Old Cyber Smilies
As I was cleaning up my old hard drive (*sighs* too many dramas..too little time), I found a bunch of random stuff...so this might become a "series". I used to get these "cyber smilies" sent to be everyday. Here are the ones that put a smile on my face - I hope it does yours too. :)
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I work at home, so my four-year-old twin daughters, Maggie and Katie, are used to seeing me operate a computer and fax machine. One afternoon I was watching them have fun on our indoor playset's small slide. Maggie proceeded to go down headfirst, giggling that she was "faxing" herself. Not to be outdone, Katie stood at the top of the slide and shouted, "Here comes page two!"
"My friend wanted a boat more than anything. His wife kept refusing, but he bought one anyway. 'I'll tell you what,' he told her. 'In the spirit of compromise, why don't you name the boat?' Being a good sport, she accepted. And when her husband went to the dock for his maiden voyage, this is the name he saw painted on the side: For Sale. "
My buddy applied for a job as an insurance salesperson. Where the form requested "prior experience," he wrote "lifeguard." That was it. Nothing else. "We're looking for someone who can not only sell insurance, but who can sell himself," said the hiring manager. "How does working as a lifeguard pertain to salesmanship?" "I couldn't swim," my pal replied. He got the job.
Early one Saturday morning, the flashing lights of a police car appeared in my rearview mirror. After checking my license and registration, the officer asked, "Do you know why I pulled you over?" "No," I responded. "One of your tail lights is out," he said. "I'm going to have to issue a warning." "Whew," I said, without thinking. "I thought it was because my inspection had expired."
The milk shake machine at the fast-food restaurant I manage was broken, so I had an assistant post a sign to that effect on the drive-through speaker. A short time later, a customer pulled up to the speaker. "May I take your order?" I asked. Crash, boom, bang! came the response. I asked the customer to pull around. "Were you pounding on the speaker?" I asked the driver. "Yes, I was," she admitted. "Why would you do that?" "Because the sign on the speaker said 'Shake Machine Broken.' "
At their tag sale, my daughters put all of the "junk" they just wanted to get rid of in a carton they marked "Free Box." Moments after they set it at the foot of the driveway, a man drove up, looked at the box, dumped its contents on the lawn and drove off with it.
When I was a 20-something college student, I became quite friendly with my study partner, a 64-year-old man, who had returned to school to finish his degree. He confessed he had once thought more than friendship might be a possibility. "So what changed your mind?" I asked him. "I went to my doctor and asked if he thought a 40-year age difference between a man and woman was insurmountable. He looked at my chart and said, 'You're interested in someone who's 104?'
Sitting in his cab waiting for a fare, my friend's husband, William, watched as a torrential downpour left lake-size puddles just off the curb of the busy street. Then the back door opened and a customer got in. As William asked the destination, the would-be passenger exited through the other door, successfully avoiding the puddles. "Thanks," she said. "Chivalry isn't dead after all." "
During his speech at my cousin's graduation, Bill Cosby was making the point that true wisdom comes not from a classroom but from life. When he was in college, he said, his class endlessly discussed the question: Is the glass half full or half empty? So Cosby asked his grandmother the same question. She had it all figured out: "Depends on whether you're pouring or drinking."
During the college speech course I taught, I spoke about a Chinese student who, after moving to the United States, decided she wanted an English name to honor her new home. "She chose the name Patience," I told the class, "because she wanted to be reminded to be patient. Every time someone called her name, the message was reinforced." I asked the students what names they would select for themselves. After considering the question, one young man raised his hand and said, "Rich."
The college football player knew his way around the locker room better than he did the library. So when my husband's co-worker saw the gridiron star roaming the stacks looking confused, she asked how she could help. "I have to read a play by Shakespeare," he said. "Which one?" she asked. He scanned the shelves and answered, "William."
At my granddaughter's wedding, the DJ polled the guests to see who had been married the longest. Since it turned out to be my husband and me, the DJ asked us, "What advice would you give to the newly married couple?" I said, "The three most important words in a marriage are, 'You're probably right.' " Everyone then looked expectantly at my husband. "She's probably right," he said.
