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By BG
Frank was having an
excellent time at the insurance adjusters convention in Hawaii. There were
seminars and lunches and discussions groups and dinners and tours and
demonstrations and, to fit in between all the planned events, everyone was
given a list of activities available to try. What a wonderful opportunity.
Everything was being paid for by his company. His first activity was going to
be to rent a one-man sail craft and go out for a sail. It didn’t look hard and
he’d always wanted to try it. It seemed to be true. At first, he effortlessly
glided through the water. He was having such fun. It was getting more exciting
as the wind came up. Then everything went out of control and he lost balance.
As he flew up into the air he began to panic. His boss had said, “Be sure to
keep receipts for reimbursement.” He was never going to go for the expense of
paying for this sail boat that he was now going to have to buy.
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Babur was steeped in the
Persian love of flowers and gardens.
By CT
Jonny and Burt worked on
the factory assembly line – day in and day out.
One afternoon Jonny
glanced towards the door. Although his hands kept moving on his machine, he
stared at the apparition in the sunlit opening.
“My name is Babur.” The man was huge – six feet tall, and three
feet around. On his head he wore a raspberry red turban. His jacket was a
glorious profusion of colors and flowers. His pants ballooned from his waist to
his ankles. Fantastical green shoes festooned his feet.
Babur was steeped in the
Persian love of flowers and gardens. His attire followed that love.
“I believe I am lost,” he said. “Where is the men’s
room?”
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There was little use for
perfume or cosmetics of any kind in early Rome.
By CC
Gaius was a gladiator.
When he started gladiating years ago, it was a glamorous profession. He was the
subject of admiring glances when he rode in his chariot down the street. He was
a fashion pioneer, wearing Egyptian breastplates at times, and was an early
adopter of perfumes. There was little use for perfumes or cosmetics of any kind
in early Rome. But scent was so very important! Anyone who observed nature knew
how animals reacted to scent. So Gaius managed to collect a number of small
vials of intense glandular odors that he learned, early on, were not popular with
the women of Rome. But he hung onto the vials, which had been won with not a
little danger, particularly the lioness in heat odor. He shook his head with a
grin, remembering that day. But now, when he shook his head, his chains
rattled. How far had he fallen! Now he was being thrown out with the lions.
Yes, he was smarter than most gladiators and had formed a brilliant plan to
escape. His jailers believed him when he said he had become a Christian. He
rattled the little vial in his secret pocket.
Finally his turn came and
he was thrown out in the arena. The lion began to stalk towards him from across
the yard. The hyena, which had been thrown in to fight the lion for his
remains, was even further away. This would require all his skill and accuracy.
He gripped the little vial and sighted the hyena, then he threw.
The vial hit its mark and
seemed to bounce off the hyena’s flank. He flinched a little, trying to conceal
his fear. Did the vial break and saturate the fur, as planned? The Hyena, startled,
raced away past the lion, which lifted its head to catch the scent, and took
off after him. As they ran, Gaius inched away towards the back wall of the
arena. He had already planned to scale it at first opportunity. The lion caught
the hyena, and as the violent sounds of battle and kill filled the arena, Gaius
turned and jumped for the fence. He almost made it over when a Roman matron
screamed "Coward!" at him, and pushed him back down. He fell heavily on the dirt,
knocking the wind out of him. When he got to his feet and turned around, the
hyena was trotting back towards him, laughing as it licked its slippery lips.
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Try the sausage trick on
other things besides squirrels.
By MD
Uncle Jim’s Squirrel Sausage
took off as soon as it hit the market. Introduced initially in small specialty
grocery stores, it became so popular so quickly that it wasn’t too long before
representatives of the major supermarkets approached Jim Pyle (a.k.a. “Uncle
Jim”) to sell his patented product through their larger venues.
“I’d like to do it,” Uncle
Jim responded, “but the problem is supplies. My neighbors were happy at first
when I rid their yards and homes of the squirrel infestation, but soon there
were not enough squirrels left to complete the sausage recipe. And when I tried
to adjust the ingredients, people noticed right away and sales dropped off.”
