Funny Stories

I was walking along a back road when two bunnies suddenly leapt into the air and landed one on top of the other. To my astonishment, I saw that one had pushed the other onto a stout groundhog.

In disgust, he lifted his nose with a grunt and a distinct 
snarl, as if to say, “These rabbits nowadays! What do they teach their children?” After the startled and likely embarrassed bunnies scuttled away, the groundhog stayed in the same position for a few moments before waddling off, still in a huff. I’ll never forget that woodchuck’s shocked face!

My 21/2-year-old grandson, 
Sam, brought a coloring book 
to me and said, “Read it.”

I proceeded to make up
words to go with each page. When I finished “reading,” Sam said, “I don’t think I’ve heard that story before.”

A group of our friends from church were planning a picnic, and it sounded like fun.

The only problem was that times had been a bit tight for me, as I was a single mother with four children. What did 
I have that we could contribute to the picnic? Then a thought struck. I could make a cherry pie! A friend had given me a quart of canned cherries that would make a very nice pie filling. So I prepared the crust, thickened the cherries, and put the pie together. When it came out of the oven, it looked so good and the aroma was wonderful. At the picnic, my fiance, Stu, was the first to take a bite of my pie. I saw a puzzled look go across his face. Then he began to spit out cherry pits. It had not occurred to me someone would can cherries without pitting them first. How embarrassing! Well, he married me anyway. And the cherry pie has been an inside joke for the past 48 years.

When I told my son where milk comes from, he asked, “Mama, how 
do the cows sit on those little bottles?”

On Easter one year, I got to see my 5-year-old granddaughter, Julia. I wore my best suit for 
the holiday.

Julia said, “Grandpa, you look so handsome today. Did you take a shower?”

My niece made some food for another family at church. She prayed over it, asking the kids 
if they’d like to add anything. Her 3-year-old daughter, Boston, said, “Thank you, God, that we didn’t give them all of our food.”

In the late ’50s I was ­working construction, leveling the corner of a house that we had jacked about 4 inches above the ground. One of the jacks slipped and the house came down with a loud bang.

The next thing we knew, 
the owner, who was a minister, ran out and looked up at the 
sky. “I thought the Lord was ­coming!” he told us. We all had a good laugh.

A little girl climbed up onto her grandfather’s lap and asked, “Did God make me?”

“Yes,” the grandpa replied. “Did he make you, too?” “Yes.” “Well,” the girl said, looking 
at his wrinkles and thinning hair, “he sure is doing a better job nowadays!”

My 3-year-old granddaughter, Sydney, told my husband, Ted, and me that she was going fishing with her dad. Ted asked if she was going to use worms. “No,” she said. “I’m going to use a fishing pole.”

A young man was planting some flower seeds on a sweltering day, sweating from the hot sun.

His neighbor said, “You need to wait until the sun goes down, or plant in the morning when it is coolest.” The man said, “I can’t do that. It says on the package, ‘Plant in full sun!’ ”

My daughter Pam sent me 
this message: “Things never 
to do list. Go grocery shopping and forget you put eggs in your hoodie pocket after collecting them from the chickens, then lean against the meat counter. 
It makes a mess!”

Shortly after we moved to rural South Carolina, we found out Clemson Ag Extension was selling all sorts of berry and fruit trees at great rates. We needed quite a few things because the property we bought was cleared cow pasture and, besides a huge pecan tree, had no other trees on it.

So I ordered blueberry and blackberry bushes and apple, peach and pear trees. When it came time to pick up the order, my friend called to ask if I could pick hers up, too. I told her we’d better take two trucks. When I got to the extension office I was shocked to find the pickup area empty except for some little bundles of twigs tied with string. I asked where my order was and the attendant led me to one of those bundles. They were bare root cuttings, which take up very little space. 
I could lift mine in one hand. I mentioned to the attendant that I felt silly bringing a truck to pick up the order. It was then that I noticed a man behind me. He ruefully stated, “Don’t feel bad; I brought a trailer.”

After dinner one night, I asked my son Jimmy to fetch a broom from the back porch so I could sweep the floor. Complaining, 
he said, “But it’s dark out there. I’m afraid.”

I said to him, “It’s OK, God is with you.” Slowly Jimmy opened the porch door and said, “God, if you’re out there, would you hand me the broom?”

