A veterinarian sent one of his employees to get a flat tire repaired in the tire store that I own. When I asked which tire needed to be fixed, he replied, "Hind left."

 

 

A couple we know were in Lamaze class, where they had an activity requiring the husband to wear a bag of sand—to give him an idea of what it feels like to be pregnant. The husband stood up and shrugged, saying, "This doesn't feel so bad."

The teacher then dropped a pen and asked him to pick it up.

"You want me to pick up the pen as if I were pregnant?" he asked.

"Exactly," replied the instructor.

To the delight of the other husbands, he turned to his wife and said, "Honey, pick up that pen for me."

 

 

When one of my patients came to me complaining of ear trouble, I looked around for the appropriate instrument with which to examine him. Unable to find it, I buzzed my receptionist and asked, "Have you seen my auroscope?"

"No," came the reply. "What sign do you come under?"

My husband met me at the doctor's office for my routine checkup, and from there we decided to go out to eat. Since we had driven in separate cars, I arrived at the restaurant first.

"One for dinner?" asked the hostess.

"No," I replied. "There will be two of us in just a minute."

When I saw the panicky look on the hostess's face, I realized I had forgotten about my appearance. Anybody could see that I was at least 8 1/2 months pregnant.

After being at sea in the Persian Gulf for 90 straight days, I went to the squadron command master chief to complain. "Chief, I joined the Navy to see the world," I said, "but for the past three months all I've seen is water."

"Lieutenant," he replied, "three-quarters of the earth is covered with water, and the Navy has been showing you that. If you wanted to see the other quarter, you should have joined the Army."

I was bending over to wipe up a spill on the kitchen floor when my wife walked into the room behind me. "See anything you like?" I asked suggestively.

"Yeah," she said. "You doing housework."

When my wife was about to have our first baby, we brought a tape recorder to the delivery ward to capture the sounds of the birth, the baby's first cry and our doctor's voice saying, "It's a boy!" or "It's a girl!" We intended to use the tape as a fun message on our answering machine to help announce the birth to friends and relatives.

My wife's labor went relatively smoothly and, when it seemed appropriate, I inserted the blank tape and began recording. Shortly thereafter, our baby was born and we all heard the first cry. The doctor held up the baby and, with tape rolling, loudly proclaimed, "Wow, will you look at the scrotum on him!"

Having helped prepare the annual budget for my unit of the Seventh Army Special Troops in Heidelberg, Germany, I took the report to the office of the adjutant, who signs all official papers. The adjutant was not in, but his assistant, a young lieutenant, was.

He gasped as I handed him the huge sheaf of charts, figures and explanations. "What am I supposed to do with this?" he asked.

"You have to sign it, sir."

"Thank goodness," he said, sighing with relief. "I thought I had to read it."

One afternoon in the hospital operating room where I am a nurse, I heard one of our nurse anesthetists trying to put a patient to sleep. "Now I want you to breathe in and out," she intoned. "In and out, slowly in and out."

The patient opened her eyes and said, "Is there any other way?"

Following a major hurricane, my husband worked long hours clearing the jumble of trees that littered our property. The longer he worked, however, the more painful it became for him to move his right arm.

He ignored my pleas to see the doctor until one night he yelped, "Ow! This is getting serious." As I turned to him in concern, he added, "Now it hurts to push buttons on the remote control!"

 

 

My son is an avid listener to our city’s police frequency, and he leaves the scanner on all the time. One morning while making his bed, I heard the dispatcher say, “Car 34, there is a five-foot boa constrictor in a front yard. The resident wants a policeman to come and remove it.”

There was a long pause, then some static. Slowly, a voice said, “We can’t get the car started.”

 

 

Living in a household with eight indoor cats requires buying large amounts of kitty litter, which I usually get in 25-pound bags—100 pounds at a time. When I was going to be out of town for a week, I decided to go to the supermarket to stock up. As my husband and I both pushed shopping carts, each loaded with five large bags of litter, a man looked at our purchases and queried, “Bengal or Siberian?”

When a woman called 911 complaining of difficulty breathing, my husband, Glenn, and his partner—both EMTs—rushed to her home. Glenn placed a sensor on her finger to measure her pulse and blood oxygen. Then he began to gather her information. "What's your age?" he asked.

"Fifty-eight," answered the patient, eyeing the beeping device on her finger. "What does that do?"

"It's a lie detector," said Glenn with a straight face. "Now, what did you say your age was?"

"Sixty-seven," answered the woman sheepishly.

