Sunday, January 29, 2017

Session January 28, 2017

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Be sure to keep receipts for reimbursement.
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.

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