When weeding your garden, there’s an easy way to tell the difference between a weed and a vegetable or flower. Pull on it, and if it doesn’t come up, it’s a weed. But if it comes out easily, it’s not.

While passing by a park, my son Zach 
shouted, “Look, Mom! A tater-totter!”

I was waiting in a long security line at the airport in Orlando, Florida. People were fussing, moaning and groaning.

I heard a mom say to her son, “It won’t be too long, and you don’t even need to take your shoes off.” The boy replied, “Can we get a fast pass?” I chuckled to myself, thinking they must have just come from Disney World.

While carrying 3-year-old Matthew up the stairs, I told him, “Just think, when you get older you can carry me up the stairs.”

He thought about this and then, with a worried look, he asked, “Will you be any smaller?”

My 3-year-old grandson, Cruise, has always been impressed with Grandpa’s mighty machines, which include a tractor, an ATV and a snowmobile. One day his mom said to him, “Let’s go to Grandma’s to use her sewing machine.” He quickly responded, “Can I ride it?”

Girl on skates. The ice was thin. Then it broke and she fell right in. Boy on bank heard her shout. Jumped right in and helped her out. Now they’re married. Very nice. But first she had to break the ice.

When my granddaughter Keilei was 8, she asked me, “Grandma, does God answer prayers?”

“Yes, he does,” I replied. Then she asked, “Will he give you whatever you ask for?” Again, I replied yes. Then Keilei lifted her arms and yelled, “Thank you, Jesus! Grandma’s getting me a dog!”

My dog, Shadow, is smart as a whip, but she sheds like crazy.

One day Shadow brought me a tuft of her black fur. I thought, I wonder where she found that? But I rewarded her with a treat and put the fur in the trash. Later, she traded a second clump of fur for a treat. When she brought me another one, 
I realized it looked familiar. Sure enough, there was no fur in the trash. Shadow was trading the same tuft for treats. She knew she was busted and innocently put her head on her paws and fell asleep.

My nephew asked, “Why does Nana have so many Bibles?” I said, “She’s studying for finals.”

Joe always went to his local barber for a monthly shave and haircut. But one day the barber was ill. So the barber’s wife, Grace, took over. Joe noticed over subsequent weeks that his hair was not growing. The barber, an evangelical Christian, explained the mystery. “When you’re shaved by Grace,” he said, “you’re once shaved, always shaved.”  

The fourth birthday of my 3-year-old daughter, Amanda, was approaching. I reminded her that the day was on its way. After a couple of weeks, Amanda became exasperated, stomped her foot and with her hands on her hips asked, “Well, is it coming in the front door or the back door?”  

One day, my 4-year-old grandson, Maverick, was playing on the floor and asked me to come sit and play with him. I told him to give me a minute because I had something on my mind and was thinking. He said, “Well, Nana, just bring your thoughts to the floor with me and play!”  

My 2-year-old niece, Sienna, lives in Asia. While her family was visiting Grandma and Grandpa in Florida, she asked her mother if she could play with Play-doh. Her mother said the Play-doh was back at their house. Sienna looked puzzled and replied, “But where did the house go?”  

In my youth, I delivered the Coeur d’Alene Press in a rural area. Back in the ’50s, there were no leash laws in Idaho, and many dogs were on the loose along my paper route. When they threatened me, I reached down and pretended to pick up a rock. I can’t recall ever having to throw one—the dogs would just run away. Later in life, my job took me to Tampa, Florida. My wife and I, along with our faithful Lab, Tonga, would take walks in our neighborhood. One morning, a very aggressive dog started bothering us. I tried my old pretending trick, but the dog did not move. I realized it was not afraid because there are no rocks in Florida, just sand!  

My 6-year-old grandson, William, loves trains. One day I was asking him the names of different parts of an old steam engine. He told me, “That’s a cowcatcher,” and I asked him what it was used for. He said, “It’s to catch cows and scoot them off the tracks so Grandpa doesn’t have to chase them away.”

I took our 4-year-old granddaughter, Halle, to the corral on pregnancy testing day to watch as the veterinarian did ultrasounds on our cows. After a positive test, the vet shouted out, “Call it good!” I explained to Halle this meant there was a baby in the cow’s tummy. She replied, “I don’t want to call the baby Good; I want to call it Queen Elsa.”