This couple was heading to the hospital with their 16-year-old daughter, who was scheduled to undergo a tonsillectomy. During the ride they talked about the procedure.

"Dad," the teenager asked, "how are they going to keep my mouth open during surgery?"

Without hesitation her father quipped, "They're going to give you a phone."

While a woman is keeping vigil beside her husband's deathbed, he says to her, "Before I die, I have something to confess to you."

"Shh, not now," she replies.

"But I need to tell you: I cheated on you," he admits.

"Yes, I know," she replies.

"I need to clear my conscience before I die… "

"Shh," she counters. "Just lie back and let the poison work."

As an attorney in a major New Mexico law firm, I have many colleagues who work long hours. However, the reputation of one of my partners' workaholic ways even extended beyond the office. He not only had to leave work early one day because of a medical problem, but was also told by his doctor to stay home until the end of the week. My colleague grudgingly agreed to comply.

In the middle of the week, our receptionist received a call for him. She announced that the partner was out of the office until Friday. "Good," the caller said. "That's all I wanted to know."

It was my partner's doctor.

My husband is wonderful with our baby daughter, but often turns to me for advice. Recently I was in the shower when he poked his head in to ask, "What should I feed Lily for lunch?"

"That's up to you," I replied. "There's all kinds of food. Why don't you pretend I'm not home?"

A few minutes later, my cell phone rang. I answered it to hear my husband saying, "Yeah, hi, honey. Uh…what should I feed Lily for lunch?"

While dancing at a party, I tripped and stubbed my toe. Days later, my toe swollen and purple, I went to see a podiatrist. I told him how I hurt myself and admitted to feeling foolish at being so clumsy.

After X-raying my toe, the doctor said he didn't need to do anything.

Anxious to speed the healing, I asked whether there was something I could do: "Should I soak it? Put it on ice? Is there anything you recommend?"

He smiled and said, "Take dancing lessons."

A customer walked into my pharmacy asking for a particular nasal spray. "You know, that brand is very addicting," I warned her. "If it's used for a prolonged period of time, your congestion can come back worse than before, prompting even further use."

"That's ridiculous," scoffed the woman. "I've been using it every day for years."

According to the Internet: The inscription on the metal bands used by the U. S. Department of the Interior to tag migratory birds has been changed. The bands used to bear the address of the Washington Biological Survey, abbreviated as “Wash. Biol. Surv.”—until the agency received the following letter from an unhappy camper: “Dear Sirs: While camping last week, I shot one of your birds. I think it was a crow. I followed the cooking instructions on the leg tag and want to tell you it tasted horrible.”

The bands are now marked “Fish & Wildlife Service.”

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?"

When I walked into a small café in rural Minnesota, I had no trouble distinguishing the nonsmoking area from the smoking area. There before me were two neatly printed signs: "Coffee Corner" and "Coughy Corner."

The clinic where I work promoted a co-worker to head the payroll department, or Payment Management Systems. The title on his door now reads "PMS Director."

 

 

To our shock and horror, my sister-in-law and I realized we had each been married nearly 50 years. "That's a long time," I observed.

"A long, long time," she agreed. Then she smiled. "Something just occurred to me."

"What's that?"

"If I had killed your brother the first time I felt like it, I'd be out of jail by now."

One day at the office of the orthopedic specialist I work for, we had to make arrangements for an elderly patient with spinal arthritis to have a special injection. We said we would phone him with the information.

Two days later, the patient called us, concerned that he had missed our call because of his poor hearing. "I can barely hear, barely see and barely walk," he told me.

Then he added cheerfully, "Things could be worse, though. At least I can still drive."

 

 

On a business trip, my father approached a security checkpoint at the airport. The National Guard shift was rotating, and a guard, in full uniform, was in line in front of him. As with everybody else, the soldier was ordered to go through the metal detector. Before doing so, he handed his M-16 rifle to security personnel along with other items such as handcuffs and a flashlight. Still the alarm sounded when he walked through. Further inspection revealed a Swiss army knife inside one of his pockets.

"Sorry, sir," security said to the soldier, "but this item is prohibited." Taking the knife away, the airport worker then handed him back the M-16.

The voice-dictation program a physician friend of mine purchased for his computer often misinterpreted words. Once, my friend dictated, "Recommend CAT scan if symptoms persist."

The program typed out, "Recommend casket if symptoms persist."

At the salon where I was a hairstylist, the conversation turned to smoking and its ill effects on our bodies. Even after hearing one woman reveal that she had survived cancer of the uterus, another customer lit up a cigarette. "Aren't you afraid of getting cancer of the uterus?" she was asked.

