The manager opens his dictionary and sees the following definition for panda: "A tree dwelling marsupial of Asian origin, characterized by distinct black and white coloring. Eats shoots and leaves."
Paints were a very precious quantity in the good old days, and British merchants could make a young fortune supplying paints to the colonies.
One company sent a clipper ship full of red paint across the ocean. It had the very bad luck to collide with another ship full of blue paint.
As a result of this disaster, both crews were... marooned.
There was this snail that wanted to be a Formula One racing driver. He went along to the track and asked if he could drive. The racing team manager said, 'Yes, but you can't have a number on your car, you can only have an 'S' because you are a snail.'
The Snail was OK about this is so he entered the race. The race started and the snail's car was at the back...but suddenly he sped to the front, over-taking all the cars and won!
As the spectators saw the Snail speed past them, they yelled 'WOW! LOOK AT THAT S-CAR GO!'
A mother pig was walking through the barnyard one day with one of her piglets. Suddenly, a raccoon raced out from behind the barn and scared the living daylights out of the mother pig.
The little hog laughed to see such sport and the sow jumped over the coon.
The Symphony Orchestra was playing a concert in the park. They were in the middle of Beethoven´s 9th Symphony. The basses, in the back of the orchestra, decided they had a few minutes to spare before being asked to play anything, so they ran across the street to the pub for some ale. It was a windy day, so they found some string to wrap around their music stands to secure their music while they were gone. Once at the tavern, they could hear the music and keep up with the progress of the piece.
After a few rounds, they decided that they had to hurry because the last movement of the ninth symphony was under way. They stumbled back onto the bandstand and were fumbling with the string, trying to get it loose, but not having much success. The conductor saw what was happening and instantly sized up the situation: it was the bottom of the ninth, the score was tied and the basses were loaded.
A lady was filling her tank at a gas station, smoking a cigarette, even though all the signs say not to. The fumes that came out of the gas tank ignited, severely burning her hands. But it also lit up her arm, too! Instead of rolling on the ground to put it out, she panicked. She took off running down the street.
A police car was at the intersection where it happened and he tried to stop her to put out her arm, but she just kept running and screaming. All the officer could think of doing was to shoot her. This took everyone by surprise. The officer ran over to her and put the fire out, then called for an ambulance.
When questioned about his course of action to stop her, the officer said, "My only thought was to stop her. After all, she was waving a fire-arm."
These three strings are walking along, dying of thirst in the middle of Death Valley. After a long, long trek. They come to a bar.
"Boy, this is just in time...I can't go any farther." So he walks into the bar and orders a drink.
"Can't you read the sign there? We don't serve no strings here" bellows the bartender.
"But I'm going to die of thirst" protests the string.
With that the bartender picks him up, and throws him out into the street.
One of his buddies says "I'll disguise myself as a rope and go in to get us a drink." So, in he goes.
"Hey, I thought I told your friend that we don't serve your kind here. Now get out that door before I stomp on you!" So he quickly retreats out the door.
Finally the last string says "Hey, I've got an idea...I'll tie myself up like a pretzel, and frizzle out my ends, so he won't recognize me." So in he goes into the bar. He gets up to the bar and orders a drink.
The bartender eyes him a little suspiciously. "Hey, aren't you one of those strings I told to get out of here?"
To which the string answered "No, I'm a frayed knot."
A young man was in love with two women and could not decide which of them to marry. Finally he went to a marriage counselor. When asked to describe his two loves, he noted that one was a great poet and the other made delicious pancakes.
"Oh," said the counselor, "I see what the problem is. You can't decide whether to marry for batter or verse."
A man had a dog called Minton. One day it ate two shuttlecocks. When the owner found out, he said "bad Minton!"
A guy walks into a bar with a piece of tarmac under his arm. He says to the bartender, "One for me and one for the road."
Sighing, the professor rapidly scanned the English 101 term paper on "Early American Railways" submitted by the class dunce, determined almost at a glance that large portions had been lifted verbatim and without attribution from Clemens' "The Gilded Age" and "Innocents Abroad." He assigned a failing mark to the pathetic fraud, and scrawled in red across the cover sheet, "Come, sir, this is TOO, TOO TWAIN."