The first time my husband and I took our 3-year-old son to visit his grandma in Arkansas, he went with her to gather eggs. The next morning, he watched her fry some up for breakfast and put them on his plate. He looked at me and said in a serious tone, “Mama, these eggs came from chickens!”

My granddaughter was discussing the expected arrival of a new brother for her 4-year-old son, Matthew. She told Matthew that you can’t predict the exact date of birth. “You were expected on Aug. 19,” she said, “but arrived on Aug. 11.” Matthew thought for a moment and then said, “Oh! I’m so lucky I was born on my birthday!”

We were sitting at the table for a meal and my wife and sister were discussing recipes. When a dump cake was suggested, my 4-year-old daughter, Hannah, announced, “Yuck! That has trash in it!”

When my grandson, Jimmy, was 4 or 5, we asked him what he wanted to be when he grew up. “I want to be a machine,” he said without hesitation. When we asked him why, he explained, “Well, you can replace the parts in a machine when they wear out.”

One night when my son Patrick was 2 years old, he looked up at a half moon and said, “Moon broken.” The next time there was  a full moon in the sky, he looked up and said, “Moon fixed now.”

Several years ago, our grandson Andrew slept at our house overnight. For breakfast I made pancakes, and I gave him one that was browner than the others. He told me he didn’t want that one because it was too ripe.

One day when my son David was 5 years old, he informed me that he no longer wanted to go to day care because the other kids were all babies. He said he was a big boy and could stay home alone while I worked. So I asked him, “Who will make your lunch? You can’t reach the stove.”

He quickly replied, “I’ll make a salad.”

My great-granddaughter Brylee was playing horse with her pappy one night. As she was sitting on his back, he asked her how old she was. Brylee said, “Pappy, you know I’m 3.”

“When will you be 4?” he asked. “When I get through being 3,” she explained.

When my daughter Mandy was 31/2, we went to visit my grandma in the nursing home. Mandy was trying to talk to a wheelchair-bound resident but was getting little response from her. So she decided to end the conversation by looking down at the wheelchair and exclaiming, “Nice wheels!”

Recently my wife and I were watching our grandsons, ages 3 and 4. The older boy, Owen, fell while he was playing and said, “I hurt my toe.” When I asked him which toe, he hesitated for a few seconds before replying, “the one that goes to market.”

I was teaching my 3-year-old granddaughter, Taylor, how to shoot baskets on her child-sized basketball hoop. After missing three shots in a row, she gave me the ball and said, “Grandma, this thing doesn’t work!”

When our son was young, his grandma joked about the Sandman and how he put kids to sleep by sprinkling “sleepy sand” in their eyes. Later that day I found Chico napping with his head in a cardboard box. When I asked him why, he said he wasn’t going to let anyone put sand in his eyes. I couldn’t convince him it was a fairy tale, because Grandma wouldn’t lie!

When my grandson Gavin was 4 years old, he loved to “play” the piano. Once, when he was done, we forgot to close the lid to the keys. As we walked by later he said, “I better close the piano or the boogeyman will play some scary songs.”

Some time ago, my daughter Nori was writing an essay she called, “It Takes Two to Tangle.” I tried explaining to her that the saying is actually about the tango, a very intricate dance. But I guess it is true that the two dancers may tangle if they don’t watch their steps.

My son Ryan was 2 years old when his daddy took him out to the little trout pond we built in our backyard. His dad spent a few minutes showing Ryan how to throw the line in the water to catch a fish. Then he said, “OK, son, throw it in.” Ryan threw the entire pole into the water.

Living on a farm all his life, my dad was used to climbing over fences. The quickest way was to place both hands on the top rail and bound over it. He learned to always look before leaping when, one day, a five-foot snake, sunning itself along the top rail, rose up to meet him as he used his climbing method!

A passenger in a taxi tapped the driver on the shoulder to ask him something. The driver screamed and lost control of the cab, nearly hit a bus and drove up over the curb, stopping inches from a large window. For a few moments everything was silent in the cab. Then the driver quietly said, “Please don’t do that! You scared the daylights out of me.” The passenger, who was also frightened, apologized and said he didn’t realize a tap on the shoulder could startle someone so much—to which the driver replied, “It’s really not your fault. Today is my first day driving a cab. I’ve been driving 
a hearse for 25 years.”

