At the clothing store where I work, I make it a point of pride to give customers my unvarnished opinion. One day, when a man emerged from the fitting room, I took one look at him and shook my head. "No, no," I said. "Those jeans look terrible on you. I'll go get you another pair."

As I walked away, I heard him mumble, "I was trying on the shirt."

We know you'd never do it, but some people concoct crazy stories for skipping work. Here are a few, collected by hiring managers:

Employee didn't want to lose his parking space in front of his house.

Employee said he had a heart attack that morning but that he was "all better now."

Employee's dog was stressed-out after family reunion.

Employee contracted mono after kissing a mailroom intern at the company holiday party.

Before the shopper could pay for her groceries with a personal check, I needed her address. "What's your street name?" I asked.

"I don't have a street name," she said. "I go by Juanita."

A customer walked into our insurance office looking for a quote. But first I had to lead her through a litany of questions, including: "Marital status?"

"Well," she began, "I guess you could say we're happy-as happy as most other couples nowadays."

Sign on a loan company door: "No Smoking, No Soliciting, No Public Restrooms." Sign on its window: "We love to say yes!"

Flummoxed by his true-false final exam, a student decides to toss a coin up in the air. Heads means true; tails, false. Thirty minutes later, he's done, well before the rest of the class. But then the student starts flipping the coin again. And soon he's swearing and sweating over each question.

"What's wrong?" asks the concerned teacher.

"I'm rechecking my answers," says says the student.

When my coworker Donsa was promoted, we decided to celebrate. Her boss called the baker and ordered a cake.

"Two questions," said the baker. "Is Donsa a man or a woman? And what do you want the cake to say?"

"The cake should read ‘Congratulations'" the boss said. "Oh, and Donsa"s a woman." The next day, the office celebrated with a cake that read "Congratulations—Donsa's a woman."

A fellow salesperson, an animal lover, was suddenly overcome by allergies at one of our company meetings. Coughing, sniffling, watery eyes … she was a mess.

"If you have such terrible allergies, why do you keep so many pets?" asked a friend.

"Because"—sneeze, cough, hack—"if I'm going to be sick, I might as well have company."

When I phoned my employee to find out why she hadn't come to the office, I expected to hear a sob story about how sick she was, blah, blah, blah. Instead, her excuse was pretty plausible.

"When I was driving to work, I took a wrong turn," she explained. "And then I just decided to keep going."

There are women whose thoughtful husbands buy them flowers for no reason. And then there's me. One day I couldn't stand it any longer. "Why don't you ever bring me flowers?" I asked.

"What's the point?" my husband said. "They die after about a week."

"So could you," I shot back, "but I still like having you around."

While lopping branches off a tree in his yard, my warrant officer lacerated his leg with a chain saw, requiring a trip to the hospital and stitches. Our chief decided we should clean up the mess for him. On the office chalkboard were directions to his home, along with this clarification: "It's the house with the limbs in the yard."

It was a busy lunch hour, made longer by one of my customers who couldn't make up his mind about what to order. After loudly polling everyone at his table, he asked me, "What do you think I should have?"

Before I could answer, an irritated man at the next table offered a suggestion: "How about a picnic?"

Every morning, I do a mad dash to drop off my son Tyler at day care so I can get to work on time. My impatience hit home one morning when he piped up from the back of the car, "Our car is really fast and everyone else's is slow because they're all idiots, right, Mom?"

What's the one good thing about being unemployed? Reading the want ads.

Wanted: Lifeguard. Must be able to swim.

A harried man runs into his physician's office. "Doctor! Doctor! My wife's in labor! But she keeps screaming, ‘Shouldn't, couldn't, wouldn't, can't!'"

"Oh, that's okay," says the doctor. "She's just having contractions."

John is out with his friends and stops by his grandmother's house for a visit. There's a bowl of peanuts on the coffee table, and John and his friends start snacking on them. When they're ready to leave, his friends say, "Nice to meet you, ma'am, and thank you for the peanuts." Grandma says, "You’re welcome. Ever since I lost my dentures, all I can do is suck the chocolate off of them."