"Oh, no, dear," the smoker replied, without batting an eye. "I don't inhale that far down."

 

 

Just before Easter I remarked to my husband that, with the children grown and away from home, this was the first year that we hadn't dyed eggs and had an Easter-egg hunt. "That's all right, honey," he said. "We can just hide each other's vitamin pills."    

Once my divorce was final, I went to the local Department of Motor Vehicles and asked to have my maiden name reinstated on my driver's license. "Will there be any change of address?" the clerk inquired. "No," I replied.

"Oh, good," she said, clearly delighted. "You got the house."

My friend Esther told me about her son's fifth-grade career day, where the children were asked, "Who knows what a psychiatrist does?"

Esther's son replied, "That's someone who asks you to lie down on a couch and then blames everything on your mother."

Resting in the hospital after the birth of our third child, I thought I would finally get a chance to finish reading Boris Pasternak's famous novel, Doctor Zhivago, and had it handy on my bedside table.

When the student nurse came in, it caught her eye and she looked at it skeptically. "If you want the real low-down on baby care," she said confidentially, "you can't beat Doctor Spock."

 

Once while riding the bus to work, I noticed a man at a stop enjoying a cup of coffee. As we approached the stop, he finished drinking and set the cup on the ground. This negligence surprised me, since it seemed to be a good ceramic cup.

Days later I saw the same man again drinking his coffee at the bus stop. Once again, he placed the cup on the grass before boarding. When the bus pulled away, I looked back in time to see a dog carefully carrying the cup in his mouth as he headed for home.

 

 

I was editing classified ads for a small-town newspaper when a man called to place an ad. "It should read," he said, "‘Free to good home. Golden retriever. Will eat anything, loves children.’"

I always scoffed when my sister insisted that our three dogs are computer literate. Then one day when I was signing on to AOL, I noticed that when the “welcome” voice came on, the dogs immediately settled down. Later, when they heard the “good-bye” sign-off, all three dogs rushed to the door expecting to be walked.

The colonel who served as inspector general in our command paid particular attention to how personnel wore their uniforms. On one occasion he spotted a junior airman with a violation. "Airman," he bellowed, "what do you do when a shirt pocket is unbuttoned?"

The startled airman replied, "Button it, sir!"

The colonel looked him in the eye and said, "Well?"

At that, the airman nervously reached over and buttoned the colonel's shirt pocket.

 

 

Several months ago, my daughter and I had similar virus symptoms. She decided to consult a doctor so as not to lose any more time from her job.

“I’ll see the doctor,” she said, “and then tell you what’s wrong with us.”

The next day she called to say, “Guess what, Mom. We’re pregnant!”

My boyfriend and I were taking his 19-year-old niece to a weekend festival. When we arrived at her house to pick her up, she appeared in tasteful but very short shorts, and a tank top with spaghetti straps. A debate began immediately about appropriate dress. I took the girl's side, recalling that when we began dating, I dressed the same way. "Yes," said my boyfriend sternly, "and I said something about it, didn't I?" Everyone looked at me. "Yeah," I replied. "You said, 'What's your phone number?'"  

The drive-up window at the bank where I’m a teller has an outside drawer to accept customer transactions. A woman once drove up with her dog in the front passenger seat, and the pet eagerly jumped over onto the driver’s lap when the car reached my window. He looked excited to see me.

“Your dog is so friendly!” I said to the owner.

“He thinks he’s at McDonald’s,” she replied.

While on duty as a nurse in the obstetrics department at the hospital, I was checking a young mother-to-be. "Is this your first baby?" I asked her.

"Yes," she answered calmly.

"Are you having any contractions or pressure?" I continued.

"No," she stated.

"Are you having any discomfort?"

Again the response was no. Laying my equipment aside, I said, "Honey, may I ask you why you're here?"

"Today is my due date!" she replied happily.

A member of a diet club bemoaned her lack of will-power. She'd made her family's favorite cake over the weekend, she explained, and they'd eaten half of it. The next day, however, the uneaten half beckoned. She cut herself a slice. Then another, and another. By the time she'd polished off the cake, she knew her husband would be disappointed.

"What did he say when he found out?" one club member asked.

"He never found out," she said. "I made another cake and ate half."

Mother and I were discussing our mutual weight problem one evening, when I challenged her to a contest. If I lost the most weight in the next month, I wouldn't have to pay her the $6 that I owed her. If she lost the most weight, I would have to pay up. Anything for an incentive! "All right," said Mother happily. "But let's wait two weeks before we start. There are some things I have to eat first."