When I was teaching kindergarten and had a cold, I would often get laryngitis with it. One day a student asked me, “Do you have a frog in your nose?”

Marrying into an established farm family has provided quite the education. I anticipated the long hours. I anticipated the hard work. I even anticipated the laundry room piled with mountains of farm clothes that, based on the stench, I didn’t know if I could salvage. What caught me completely off guard was how to speak the language.

Take, for example, field names. If I had a degree in agriculture, it still wouldn’t help me figure out what field is what. It took years not to get sweaty palms every time I needed to deliver parts, lunch or coffee to a field! In Green House field, it turns out the green house was painted blue decades ago. And it’s not even close to the local flower nursery, much to my surprise—and borne out by my excess 
mileage. Big Oak field hasn’t had an oak since who knows when, but it’s still remembered by it! “Must have been some oak tree,” I’ve mumbled under my breath. One day I was walking the dog down our country road and stopped to shoot the breeze with one of the farmers I hadn’t met before. But when I said “Hello, Mr. Strippy,” I soon found out his nickname has nothing to do with his given name, but everything to do with planting crops in strips. Who knew?

Getting two young children and myself dressed and ready for church was challenging. As we rushed out the door, I knew it was going to be a close call getting there on time. The usher greeted me and quickly guided me toward the front row. Once seated, I immediately felt like I was being watched.

After what felt like eternity but was only a few minutes, a lady tapped me on the shoulder and said, “Do you realize you have curlers in your hair?” I had rushed out so fast I forgot about the curlers. Needless to say, I was so embarrassed I felt like crawling under the seat. Now I check the back of my head before leaving home, and 
I sit in the back of the church.

As I was driving the other day, I saw a sign on a business that read “Whistlepig Alley Antiques.” It reminded me of an event that happened many years ago when I was living in the community of Granny Squirrel, near Andrews, North Carolina.

While watching TV one day, 
I heard strange sounds. I tried to not overreact, but in my mind I thought it could be ghosts, or that maybe I was hearing things. 
The noise was the craziest high-pitched whistling sound. That went on for a week; then one day my landlord told me three groundhogs had crawled under the home. Now I know why Appalachian folks call them whistle pigs. Once you hear groundhogs "speaking," you will never forget it.

Mom and Dad told Julia, our granddaughter, that she was going to have a baby sister or brother. “It’s a secret and we don’t tell secrets,” they said.

In Sunday school class, Julia’s teacher asked if anyone had a prayer request. Julia said, “I don’t tell secrets, but it’s going to be born next summer.”

While our great-granddaughters were getting ready for bed on Christmas Eve, Molly had a loose tooth that she wanted to pull.

Addison said, “Don’t you dare pull that tooth out tonight because the Tooth Fairy wants to be with her family.” Molly waited until Christmas to pull her tooth.

My grandson picked up his son, Graham, after work and asked him what he had for lunch.

Graham said, “Cold.” Turns out, they had chili.

When my son, William, was young, we belonged to a small country church. On Communion day, deacons would pass around the “bread and juice.” One Sunday, we attended a church out of town that was more formal. What our church called bread and juice, this one referred to as elements, a word William didn’t understand. As Communion began, the pastor said, “If the deacons will come forward, the elements will pass among us.” William was suddenly excited and I didn’t know why. Then he leaned toward me, whispering something that caused me to burst out laughing. With all eyes on us, I took him by the hand and we made a hasty exit. All the way to the car, he protested. “Mom, we’re going to miss the circus. The pastor said the elephants were going to pass among us!”

Pollen and allergies got the best of Liam, my 9-year-old son, so he stayed home from school with his grandma. When I got home from work, he said he had brushed our dog, Abby. Knowing that I kept the dog’s brush up out of reach so she couldn’t chew on it, I asked, “How did you know where I keep Abby’s brush?” He gave me a puzzled look and said matter-of-factly, “I didn’t. I used your brush.”