How not to become a member of senior management:

During a meeting, our bosses held a contest to name a new project. As members of the management team read through the entries, our CEO picked one out and asked, "Who knows what a phoenix is?"

A junior manager answered, "It's a bird in Harry Potter."

Check out our funny cartoons.

I'm bald--well, balding. I like to say "balding" because it sounds more productive. And I don't like to say I'm losing my hair, because that makes it sound like had I been more responsible, this wouldn't have happened. "Where's your hair?" "I lost it. You know me. Where are my keys?"

I took a real estate client to a handyman special. The place was great, and we couldn't understand why it was so cheap, until we turned on the water main and water gushed from the ceiling. Dripping wet, my client put a positive spin on the showing: "Nice house," he said. "It's even self-cleaning."

An ad in the (Rock Hill, South Carolina) Herald: "A-1 Adams Bail Agency. When you have more fun than the law allows."

After a day full of accidents and mistakes, my coworker had had it. "Why," she cried out in exasperation, "do things that happen to stupid people keep happening to me?!"

A woman walked into my father's carpet store. She'd just moved out of her parents' home and needed something for her new living-room floor. "Do you know how big the room is?" Dad asked.

"Yes," she said. "It's 22 flip-flops long by 18 flip-flops wide. And I wear a size 8."

Try as I might, I just couldn't get in sync with my insurance customer. When I asked if he lived in the Eastern or Central time zone, he answered, "We're normal time." Not sure what that meant, I continued. "Let me put it this way: Is it 10:45 where you are?"

"No," he said. "It's 10:46."

Fact: We salesmen believe we can sell anything. But my confidence was put to the test recently in a hotel lobby. When the doors to the elevator opened, it was packed with women. I walked in, flashed a broad grin, and said, "Looks like tonight is my lucky night."

"Don't count on it," said a voice in the back. "We're nuns."

A guy suffering from a miserable cold begs his doctor for relief. The doctor prescribes pills. But after a week, the guy's still sick. So the doctor gives him a shot. But that doesn't help his condition either.

"Okay, this is what I want you to do," says the doctor on the third visit. "Go home and take a hot bath. Then throw open all the windows and stand in the draft."

"I'll get pneumonia!" protests the patient.

"I know. That I can cure."

Looking for a good read? Try one of these real books:

• The Twinkies Cookbook: An Inventive and Unexpected Recipe Collection
• Napkins with a Twist: Fabulous Folds with Flair for Every Occasion
• I Hate Myself and Want to Die: The 52 Most Depressing Songs You've Ever Heard

A pirate walks into a bar with a paper towel on his head. The bartender says, "What's with the paper towel?"

The pirate says, "Arrr! I've got a Bounty on me head!"

Q: How do you say "Michael Phelps" in Chinese?

A: Ka Ching.

Soon after being transferred to a new duty station, my Marine husband called home one evening to tell me he would be late. "Dirty magazines were discovered in the platoon quarters," he said, "and the whole squad is being disciplined."

I launched into a tirade, arguing that Marines should not be penalized for something so trivial.

My husband interrupted. "Honey, when I said ‘dirty magazines,’ I meant the clips from their rifles hadn’t been cleaned."

A sign outside a Bradenton, Florida, restaurant didn’t mince words: "Closed, Thanks to Our Customers."

"'That's a great place to work!" shouted my 16-year-old brother after coming home from the first day at his first job. "I get two weeks' paid vacation."

"I'm so glad," said my mother.

"Yeah," added John. "I can't wait to find out where they send me."

When the patient was wheeled into the emergency room, I could tell he was out of it. I asked if he knew the date. He didn’t.

"Do you know what season it is?"

He thought a moment. "Baseball?"

My cousin, a teacher, asked her young students, "Why should you never accept candy from strangers?" One girl knew. "Because it might be past the sell-by date."

Anyone traveling on business for our company must fill out an expense report. A field on the form asks for "name on credit card." One Einstein entered "MasterCard."