The marketing man from
Super Foods was undaunted. “Try the sausage trick on other things besides
squirrels,” he advised.
So Uncle Jim began to pursue other prey for the
squirrel recipe. Rats, although plentiful in his area, lacked the proper
flavor. Insects, such as roaches and June bugs, gave the sausage an unpleasant
crunchy texture which the public eschewed. Finally, Uncle Jim traveled to
Australia in search of just the right combination of sausage fillings. His
endeavors ended, however, when he was attacked and killed by an angry ostrich
attempting to protect her nest. And that is why one can never find Uncle Jim’s
Squirrel Sausage anymore, in any store, anywhere.
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Frances and I buy three
large plastic bins that resemble laundry baskets.
By RMAF
Frances and I buy three
large bins full of counterfeit money every week from the drug runners on “the
strip.” I go out in public in Las Vegas
and flamboyantly light up my “stogies” with these bills to impress the dancing
girls (i.e. prostitutes) and get them to go out with me. And do you know what?
It really works!
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Find a park or a
neighborhood with a wide variety of trees
By RC
They say that you can
find any kind of information on the internet—it’s the “information highway.”
One can find things which are even illegal (just be sure to “clean” your
computer afterwards). And so it was, one gloomy day that my search was for
“ancient poisons from nature.” I could say that say that I was just curious; or
I could say that I intended to commit suicide; but neither of those would be
the truth.
I had this friend (I
use the term “friend” loosely), who was a bridge partner at the local club. The
thing about Alice was that she was not very good at bridge, and to compound
things, she imagined that she was great at it. It was my fault when we lost a
rubber, or a game. We were pretty good, mind you, and Alice was part of the
team, but I was the one who was responsible for most of our wins.
And then that one year
we got very lucky and ended up in the finals. The championship was very
important to me, because I had never won anything that big in my life. In fact,
I had never won anything that meant much to me. Therefore, I had a serious talk
with Alice. But, despite everything, she did what she always did, and we lost.
This was just too much for me.
“Okay,” I thought,
“this is it. I’m getting a new partner.” Of course, I knew that Alice would
spoil it for me and tell everyone that I was a terrible partner and we had only
gotten as far as we had because of her. She would ruin me at the club.
There
was only one answer. I searched for—yes, you guessed it. “Poison.” I found one
particularly promising site. I read on, and found the paragraph beginning “Find
a park or a neighborhood with a wide variety of trees.” Because, you see, this
poison was from a certain variety of trees which was very widespread, but not
many people knew about it.
I made a lot of treats
for Alice and told her that I was going to “turn over a new leaf.” I made her
the tea, and I wrote her a note. I didn’t want her to go out without knowing
why. I told her to read the note only after she drank the tea.
I don’t quite know how
it happened, but I drank the wrong tea! Of course, I rushed out when I first
tasted the tea, because I knew that it had a peculiar taste and what I was
drinking was not Chamomile. I had learned that one or two sips was enough to do
the job. I went and sat in the shade of the trees, my back to the trunk. “A
fine fix I’d gotten myself into, and all because of a game!” I muttered to
myself. I opened my laptop—I was never without it—and searched for cures. I
searched and searched, while all the time I was growing weaker.
Just then, I saw Alice
heading for me. “Oh, there you are,” she said. “What’s wrong?”
“The tea. The tea,” I
breathed, weakly.
“Oh, that,” Alice
replied. “I have a confession. I can’t handle Chamomile tea, so I substituted
our tea without telling you. I didn’t want to hurt your feelings.”
“What?” I said. “What
tea was that I drank?”
“That was something
called Buchu tea, from China. It is a little bitter, but very healthful.”
Well, of course, I
pulled through just fine. Alice and I are still playing bridge together, and
I’ve gotten over my depression. We even won a championship last year.
