@SUBJECT:The True News Digest part 16/22 [Note - What follows is one part of the True News Digest - a collection of true-life stories which didn't really warrant individual posting, but which are amusing nevertheless. The digest is quite long, and it will appear in 22 parts over the next few months - ed.] Some less humorous entries have been edited out in order to fit this message into a single post. = = = = = From: dodson@bach.convex.com (Dave Dodson) Subject: How else would they do it? Actual sign in jewelry store window: "Ears pierced while you wait" = = = = = From: mh@zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu (Michael Husman) Subject: Christmas ornaments My girlfriend and I were sitting on the floor going through an old box of Christmas ornaments that my parents had given me. When I got up, my girlfriend began to laugh, uproariously. After several minutes of her laughing and me not knowing why, she reached over and pulled a small label off of my behind that had fallen from the box. It read: "Retired ornaments, do not use." = = = = = From: vijay@ncsa.uiuc.edu (Vijay Rangarajan) Subject: Stupid questions catagory. Hey, who says Immigration Authorities don't have a sense of humor ? At the border when I entered the US from Canada, I was stopped for a routine check. The officer asked me mundane questions and asked me for my passport. As he was glancing through it he was asking me more questions and his preoccupation with scrutinizing the passpost was getting more and more evident, finally culminating into this question - "Can I look at some identification ?" My eyes lit up and I didn't even get time to get over the stupidity his question embodied, before which he said, "Well... I guess this would do" and pointed at the passport he was holding. = = = = = From: cepek@vixvax.mgi.com (Mike Cepek, MGI) Seen on the back of a food service delivery van: Driver does not carry more than $50 worth of lasagna = = = = = From: lrb@alex.ctrg.rri.uwo.ca (Lance R. Bailey) Subject: church child care This was posted on the wall by the Trinity United Church (Ottawa, Ont) nursery school. (circa 1970) Please pick up you children promptly after service. No refunds after Wednesday. = = = = = From: dz@desktalk.com (Dave Zobel) Subject: Yin and Yang were here and weren't here A program which shall remain nameless presented me with this oxymoronic message recently. (Programmers take note -- this is what makes normal humans hate us so much!) Press to confirm exit = = = = = From: brodie@fps.mcw.edu (Kent C Brodie) Subject: Post-party blues [The Background] Back in high school, a good friend of mine threw one heck of a party. It was the typical parents-gone-out-of-town party, and quite a LOT of people were invited. Like most other parties of this nature, this one was conceived the minute the parents in question told their son "Now John, NO PARTIES while we're away...". [The Scene that night] It was quite the party. The beer flowed by the gallon, and everyone got pretty hammered. One young fellow, feeling a little sick, decided that he better go outside and lay down a while. The problem was, however, that he decided to lay down on the NEIGHBOR'S back yard. The owner, an elderly lady, did what anyone else in her situation would do-- upon seeing the body on the lawn, she called the rescue squad. As you can well imagine, the sound of sirens in front of the party caused quite a panic. The keg was hidden, the glasses of beer were hidden, and everyone soon had a can of soda in their hands. Had any police come in, they would have found a pretty innocent-looking party. (We assumed of course, that the sirens were the cops coming to "bust" our little affair...) We lucked out. No police, and the rescue squad soon left, after awakening the young man on the lawn. Everyone found their beers again, and the party resumed... [The next 2 days] John's parents were gone for several days, so we had a pretty good opportunity to help clean the house. We vacuumed the rug. We vacuumed the drapes. We found the empty (and half-empty) glasses of beer and disposed of them. We scrubbed the floors. All in all, the house was cleaner NOW than before John's parents left. [The day the parents returned] John was at work that afternoon, and decided to call home to welcome his parents from their trip. The conversation went something like this: "Hi mom. Welcome back! How was your trip?" "Good. How was your party?" "Um... party? What gave you the idea that I had a party?" "I found a half-empty glass of beer sitting at the bottom of the washing machine...... " = = = = = From: cfctech!teemc!gdls!parker@sharkey.cc.umich.edu (Doug Parker) Subject: more BASIC humor Teaching a BASIC/Data Processing course years ago, I had a good student taking a test who couldn't remember the answers to two questions about different kinds of chips: RAM and ROM. The question asked which type was volitile and which was non-volitile. Improvising, he responded: Which kind of memory is volitile: my brain Which is non-volitile: my notes = = = = = From: qtip@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu (Kevin King) Subject: Oxymoron newscasts... Heard this one on CBS news... Q: Are you willing to pay more taxes for free medical care? = = = = = From: howard@hal.com (Howard Gayle) Subject: Closing a loophole (Heard yesterday on KQED-FM, a San Francisco public radio station.) The IRS announced today that mortgage interest payments for houses destroyed in the Oakland fire will not be deductible, since the houses no longer exist. = = = = = From: MDM@bnr.ca (D.M.) Subject: Non-smoking ... well, semi-smkoking ... From the Ottawa Citizen, an Article by Michael Farber, a Montreal Gazette reporter: The organizing committee [for the winter Olympics] (COJO) in conjunction with the World Health Organization, has declared these the first non- smoking Olympics. Sort of. The motto of the Games is "Smoking is not my nature," but an accompanying COJO statement reads, "All venues are to be non-smoking except for venues that have smoking." = = = = = From: MDM@bnr.ca (D.M.) Subject: Okay, okay, I believe you From the Ottawa Citizen, an Article by Michael Farber, a Montreal Gazette reporter: The IOC is using a new saliva test to determine the sex of athletes. Instead of verifying the double-X chromosome found in females by the Barr test that IOC adopted 25 years ago, it test for the Y chromosome found in males. The test has been developed by a French doctor, Bernard Dingeon. In Calgary four years ago, one competitor failed the Barr test, but was declared a woman after a physical examination. = = = = = From: greeny@top.cis.syr.edu (J S Greenfield) Subject: A truly courageous answer The "What is courage?" story may be urban legend, but here is one that is not. About four or five years ago, while I was visiting my parents, my father read to me an answer from an exam he had given (college-level). It started with a terribly misguided attempt to solve a problem, and ended something like this: "This is probably nowhere close to correct. Please feel free to laugh heartily." = = = = = From: jog@kpc.com (Rajeev Jog) Subject: Joke: Nothing more certain than death AND taxes [From the Wall Street Journal, January 29, 1992] The widow of a man who had been a client of Harab, Kamerow & Associates, CPAs, Rovkville, Md., filed a return for her late husband in 1991. Here are excerpts from a letter addressed recently to the dead man by the IRS's Taxpayer Assistance Section in Atlanta: "We are processing you gift tax return, Form 709, for calendar year 1990 and find we need more information. Please provide your date of death. "...If we do not hear from you, your account may reflect incomplete or incorrect information. ... If you have any questions about this lettter, ... you may call the IRS telephone number listed in your local directory..., but the office at the address shown on this letter is most familiar with your case. ... We apologize for any inconvenience we may have caused you, and thank you for your cooperation." -- Selected by Jim Griffith. MAIL your jokes (jokes ONLY) to funny@clari.net