 

During a recent meeting of our Optimist Club, we challenged one another to come up with an inspirational sentence using the word countenance. This was the winning entry: "I put a cheerful countenance on people every day." It was submitted by our local funeral director.

 

As I left my office at the National Cancer Institute, I passed one of our researchers by the front door puffing away on a cigarette.
"How can you smoke when you, of all people, know the harm caused by cigarettes?" I asked.
He took another draw, exhaled, and replied through the smoke, "Because it gives me more motivation to find a cure."

A waitress at our restaurant had a change of clothes stolen from the break room. Making matters worse, she"d planned on wearing them to the Christmas party.
As a brand-new employee, I didn't know any of this backstory, so I was a bit surprised to find this indignant note posted on the community board: "It has been two weeks since the Christmas party, and I still have not found my clothes."

This report from an agent landed on my desk in the auto claims division of our insurance company: "Driver encountered a large deer that jumped out from the woods to challenge his vehicle. The deer attacked his vehicle without having any insurance."

I was supposed to go out with this guy on Friday night. On Friday afternoon he called and said that he didn't think it was a good idea, because he just wanted to be friends. So I hung up and called him back. He was like, "Hello?" I said, "Hey, friend, it's me. Want to hear what this jerk just did?"

According to a news story, if global warming continues, in 20 years the only chance we'll have to see a polar bear is in a zoo. So in other words, nothing is going to change.

Q: Where does a one-armed man shop?

A: At a secondhand store.

What did the ill comic say in the hospital?

"I'm here … all weak!

When a rich businessman began to choke on a fish bone at a restaurant, a doctor seated at a nearby table sprang up, performed the Heimlich maneuver, and saved his life.

"Thank you, thank you!" said the businessman. "Please, I insist on paying you. Just name the fee."

"Okay," said the doctor. "How about half of what you'd have offered when the bone was still stuck in your throat?"

1. Petty Theft Football players at the high school where I worked were stealing the practice jerseys, so the coach ordered a set with "Property of Central High School" emblazoned on them. When the thefts continued, he ordered a new batch that had the imprint "Stolen from Central High School." But the jerseys still kept disappearing. The larceny finally stopped after he changed the wording to "Central High School 4th String."

-- Hal Olsen

2. Sports and Poetry 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."

-- Sandra J. Yarbrough

3. Praying for Overtime My husband, a big-time sports fan, was watching a football game with our grandchildren. He had just turned 75 and was feeling a little wistful. "You know," he said to our grandson, Nick, "it's not easy getting old. I guess I'm in the fourth quarter now."

"Don't worry, Grandpa," Nick said cheerily. "Maybe you'll go into overtime."

-- Evelyn Bredleau

4. Calling the Coach As a high school football coach, I'm aware that student athletes tend to focus too much on sports. A fellow coach, Bob, was talking about one such player, who called him at home one night. When his wife informed the kid that Bob wasn't home, he became frantic and said he had to speak to the coach right away. "Just calm down, and I'll have him call you as soon as he gets home," the coach's wife told him. "What's your number?"

The flustered kid replied, "Three.

-- Allan Floyd

5. Football Makes Sense A guy took his blonde girlfriend to her first football game. They had great seats right behind their team's bench. After the game, he asked her how she liked the experience.

"Oh, I really liked it," she replied, "especially the tight pants and all the big muscles, but I just couldn't understand why they were killing each other over 25 cents."

Dumbfounded, her date asked, "What do you mean?" "Well, they flipped a coin. One team got it, and then for the rest of the game, all they kept screaming was, 'Get the quarter back! Get the quarter back!' I'm like, Hello-o-o? It's only 25 cents!"

-- Melissa Jones

Football finally makes sense. A guy took his blonde girlfriend to her first football game. They had great seats right behind their team's bench. After the game, he asked her how she liked the experience.


"Oh, I really liked it," she replied, "especially the tight pants and all the big muscles, but I just couldn't understand why they were killing each other over 25 cents."


Dumbfounded, her date asked, "What do you mean?"


"Well, they flipped a coin. One team got it, and then for the rest of the game, all they kept screaming was, 'Get the quarter back! Get the quarter back!' I'm like, Hello-o-o? It's only 25 cents!"