Tourists ask a lot of questions as we travel between the Hawaiian Islands on my charter boat. Some people wanted to know, "Does the water go all the way around the island?" Another asked, "How much further until we're in the ocean?" But the one that made me want to jump overboard was, "Can you please take the boat closer to the sunset?"
Having grown up just outside New York City, I barely knew a cow from an ear of corn. Until, that is, I married a small-town Ohio girl. While I was in seminary school, I had a temporary assignment at a church in a rural community. The day of my first sermon, I tried very hard to fit in. Maybe too hard. With my wife sitting in the first pew, I began my discourse: "I never saw a cow until I met my wife."
When I worked for a trio of attorneys, we shared a kitchen with several other professionals in the building. Unfortunately, any food placed in the refrigerator soon disappeared. One Friday a turkey was delivered for an attorney who was not expected back until the following week. Not taking any chances, I attached a warning note to the bird. When I opened the refrigerator on Monday, the turkey was still there along with my message: "Do Not Touch Evidence in a Murder Trial!"
Working on Capitol Hill, my husband was under constant pressure. After one late-night session, he came home exhausted and went straight to bed. When I turned out the light, he sat up in a panic. "Is everything okay in the house?" he asked." Yes, honey," I answered. "I locked the doors and turned down the heat." "That's good," he said, lying back down, his eyelids heavy. "What about the Senate?"
When I was on duty in the maternity ward, one of my patients was a woman who was having her first child. Because of her medical situation, she had to undergo a cesarean procedure. After the operation, I handed her the newborn child and declared, "Congratulations! You have a healthy baby boy." Still a little groggy from the anesthesia, she responded, "That's great. What's his name?"
A friend of mine had just become a district court judge and was nervous about presiding impartially over his first criminal trial. As a former prosecutor, he could see the preponderance of evidence was clearly against the defendant. The proceedings went smoothly, until it was time for him to instruct the jury. "The jury," he said, "is to convene to the guilty room."
I dialed a wrong number and got the following recording: "I am not available right now, but I thank you for caring enough to call. I am making some changes in my life. Please leave a message after the beep. If I do not return your call, you are one of the changes."
Ever wonder what medical personnel scribble on those clipboards attached to the foot of the bed? Here are some incredible comments taken from hospital charts: "The patient refused autopsy." "The patient has no previous history of suicides." "She has had no rigors or shaking chills, but her husband states she was very hot in bed last night." "She is numb from her toes down." "Patient has two teenage children but no other abnormalities." "Discharge status: Alive but without my permission."
My teenage niece, Elizabeth, was nervous as she took the wheel for her first driving lesson. As she was pulling out of the parking lot, the instructor said, "Turn left here. And don't forget to let the people behind you know what you're doing." Elizabeth turned to the students sitting in the back seat and announced, "I'm going left."
The first stop on my vacation was my sister's house in Montana. She's extremely organized -- before she leaves on a trip she always types up address labels for her postcards. This time, I figured I did her one better. The second day of our visit, I boasted, "You'll be impressed. I've already written thank-you notes to everyone I'll be staying with. They're all stamped and ready to go." My sister was silent for a moment. Then she asked, "You mean those little envelopes I saw in your room and mailed this morning?"
One of my fourth graders asked my teacher's assistant, "How old are you, Mrs. Glass?" "You should never ask an adult's age," I broke in. "That's okay." Harriett smiled. "I'm fifty." "Wow, you don't look that old," the boy said. I was breathing a sigh of relief when another child chimed in, "Parts of her do."
There was a historical marker near our West Virginia home commemorating the Civil War Battle of Blue's Gap. One day when an oncoming bus was taking too wide a turn, my wife swerved our van out of the way, accidentally clipped the sign and broke it. Wanting to do the right thing, I called the state police to report the damage. Apparently the war is still not over, because the trooper I spoke to asked, "Who won that battle?" "The Union," I replied. "Well, don't worry about it," he said, and hung up.