After the birth of our second child, my husband volunteered to undergo a vasectomy. The morning of his appointment, I could tell he was nervous. Then, as he was about to leave for the doctor's office, he turned to me and said, "I'm certainly wearing the right jeans today."

"Why?" I asked. "Are they too loose on you?"

"No," he replied. "I'm talking about the brand name—Faded Glory."

As a single, never-married woman in my 40s, I have been questioned endlessly about my status by friends, relatives and co-workers. Over the years I've noticed a subtle change in the nature of their inquiries. In my teens, friends would ask, "Who are you going out with this weekend?" In my 20s, relatives would say, "Who are you dating?" In my 30s, co-workers might inquire, "So, are you dating anyone?" Now people ask, "Where did you get that adorable purse?"

On a recent trip to the post office, I took a few minutes to read the notices posted on the public bulletin board in the lobby. One in particular caught my eye.

It read “Lost in post-office parking lot, small boa constrictor, family pet, will not attack. Reward.”

Below the notice someone had written, in what appeared to be very shaky handwriting: “Please, would you mind posting another notice when you find your boa? Thank you.”

 

 

My friend read her son's horoscope and thought it quite appropriate. "You've spent the last few weeks looking for escape," it said. "But now it's time to get on with your life."

She had just given birth to him that morning.

Enticed by a television promotion, my wife ordered a popular exercise machine on a 30-day trial offer. Two weeks later she decided not to buy it, and called UPS to arrange for a pickup.

The next day the UPS driver arrived at our house. "Oh, no, not another one of these," he said. "All I've been doing is delivering these machines, then picking them up. The only person getting exercise from these things is me!"

My husband bought an exercise machine to help him shed a few pounds. He set it up in the basement but didn't use it much, so he moved it to the bedroom. It gathered dust there, too, so he put it in the living room. Weeks later I asked how it was going. "I was right," he said. "I do get more exercise now. Every time I close the drapes, I have to walk around the machine."

The orthodontist and his assistants were removing my ten-year-old son's dental appliance. Because it was cemented to his upper teeth, they had to use some pressure to release it. When it finally popped out, three of his baby teeth came out as well.

My boy was horrified when he saw the gaps. "Well," he said to the staff gathered around him, "who do I see about getting dentures?"

When I was an infantry platoon commander, my Marines trained regularly for nighttime reconnaissance patrol. As we moved along, each of us would whisper the name of any obstacle to the person behind so that no one would be surprised and utter a cry that would disclose our position.

During one exercise, the lead man in the formation occasionally turned around and whispered to me "Log" or "Rock," which I would pass along. Suddenly there was a crash ahead of me and, from several feet down, I heard a single whispered word—"Hole."

 

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."

Our local newspaper ran several stories about a study that tied male obesity to a virus. One evening my brother came in exhausted from a long day at work. "Did you read the paper?" he asked.

"I won't be going in to work tomorrow. I'm calling in fat."

Although I was only a few pounds overweight, my wife was harping on me to diet. One evening we took a brisk walk downtown, and I surprised her by jumping over a parking meter, leapfrog style.

Pleased with myself, I said, "How many fat men do you know who can do that?"

"One," she retorted.

 

 

My daughter couldn't muster the willpower to lose unwanted pounds. One day, watching a svelte friend walking up our driveway, she lamented, "Linda's so skinny it makes me sick."

"If it bothers you," I suggested gently, "why don't you do something about it?"

"Good idea, Mom," she replied. Turning to her friend, she called out, "Hey, Linda, have a piece of chocolate cake."

One evening I was commenting on my bad exercise habits and tight clothes. Whenever I criticize myself, my four-year-old son always has something charming to say.

Using a new word this time, he smiled and said, "Oh, no, Mommy! You look flabulous!"

 

 

At the school where my mother worked, the two first-grade teachers were named Miss Paine and Mrs. Hacking. One morning the mother of a student called in the middle of a flu epidemic to excuse her daughter from school.

"Is she in Paine or Hacking?" the school secretary asked.

"She feels fine," said the confused mom. "We have company and I'm just keeping her home."

 

 

Customer-service reps repeat the same tired phrases so often that we can do the job in our sleep. We hear a beep telling us a customer's on the line, and we're on. I never knew how this humdrum routine affected us until a co-worker had heart surgery.

She was coming to, following her operation, when she heard the beep of the heart monitor. In her anesthetized stupor, she groggily said, "This is Sue. Can I help you?"