My mother taught for 11 years at a day-care center. One winter afternoon she was trying to show a young boy how to zip up his coat. "The secret," Mom said, "is to get this piece of the zipper to fit in the other side before you try to zip it up."

After struggling with the zipper for several minutes, the boy sighed and said, "Why does it have to be a secret?"

1. Layered Government Our government always struck me as having many layers. But I no longer think that, not after this e-mail from an associate in another country: "I demonstrated the product to the Minister of Defiance and his Chief of Stuff."

2. Time to Go The huge backlog in the doctor's waiting room was taking its toll. Patients were glancing at their watches and getting restless. Finally one man walked to the receptionist's station and tapped on the glass. She slid back the window back, saying, "Sir, you'll have to wait your turn." "I just had a question," he said dryly, "Is George W. Bush still President?" 3. Unlikely Meeting Moses was walking down the street when he bumped into George W. Bush. "Hello," Bush said. "Nice weather we're having, huh?" Moses took one look at the President, turned, and ran in the other direction. The next day Moses was walking down the same street and there was Bush. Again he tried to initiate a conversation. Again Moses turned and ran away. Bush was tired of this bizarre treatment, so the next time Moses ran away from him, Bush followed. When he caught up, he asked Moses what was wrong. Moses said, "The last time I talked to a bush I spent 40 years in the desert." 4. Mouse Trap My brother Jim was hired by a government agency and assigned to a small office cubicle in a large area. At the end of his first day, he realized he couldn't see over the panels to find his way out, so he waited until he saw someone else leaving and followed him. He did the same the next day. On the third day he had to work late, long after his colleagues had left. He wandered around lost in the maze of cubicles and corridors, but then, just as panic began to set in, he came upon another employee in a cubicle. "How do you get out of here?" Jim asked. The fellow looked up from his desk, smiled and said, "No cheese for you." 5. New Viruses Coming to a hard drive near you, the worst computer viruses yet: AT&T Virus: Every three minutes it tells you what great service you're getting. MCI Virus: Every three minutes it reminds you that you're paying too much for the AT&T virus. Paul Revere Virus: Warns of impending hard disk attack -- once if by LAN, twice if by C:>. Politically Correct Virus: Never calls itself a "virus." Instead, it's an "electronic microorganism." Government Spokesman Virus: Nothing works, but all your diagnostic software says everything is fine. 6. New Federal Employee As a new federal employee, I felt a combination of excitement and anxiety about meeting the strict standards of discretion and respect that our government imposes on its workers. Fearful of making a costly mistake, I decided to read up on procedures and standards on the federal Office of Personnel Management web page. I'm not sure if I was relieved or worried when I clicked on one page and found: "Ethics: Coming Soon!" 7. Sunscreen Mishap My father, a Navy man, had the good fortune to be stationed in Hawaii -- but the bad fortune to have fair skin. One day, after spending many hours under the hot sun, he reported back to duty with a terrible sunburn. Expecting sympathy, he was, instead, reprimanded by his superiors and then written up for "destruction of government property."

I was charged by the Coast Guard to buy a house near Station Rockland in Maine to be converted into military housing. But after many delays on our part, the owners' lawyer got antsy.

"I don't like working with the government," the man said. "I'm not sure I'd even trust one of your checks."

"I wouldn't worry," I replied. "Not only do we print our own checks, we also print the money to back them up."

Halfway between New York City and Washington, D.C., the train's engine fell silent. "I've got good news and bad news," the conductor announced. "The bad news is we lost power." My fellow passengers groaned. "The good news," he added, "is we weren't cruising at 30,000 feet."