Some of my friends started a company built around an innovative idea for an online business. A debate broke out about what to name the venture. "We have to call it Imagination," one passionate participant cried out. Everyone thought the idea over for a minute, and then a voice of reason replied, "Are you sure you want your business card to read 'Imagination, Limited'?"
My wife and I were comparing notes the other day. "I have a higher IQ, did better on my SATs and make more money than you," she pointed out. "Yeah, but when you step back and look at the big picture, I'm still ahead," I said. She look mystified. "How do you figure?" "I married better," I replied.
Before I could start my first job right out of college, I had to present evidence that I was a U.S. citizen, so I brought a driver's license and birth certificate. The clerk looked at my driver's license and copied down some information. She then picked up my birth certificate and gave it a good, long look. "Is something wrong?" I finally asked. "Yes," she said. "I can't find the expiration date."
After I asked for a half-pound trout fillet at my supermarket's seafood counter, the clerk picked one out of a pile and set it on the scale. It weighed precisely eight ounces. Impressed, I asked, "How did you know?" Looking pleased with himself, he declared, "I'm psychotic."
Running late for a job interview at a large men's fashion company, I grabbed a white dress shirt that I didn't have time to iron. The interview went well -- until the end. "Just a word of advice," said my interviewer. "You might want to iron your shirt before your next job interview." I held up the back of my shirt collar, revealing the tag. On it was the name of that very clothing company and the words "wrinkle-free." I got the job.
Pulling into my service station 45 minutes late one morning, I shouted to the customers, "I'll turn the pumps on right away!" What I didn't know was that the night crew had left them on all night. By the time I got to the office, most of the cars had filled up and driven off. Only one customer stayed to pay. My heart sank. Then the customer pulled a wad of cash from his pocket and handed it to me. "We kept passing the money to the last guy," he said. "We figured you'd get here sooner or later."
People don't like to look dumpy in their own snapshots, which is why my husband, a professional photographer, gets a lot of requests asking him to retouch photos. You know, erase the crow's-feet, lop off the love handles. So I wasn't surprised when one woman, pointing to a family portrait, asked him, "Can you take 30 pounds off me?" until she added, "And put it on my sister?"
We were discussing the "don'ts" of public speaking in the PR class I teach. "Don'ts" include a man reaching into his pant pocket and jangling change as he speaks, which is very distracting. To illustrate my point, I asked for a student volunteer, saying, "I need a man with coins in his pocket." What I got was a girl yelling out, "Honey, so do I!"
AS MY BROTHER-IN-LAW prepared to board his plane, he noticed a little girl clutching a large bouquet of balloons. The flight attendant reluctantly told her that only one balloon per person could be taken on board. Crying, the child selected her two favorites one for her father and one for herself and left the remaining ones behind. Another passenger had witnessed the incident. Gathering up the balloons, he distributed them to others who were boarding. Destination reached, the happy youngster left the airport, once again clutching her colorful bouquet.
AN EXTERMINATING COMPANY was giving free termite inspections, and my dad phoned for an appointment. After the inspector checked out our house, he said to Dad, "You don't have any termites right now, but there's a bunch of 'em in that firewood out back. When they've eaten their way through it, I guarantee they'll head for your house."
Dad was silent for a moment. Then, in his slow drawl, he replied, "Well, from the prices you quoted, I figure it would be cheaper for me just to buy the termites another cord of wood."
Working in an ophthalmology practice that specializes in LASIK surgery, I am expected to comfort nervous patients. But prior to one operation, the patient was so frightened she was actually shaking. Nothing I said seemed to calm her. So after the doctor finished operating on her left eye, and before he began on the right, I wanted her to know the surgery was going well. "There," I said, patting her hand reassuringly. "Now you only have one eye left!"