Several years ago we headed to a nearby town to visit some relatives. I had a new car and was having fun driving fast on the twisty country roads. As we zoomed along, I noticed a three-legged chicken keeping pace with me. I slowed to get a better look at the speedster when it turned and went down a dirt road. I stopped, turned around and followed it. After a short ride, we came upon a house with an older couple sitting on the porch and dozens of three-legged chickens in the yard. I asked them, “Are these your chickens? They’re the fastest I’ve ever seen.” The old man said, “Yep.” So I asked him where they came from, and he replied, “When the kids were younger, they always fought over the chicken legs, so we decided to breed a three-legged chicken.” I nodded and said, “Well, they are fast, but what do they taste like?” He admitted, “Not rightly sure; we never could catch one.”

While walking along a trail, 
my 7-year-old grandson, Ryan, commented, “There’s a fork in the road back there.”

“Really?” I asked, imagining someone’s missing silverware. But then a thought occurred to me. “Oh, was it a plastic one?” Laughing hysterically, Ryan said, “No, Grandma, it’s where the road splits in two!”

My 7-year-old, Ethan, was excited about his turn for show-and-tell coming up. He asked if he could bring our dog. Ethan has a classmate who has severe allergies to nuts, and I wanted to be sure his friend wasn’t affected by nonfood allergies. “Is your classmate allergic to dogs?” I asked. Ethan replied, “I don’t know. Do dogs have nuts in them?”

Last year my youngest granddaughter, Samantha Grace, started kindergarten. After a few days, she came home and said, “Grandpa, I learned the slide rule today.” I was happy to hear that she was learning something new and really pleased it was about math. I asked her to explain it, and she said, “Only one kid on the slide at a time.”

So much for math!

After a long Thanksgiving Day of eating and playing, my 3-year-old granddaughter asked her mother to carry her. When I asked if her legs were broken, Aislin said, “Yes, they’re out of batteries.”

One fall day my daughter, Mia, and her boys were walking in the garden so she could show them the autumn harvest. Making sure they looked where they were stepping, she said, “Watch out for the butternut squash.” My 4-year-old grandson, Sawyer, asked, “Better not squash what?”

Our 8-year-old granddaughter Raven,  a city girl, asked to help me cook. “Get some potatoes out of that red basket,” I said. The potatoes were starting to sprout but were still usable. She hurried over to the basket but didn’t come back. I looked that way and saw that she was just standing there. “Raven, are you going to get those potatoes?” I asked.

Looking a bit bewildered, she replied, “Grandma, did you know your potatoes have thorns?”

A grandpa told his grandson that ballpoint pens hadn’t yet been invented when he was a boy. “Was that back when they used feathers?” the child asked.

My sister is a teacher in our rural district. During afternoon class, she had a flyswatter hanging out of her back pocket. One of her students said “she looked like she was fixin’ to show a hog”!

“I would like vitamins for my son,” a mother said. “Vitamin  A, B or C?” the pharmacist asked. “It doesn’t matter,” the mother replied. “He can’t read yet.”

My wife noticed an interesting home advertised in the local paper and decided to visit the open house. Upon arrival she thought it strange that there was no “for sale” sign, but the front door was unlocked, so she walked in. A man was sleeping on the living room couch, and a woman stepped around the corner with a dishtowel in her hands. The man awoke and the three of them stared at each other with surprise. My wife, realizing her mistake, blurted out, “I guess this isn’t the open house,” and retreated to her car as the man and woman watched her through a window. Looking over her notes, she realized she was on 12th Place instead of 12th Street. Embarrassed and rattled, she drove home without viewing the open house.

A couple was expecting a baby. On the way to the hospital, the parents-to-be realized they were not going to make it in time, so the man called 911 for an ambulance to meet them. The operator asked if this was the woman’s first child, and the man said, “No, this is her husband.”

At his birthday party, my grandson said, “I love you,” and I replied, “I love you, too.” Then he said, “I wish you were 5 years old like me so you would be around longer.”

Asked by the teacher to give the definition of a yard sale, my niece Melissa, then 14, said, “It’s stuff you sell to neighbors and friends because they don’t have enough junk of their own.”

When we saw a mare nursing her colt, my daughter Jennifer asked me what the horse was doing. I explained that the mare was giving the colt some milk. After thinking for a moment, Jennifer said, “What does she do if he wants juice?”