All in the Family When my husband was away at basic training, my four-year-old daughter and I stayed with my sister. Since my daughter already called me Mommy, she started calling her aunt Mom—the way her six-year-old cousin did. One day, someone called. I picked up the extension and overheard the person ask my daughter if her daddy was home. She said, “No, he’s in the Army.” “Is your mom home?” he asked. “Yes, but she’s asleep with Uncle Danny. -- Tonya Aleisawi

Language Barrier As a young officer on the USS Midway, I was enjoying shore leave in Marseille. One day, I was invited to a local club to play tennis with two young Frenchwomen and a Norwegian man, who spoke only the most rudimentary English. After the doubles match, the Norwegian and I changed back into our street clothes and waited for the women to rejoin us. “You fly?” he said to me. I told him I was a ship's officer, not a naval aviator. After a pause to take in my response, he tried again. “You fly,” he said slowly, “is open.” -- Jim E. Davis

War Tags After returning home from basic training, our friend’s son told us about some of the interesting people he’d met, including one guy nicknamed Airborne. “Do the guys call him Airborne because he wants to be a paratrooper?” his mother asked. “No, that’s not it,” said her son. “He got that name because on his first night, he fell out of the bunk.” -- Judy Reid

Justice for All When I wear my Air Force uniform, strangers often come up to me to thank me for my service to the country. Once I was in the parking lot of a county jail, waiting to take custody of a military inmate. A prisoner walked by, carrying a bag of garbage to the Dumpster, escorted by a corrections officer. As he passed me, the inmate turned and—quite sincerely—said, “Thank you for my freedom!” before being taken back inside. -- Jeff Hood

Seriously Ill Some sailors have a well-deserved reputation for concocting excuses to get out of work detail. Case in point: My husband’s fellow officer got a call from a sailor saying he was sick and there was no way he could leave the barracks. “What’s wrong?” the lieutenant asked. “I’m in a coma,” he responded. -- Hannah Thornton

The Other Side  I work at a store manned by grumpy old men. One day, a ray of light showed up in the form of a cheerful young customer. She was chatty and charming and left the store gushing. “How lucky we are to be alive!” she announced before the door closed. “Wow!?She was certainly jovial,” I remarked to a coworker. “Yeah,” he agreed. “I didn’t like her either.” -- Duane Boeve

Exotic Twist A new restaurant near our office boasted exotic fare. And exotic it was. When our dessert arrived, my coworker sniffed her chocolate dish and grimaced. “It smells like cocoa,” she said. “It’s chocolate—shouldn’t it smell like cocoa?” I asked. More confused than I was, she answered, “Cocoa is the name of my dog.” -- Cynthia Zhang

Judging a Book Scene: the bookstore where I work. Dramatis personae: a father and his son. Son: “Dad, does it really tell you how?” Father: “How to what, son?” Son: “How to kill a mockingbird?” -- Theresa Fine-Pawsey

Instant Mother  You can't blame the woman for being upset. After all, she was delivering her baby in our hospital elevator. “This is nothing,” said my fellow nurse, trying to console the new mother. “Last year a friend of mine helped a woman deliver her baby on the front lawn of the hospital.” The patient began to wail. “That was me!” -- Stephanie Niederberger

Falling Into It When my mother hit her head at work, she suffered a nasty gash and bled all over her blouse. It was bad enough that the hospital gave her a donated T-shirt. Imagine my surprise, then, when I got to the ER and found the woman who raised me with two black eyes and stitches on her forehead wearing a T-shirt that read “I Survived the Grand Rapids Pub Crawl.” -- Sean Parker

Spending more time with family: Families are complicated enough, but things became even more confusing after my father decided to get married to my brother's mother-in-law. "Now I can't make up my mind whether he's my dad or my father-in- law," says my brother, "or if my mother-in-law is now my stepmother, or whether my child is my daughter or my niece." -- Oscar Reagan