Because they had no reservations at a busy restaurant, my elderly neighbor and his wife were told there would be a 45-minute wait for a table. "Young man, we're both 90 years old," he told the maitre d'. "We may not have 45 minutes." They were seated immediately.
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I work at home, so my four-year-old twin daughters, Maggie and Katie, are used to seeing me operate a computer and fax machine. One afternoon I was watching them have fun on our indoor playset's small slide. Maggie proceeded to go down headfirst, giggling that she was "faxing" herself. Not to be outdone, Katie stood at the top of the slide and shouted, "Here comes page two!"
"My friend wanted a boat more than anything. His wife kept refusing, but he bought one anyway. 'I'll tell you what,' he told her. 'In the spirit of compromise, why don't you name the boat?' Being a good sport, she accepted. And when her husband went to the dock for his maiden voyage, this is the name he saw painted on the side: For Sale. "
My buddy applied for a job as an insurance salesperson. Where the form requested "prior experience," he wrote "lifeguard." That was it. Nothing else. "We're looking for someone who can not only sell insurance, but who can sell himself," said the hiring manager. "How does working as a lifeguard pertain to salesmanship?" "I couldn't swim," my pal replied. He got the job.
Early one Saturday morning, the flashing lights of a police car appeared in my rearview mirror. After checking my license and registration, the officer asked, "Do you know why I pulled you over?" "No," I responded. "One of your tail lights is out," he said. "I'm going to have to issue a warning." "Whew," I said, without thinking. "I thought it was because my inspection had expired."
The milk shake machine at the fast-food restaurant I manage was broken, so I had an assistant post a sign to that effect on the drive-through speaker. A short time later, a customer pulled up to the speaker. "May I take your order?" I asked. Crash, boom, bang! came the response. I asked the customer to pull around. "Were you pounding on the speaker?" I asked the driver. "Yes, I was," she admitted. "Why would you do that?" "Because the sign on the speaker said 'Shake Machine Broken.' "
At their tag sale, my daughters put all of the "junk" they just wanted to get rid of in a carton they marked "Free Box." Moments after they set it at the foot of the driveway, a man drove up, looked at the box, dumped its contents on the lawn and drove off with it.
When I was a 20-something college student, I became quite friendly with my study partner, a 64-year-old man, who had returned to school to finish his degree. He confessed he had once thought more than friendship might be a possibility. "So what changed your mind?" I asked him. "I went to my doctor and asked if he thought a 40-year age difference between a man and woman was insurmountable. He looked at my chart and said, 'You're interested in someone who's 104?'
Sitting in his cab waiting for a fare, my friend's husband, William, watched as a torrential downpour left lake-size puddles just off the curb of the busy street. Then the back door opened and a customer got in. As William asked the destination, the would-be passenger exited through the other door, successfully avoiding the puddles. "Thanks," she said. "Chivalry isn't dead after all." "
During his speech at my cousin's graduation, Bill Cosby was making the point that true wisdom comes not from a classroom but from life. When he was in college, he said, his class endlessly discussed the question: Is the glass half full or half empty? So Cosby asked his grandmother the same question. She had it all figured out: "Depends on whether you're pouring or drinking."
During the college speech course I taught, I spoke about a Chinese student who, after moving to the United States, decided she wanted an English name to honor her new home. "She chose the name Patience," I told the class, "because she wanted to be reminded to be patient. Every time someone called her name, the message was reinforced." I asked the students what names they would select for themselves. After considering the question, one young man raised his hand and said, "Rich."
The college football player knew his way around the locker room better than he did the library. So when my husband's co-worker saw the gridiron star roaming the stacks looking confused, she asked how she could help. "I have to read a play by Shakespeare," he said. "Which one?" she asked. He scanned the shelves and answered, "William."
At my granddaughter's wedding, the DJ polled the guests to see who had been married the longest. Since it turned out to be my husband and me, the DJ asked us, "What advice would you give to the newly married couple?" I said, "The three most important words in a marriage are, 'You're probably right.' " Everyone then looked expectantly at my husband. "She's probably right," he said.