 

 

 

 

The new phone book arrived with a handy blank emergency-number form attached to the front page. I guess everyone's notion of an emergency is different. The categories for phone numbers were listed in this order: 1. Pizza, 2. Takeout Restaurants, 3. Taxi, 4. Poison Control, 5. Doctor.

During my uncle's physical exam, his doctor mentioned that he was slightly overweight. "Do you get any exercise?" the physician asked. "Well, I used to have an exercise bike in the TV room," my uncle began. "Used to!" the doctor said. "Where is it now?" "I had to store it in the basement," my uncle confessed, "because it got in the way of my snack trays."    

Serving as a Marine recruiter in western North Carolina, I found a young man who met all the requirements and was ready to enlist. I explained the importance of being truthful on the application, and he began filling out his paperwork. But when he got to the question "Do you own any foreign property or have any foreign financial interests?" he looked up at me with a worried expression. "Well," he confessed, "I do own a Toyota." We enlisted him the next day.

In Nevada, my husband and I attended the wedding of a man and woman of different faiths. A Protestant minister and a Catholic priest performed an ecumenical marriage ceremony. In unison they proclaimed the couple husband and wife.

Afterward, a man was overheard congratulating the father of the bride. “Fifty years ago this could not have happened.”

“No,” replied the father. “Religion has come a long way.”

“Religion! Who’s talking about religion? I mean a cattleman’s daughter marrying a sheepman’s son.”

 

 

As a dental hygienist, I had a family come in one day for cleanings. By the time I was ready for the father, he informed me I had a lot to live up to. His six-year-old daughter kept commenting that a "very smart lady" was cleaning their teeth today.

The father said she kept going on about my intelligence until he finally had to ask what she was basing her opinion on.

The little girl replied, "I heard people in here call her the Dental High Genius."

Bob, age 92, and Mary, age 89, are all excited about their decision to get married. While out for a stroll to discuss the wedding they pass a drugstore. Bob suggests they go in.

 

 

Bob asks to speak to the pharmacist. He explains they're about to get married, and asks, "Do you sell heart medication?"

 

 

"Of course we do," the pharmacist replies.

 

 

"Medicine for rheumatism?"

 

 

"Definitely," he says.

 

 

"How about Viagra?"

 

 

"Of course."

 

 

"Medicine for memory problems, arthritis, jaundice?"

 

 

"Yes, the works."

 

 

"What about vitamins, sleeping pills, Geritol, antacids?"

 

 

 "Absolutely."

 

 

"Do you sell wheelchairs and walkers?"

 

 

"All speeds and sizes."

 

 

"Good," Bob says to the pharmacist. "We'd like to register for our wedding gifts here, please."

 

 

After joining the Navy, my husband underwent a physical. During the exam, it was discovered that, due to an abnormality, he couldn't fully extend his arms above his head. Perplexed, the doctor conferred with another doctor.

"Let him pass," suggested the second doctor. "I don't see any problems unless he has to surrender."

 

 

Notice seen on the bulletin board of a Florida air base: "The following enlisted men will pick up their Good Conduct medals in the supply room this afternoon. Failure to comply with this order will result in disciplinary action."

Suffering with a herniated disk in his back, my husband told his cousin that a well-respected doctor was treating him. His cousin asked the name of the doctor, and on hearing it, he replied, "I never heard of him—that's a good sign." The cousin is a medical-malpractice attorney.

As a dentist, I recently tried out a new chocolate-flavored pumice paste on my patients. No one liked it except for a six-year-old boy. While I polished his teeth, he continued to smile and lick his lips. "You must really like this new flavor," I said.

"Yep," he replied, nodding with satisfaction. "It tastes just like the time I dropped my candy bar in the sandbox."

I think my wife's going deaf," Joe told their doctor.

"Try to test her hearing at home and let me know how severe her problem is before you bring her in for treatment," the doctor said.

So that evening, when his wife was preparing dinner, Joe stood 15 feet behind her and said, "What's for dinner, honey?"

No response.

He moved to ten feet behind her and asked again.

No response.

Then he stood five feet in back of her and tried again but still got no answer. Finally, he stood directly behind her and asked, "Honey, what's for supper?"

She turned around. "For the fourth time—I said chicken!"

Spotted in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch:

"Fitness Club Closes, Going Belly Up."

The contest was simple: Which department in the hospital where I worked as a nurse could create the best Christmas decorations? While they didn't win first prize, the members of the proctology department did receive high honors with their distinctive sign, "Christmas is a good time to look up old friends."