Getting in shape: A friend of mine had resisted efforts to get him to run with our jogging group until his doctor told him he had to exercise. Soon thereafter, he reluctantly joined us for our 5:30 a.m. jogs on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. After a month of running, we decided that my friend might be hooked, especially when he said he had discovered what "runner's euphoria" was. "Runner's euphoria," he explained, "is what I feel at 5:30 on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays." -- Neil P. Budge Starting that diet: My friend Kimberly announced that she had started a diet to lose some pounds she had put on recently. "Good!" I exclaimed. "I'm ready to start a diet too. We can be dieting buddies and help each other out. When I feel the urge to drive out and get a burger and fries, I'll call you first." "Great!" she replied. "I'll ride with you." -- Katina Fisher Quitting smoking: I discussed peer pressure and cigarettes with my 12-year-old daughter. Having struggled for years to quit, I described how I had started smoking to "be cool." As I outlined the arguments kids might make to tempt her to try it, she stopped me mid-lecture, saying, "Hey, I'll just tell them my mom smokes. How cool can it be?" -- Judi Moore Eating healthier: The teacher in our Bible class asked a woman to read from the Book of Numbers about the Israelites wandering in the desert. "The Lord heard you when you wailed, 'If only we had meat to eat!' " she began. "Now the Lord will give you meat. You will not eat it for just one day, or two days, or five, or ten or twenty days, but for a month—until you loathe it." When the woman finished, she paused, looked up, and said, "Hey, isn't that the Atkins diet?"  -- David Martino Reducing your debt: Neighbors of ours had a terrible disagreement over a patio they wanted for their backyard. The wife had rather grand ideas, while the husband wanted costs kept to a minimum. The wife won out, and the construction bill climbed higher and higher. I dropped by one day, when the patio was near completion, and was surprised to find the husband smiling from ear to ear as the workmen smoothed over the surface. I remarked how nice it was to see a grin replace the frown he had been wearing lately. “You see where they’re smoothing that cement?” he replied. “I just threw my wife’s credit cards in there.” -- R. Horn Learning new things: I was trying to decide what to do for a talent show I planned to enter. Trusting my mother to help me out, I asked, "For the show, what do you think I should do, sing or put on a comedy act?" Glancing up from her paper, she said dryly, "What's the difference?" -- Kimmie Helk Better teeth care: Just because one owns a business doesn't mean it has to be all business. This sign in a dentist's office proves that point: "Be True to Your Teeth, or They Will Be False to You." -- James Wertz

Becoming more organized: My friend’s husband is always telling her that housekeeping would be a snap if only she would organize her time better. Recently he had a chance to put his theory into practice while his wife was away.

When I popped in one evening to see how he was managing, he crowed, "I made a cake, frosted it, washed the kitchen windows, cleaned all the cupboards, scrubbed the kitchen floor, walls and ceiling and even had a bath." I was about to concede that perhaps he was a better manager than his wife, when he added sheepishly, "When I was making the chocolate frosting, I forgot to turn off the mixer before taking the beaters out of the bowl, so I had to do all the rest." -- Mary I. Costain Drinking less I was waiting tables in a noisy lobster restaurant in Maine when a vacationing Southerner stumped me with a drink order. I approached the bartender. "Have you ever heard of a drink called 'Seven Young Blondes'?" I asked. He admitted he'd never heard of it, and grabbed a drink guidebook to look it up. Unable to find the recipe, he then asked me to go back and tell the patron that he'd be happy to make the drink if he could list the ingredients for him. "Sir," I asked the customer, "can you tell me what's in that drink?" He looked at me like I was crazy. "It's wine," he said, pronouncing his words carefully, "Sauvignon blanc." -- Christie Eckels

Our flight was about to take off when the passenger behind me immediately launched into a loud and annoying conference call on his cell phone. "Sally, get the customer lists. Charlie, pull all the data together we have on… Bob, can you bring us up to date…" and on and on.

As the flight attendant began the preflight safety instructions, the executive's voice was drowned out by the PA system. While the safety speech continued, I heard him mutter into the phone, "Hold on a second. Some people just like to hear themselves talk."

 

 

 

 

My cell phone quit as I tried to let my wife know that I was caught in freeway gridlock and would be late for our anniversary dinner. I wrote a message on my laptop asking other motorists to call her, printed it on a portable inkjet and taped it to my rear windshield.

When I finally arrived home, my wife gave me the longest kiss ever. "I really think you love me," she said. "At least 70 people called and told me so."

 

My mother began getting calls from men who misdialed the similar number of an escort service. Mom, who had had her number for years, asked the telephone company to change the organization's number. They refused. The calls kept coming day and night.