Tourists ask a lot of questions as we travel between the Hawaiian Islands on my charter boat. Some people wanted to know, "Does the water go all the way around the island?" Another asked, "How much further until we're in the ocean?" But the one that made me want to jump overboard was, "Can you please take the boat closer to the sunset?"
Having grown up just outside New York City, I barely knew a cow from an ear of corn. Until, that is, I married a small-town Ohio girl. While I was in seminary school, I had a temporary assignment at a church in a rural community. The day of my first sermon, I tried very hard to fit in. Maybe too hard. With my wife sitting in the first pew, I began my discourse: "I never saw a cow until I met my wife."
When I worked for a trio of attorneys, we shared a kitchen with several other professionals in the building. Unfortunately, any food placed in the refrigerator soon disappeared. One Friday a turkey was delivered for an attorney who was not expected back until the following week. Not taking any chances, I attached a warning note to the bird. When I opened the refrigerator on Monday, the turkey was still there along with my message: "Do Not Touch Evidence in a Murder Trial!"
Working on Capitol Hill, my husband was under constant pressure. After one late-night session, he came home exhausted and went straight to bed. When I turned out the light, he sat up in a panic. "Is everything okay in the house?" he asked." Yes, honey," I answered. "I locked the doors and turned down the heat." "That's good," he said, lying back down, his eyelids heavy. "What about the Senate?"
When I was on duty in the maternity ward, one of my patients was a woman who was having her first child. Because of her medical situation, she had to undergo a cesarean procedure. After the operation, I handed her the newborn child and declared, "Congratulations! You have a healthy baby boy." Still a little groggy from the anesthesia, she responded, "That's great. What's his name?"
A friend of mine had just become a district court judge and was nervous about presiding impartially over his first criminal trial. As a former prosecutor, he could see the preponderance of evidence was clearly against the defendant. The proceedings went smoothly, until it was time for him to instruct the jury. "The jury," he said, "is to convene to the guilty room."
I dialed a wrong number and got the following recording: "I am not available right now, but I thank you for caring enough to call. I am making some changes in my life. Please leave a message after the beep. If I do not return your call, you are one of the changes."
Ever wonder what medical personnel scribble on those clipboards attached to the foot of the bed? Here are some incredible comments taken from hospital charts: "The patient refused autopsy." "The patient has no previous history of suicides." "She has had no rigors or shaking chills, but her husband states she was very hot in bed last night." "She is numb from her toes down." "Patient has two teenage children but no other abnormalities." "Discharge status: Alive but without my permission."
My teenage niece, Elizabeth, was nervous as she took the wheel for her first driving lesson. As she was pulling out of the parking lot, the instructor said, "Turn left here. And don't forget to let the people behind you know what you're doing." Elizabeth turned to the students sitting in the back seat and announced, "I'm going left."
The first stop on my vacation was my sister's house in Montana. She's extremely organized -- before she leaves on a trip she always types up address labels for her postcards. This time, I figured I did her one better. The second day of our visit, I boasted, "You'll be impressed. I've already written thank-you notes to everyone I'll be staying with. They're all stamped and ready to go." My sister was silent for a moment. Then she asked, "You mean those little envelopes I saw in your room and mailed this morning?"
One of my fourth graders asked my teacher's assistant, "How old are you, Mrs. Glass?" "You should never ask an adult's age," I broke in. "That's okay." Harriett smiled. "I'm fifty." "Wow, you don't look that old," the boy said. I was breathing a sigh of relief when another child chimed in, "Parts of her do."
There was a historical marker near our West Virginia home commemorating the Civil War Battle of Blue's Gap. One day when an oncoming bus was taking too wide a turn, my wife swerved our van out of the way, accidentally clipped the sign and broke it. Wanting to do the right thing, I called the state police to report the damage. Apparently the war is still not over, because the trooper I spoke to asked, "Who won that battle?" "The Union," I replied. "Well, don't worry about it," he said, and hung up.