Finally, Mom began telling the gentlemen who called that the company had gone out of business. Within a week, the escort service voluntarily changed its number.

 

Trying to explain to our five-year-old daughter how much computers had changed, my husband pointed to our brand-new personal computer and told her that when he was in college, a computer with the same amount of power would have been the size of a house.

Wide-eyed, our daughter asked, “How big was the mouse?”

My son, Scott, an insurance broker in Florida, loves ocean fishing and takes his cell phone along on the boat. One morning we were drifting about ten miles offshore as Scott discussed business on the phone. Suddenly his rod bent double, and the reel screamed as line poured off the spool.

Scott was master of the situation. "Pardon me," he told his customer calmly. "I have a call on another line."

 

Just ahead of me in line at the movie theater was a woman with a cell phone glued to her ear, arguing with the ticket vendor.

"That movie can't be sold out!" she shouted. "I'm talking to my boyfriend who's sitting in the theater, and he says there's two empty seats next to him. One ticket, please."

She got her ticket.

 

My boyfriend and I met online and we’d been dating for over a year. I introduced Hans to my uncle, who was fascinated by the fact that we met over the Internet. He asked Hans what kind of line he had used to pick me up.

It is so rare to be offered a meal on airlines these days that I was surprised to hear the flight attendant ask the man sitting in front of me,

"Would you like dinner?"

"What are my choices?" he responded.

"Yes or no," she said.

 

I was preparing lunch for my granddaughter when the phone rang. "If you can answer one question," a young man said, "you'll win ten free dance lessons." Before I could tell him I was not interested, he continued. "You'll be a lucky winner if you can tell me what Alexander Graham Bell invented." "I don't know," I replied dryly, trying to discourage him. "What are you holding in your hand right now?" he asked excitedly. "A bologna sandwich." "Congratulations!" he shrieked. "And for having such a great sense of humor…"  

One cold night my furnace died, so I went to my parents' house. In the morning, a neighbor called to tell me that my water pipes had burst and flooded my town house and hers. I raced home—and on the way got a speeding ticket.

Then the furnace repairman arrived and told me he didn't think he had the proper fuse but would check in his truck. Meanwhile, the plumber cut holes in my bathroom wall to locate the leak.

When the furnace repairman returned, he held aloft a fuse. "I had the right one," he said triumphantly. "This must be your lucky day."

 

After our parents retired, they moved from a busy city in Rhode Island to a small town in Maine. We didn't realize how small the town was until my sister visited the local video store. She selected a movie and told the clerk that she was going to rent the cassette under her parents' name.

The clerk looked at the title and replied, "They already saw that one."

 

 

Fresh from a visit to the dentist, I decided to stop at my bank. Barely able to enunciate, I told the teller, "I'm sorry about not speaking more clearly. I've had Novocaine." "You should have used the drive-through," she said. "Why?" "Everyone who goes through sounds like that," she explained.  

My mother, a master of guilt trips, showed me a photo of herself waiting by a phone that never rings.

"Mom, I call all the time," I said. "If you had voicemail, you'd know." Soon after, my brother installed it for her. 

When I called the next time, I got her message: "If you are a salesperson, press one. If you're a friend, press two. If you're my daughter who never calls, press 911 because the shock will probably give me a heart attack."

 

 

 

Owning a 401(k) plan is a good idea—unless you worked for WorldCom. Much of its stock has been declared worthless. There's a lawsuit in progress that's trying to recoup some money for employees.

At the litigation website, I found a number to call for more information. My hopes for a speedy resolution were dashed, however, when after dialing, I heard, "700 Club Prayer Line. How may I help you?"

 

 

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."

 

 

After we got broadband Internet, my husband decided to start paying bills online. This worked great; in fact all our bill companies accepted online payments except one—our Internet service provider.

 

 

Friends and I were chatting over dinner in a restaurant. A man at the next table told his cell phone caller to hold on. Then he stepped outside to talk.

When he returned, I said, "That was very thoughtful."

"I had no choice," he said to me. "You were making too much noise."