Some of my friends started a company built around an innovative idea for an online business. A debate broke out about what to name the venture. "We have to call it Imagination," one passionate participant cried out. Everyone thought the idea over for a minute, and then a voice of reason replied, "Are you sure you want your business card to read 'Imagination, Limited'?"
My wife and I were comparing notes the other day. "I have a higher IQ, did better on my SATs and make more money than you," she pointed out. "Yeah, but when you step back and look at the big picture, I'm still ahead," I said. She look mystified. "How do you figure?" "I married better," I replied.
Before I could start my first job right out of college, I had to present evidence that I was a U.S. citizen, so I brought a driver's license and birth certificate. The clerk looked at my driver's license and copied down some information. She then picked up my birth certificate and gave it a good, long look. "Is something wrong?" I finally asked. "Yes," she said. "I can't find the expiration date."
After I asked for a half-pound trout fillet at my supermarket's seafood counter, the clerk picked one out of a pile and set it on the scale. It weighed precisely eight ounces. Impressed, I asked, "How did you know?" Looking pleased with himself, he declared, "I'm psychotic."
Running late for a job interview at a large men's fashion company, I grabbed a white dress shirt that I didn't have time to iron. The interview went well -- until the end. "Just a word of advice," said my interviewer. "You might want to iron your shirt before your next job interview." I held up the back of my shirt collar, revealing the tag. On it was the name of that very clothing company and the words "wrinkle-free." I got the job.
Pulling into my service station 45 minutes late one morning, I shouted to the customers, "I'll turn the pumps on right away!" What I didn't know was that the night crew had left them on all night. By the time I got to the office, most of the cars had filled up and driven off. Only one customer stayed to pay. My heart sank. Then the customer pulled a wad of cash from his pocket and handed it to me. "We kept passing the money to the last guy," he said. "We figured you'd get here sooner or later."
People don't like to look dumpy in their own snapshots, which is why my husband, a professional photographer, gets a lot of requests asking him to retouch photos. You know, erase the crow's-feet, lop off the love handles. So I wasn't surprised when one woman, pointing to a family portrait, asked him, "Can you take 30 pounds off me?" until she added, "And put it on my sister?"
We were discussing the "don'ts" of public speaking in the PR class I teach. "Don'ts" include a man reaching into his pant pocket and jangling change as he speaks, which is very distracting. To illustrate my point, I asked for a student volunteer, saying, "I need a man with coins in his pocket." What I got was a girl yelling out, "Honey, so do I!"
AS MY BROTHER-IN-LAW prepared to board his plane, he noticed a little girl clutching a large bouquet of balloons. The flight attendant reluctantly told her that only one balloon per person could be taken on board. Crying, the child selected her two favorites one for her father and one for herself and left the remaining ones behind. Another passenger had witnessed the incident. Gathering up the balloons, he distributed them to others who were boarding. Destination reached, the happy youngster left the airport, once again clutching her colorful bouquet.
AN EXTERMINATING COMPANY was giving free termite inspections, and my dad phoned for an appointment. After the inspector checked out our house, he said to Dad, "You don't have any termites right now, but there's a bunch of 'em in that firewood out back. When they've eaten their way through it, I guarantee they'll head for your house."
Dad was silent for a moment. Then, in his slow drawl, he replied, "Well, from the prices you quoted, I figure it would be cheaper for me just to buy the termites another cord of wood."
Working in an ophthalmology practice that specializes in LASIK surgery, I am expected to comfort nervous patients. But prior to one operation, the patient was so frightened she was actually shaking. Nothing I said seemed to calm her. So after the doctor finished operating on her left eye, and before he began on the right, I wanted her to know the surgery was going well. "There," I said, patting her hand reassuringly. "Now you only have one eye left!"
Because they had no reservations at a busy restaurant, my elderly neighbor and his wife were told there would be a 45-minute wait for a table. "Young man, we're both 90 years old," he told the maitre d'. "We may not have 45 minutes." They were seated immediately.