A young couple decided to wed. As the big day approached, they grew apprehensive. Each had a problem they had never before shared with anyone, not even each other.

The Groom-to-be, overcoming his fear, decided to ask his father for advice. "Father," he said, "I am deeply concerned about the success of my marriage. I love my

fiancée, very much, but you see, I have very smelly feet, and I'm afraid that my future wife will be put off by them." "No problem," said dad, "all you have to do is wash

your feet as often as possible, and always wear socks, even to bed." Well, to him this seemed a workable solution.

The bride-to-be, overcoming her fear, decided to take her problem up her mom. "Mom," she said, "When I wake up in the morning my breath is truly awful." "Honey,"

her mother consoled, "everyone has bad breath in the morning." "No, you don't understand. My morning breath is so bad, I'm afraid that my new husband will not want

to sleep in the same room with me."

Her mother said simply, "Try this. In the morning, get straight out of bed, and head for the bathroom and brush your teeth. The key is, not to say a word until you've

brushed your teeth. Not a word," her mother affirmed. Well, she thought it was certainly worth a try. The loving couple were finally married in a beautiful ceremony.

Not forgetting the advice each had received, he with his perpetual socks and she with her morning silence, they managed quite well. That is, until about six months

later. Shortly before dawn, the husband wakes with a start to find that one of his socks had come off. Fearful of the consequences, he frantically searches the bed.

This, of course, woke his bride and without thinking, she immediately asks, "What on earth are

you doing?" "Oh, no!" he gasped in shock, "You've swallowed my sock!"

Once-upon-a-time, there was a farmer named Fred, who owned a pig. The pig's name was Edwina, and she weighed about twelve hundred pounds. Fred was very proud

of her. Everywhere he went, he brought Edwina along. People passing him along the sidewalk would say good morning and comment on how beautiful Edwina was.

Fred would smile and raise his hat good morning.

By the time of the spring fair, she weighed in at slightly over one thousand, five hundred pounds. When word spread that there was a pig at the spring fair that weighed

one-thousand pounds, people came from all over the tri-state area. Someone even gave Fred a hundred dollars for the right to sell Edwina T-shirts and baseball caps.

Crowds gathered in front of her pen. People pointed cameras and flashes at her. On the third day of the fair, a television crew came down to do a story for the five

o'clock news. Fred couldn't have been happier.

Even after the fair was over, and Edwina was in her own pen, the people still drove up every morning to see Edwina and have their picture taken with her.

Every day she seemed to get bigger and bigger. News crews camped outside Fred's house so they could give up to the minute coverage on the ever growing pig. One of

the news crews arranged to have a scale brought down so they could weigh her.

One day a group of government officials came by to see the pig. They took blood samples, soil samples, air samples, groundwater samples. They asked Fred all sorts of

questions. How old was she? Where did he get her? Where are the rest of the litter? What did she eat?

The next day the government officials declared the area of Fred's farm to be off limits to the public. The crowds were restrained at the entrance to the driveway.

There were scientists all over the farm taking measurements, while men in dark suits with sunglasses sat in the kitchen asking Fred the same questions over and over,

and asking if there was something, just something that he was forgetting. Helicopters landed from time to time, and people with walkie-talkies got out and gave

orders to the other anonymous government officials. Soldiers patrolled the area to keep unauthorized people away from the area.

For days, these anonymous soldiers, scientists and government officials hurried frantically around, and Edwina grew larger and larger. She began to grow not only wider

and wider, but taller and taller. She grew until she was taller than the trees, until she could look down and see the crowds that had formed on the edge of the

restricted area. She grew taller, and the people on the ground grew smaller and farther away.

One morning a scientist sat Fred down to explain to him what was going to happen. Fred couldn't understand why the scientist seemed so uneasy. The scientist looked

him in the eyes and told him that Edwina was simply going to keep growing larger and larger. Eventually she would become so large that she would affect the rotation

of the Earth. She would develop her gravitational field. At first she would attract small asteroids, and then moons and small planets. She would pull the sun and the

rest of the solar system toward the earth. Eventually she would become so large and so dense that even light would not be able to escape her gravitational field. Once

things reached that stage all of matter in the known universe would begin to draw in on itself until it reached critical mass and the next big bang occurred. This, they

believed would happen in just a few short years. Fred looked at the scientist and asked him if he thought there was still time to move.

Once-upon-a-time, there was a very big fish, named Bob. Bob was the largest fish in the pond, but he wanted to be even bigger. Day and night, he would obsess about it.

One day, he was out catching flies for dinner. He managed to catch a really humungus fly that was about the size of a golf ball. Before he could swallow it though, the

big fly begged and pleaded for his life. The Fly promised Bob a magic wish if he would spare his life.

Bob was a little suspicious at first. He was also very hesitant about giving up the largest fly he had seen since the nuclear power plant had moved in. Bob thought about

it for a while, but the more he thought about, the more he wanted that magic wish. He was hungry, but more than anything else on this planet, he wanted to be huge.

Finally he decided to take the magic wish. The fly looked at him and said "Name your wish fish!".

"I want to be huge, really, really huge. I want to be bigger than any fish that ever lived." Bob said to the fly.

"That's really stupid" the fly said to him.

Bob looked at the fly and said "Hey asshole, are you gonna give me the wish or not?"

"I sure am." the fly said, and with that Bob started to grow. He grew and grew and grew until he was so large that he couldn't fit in the pond anymore. Bob flailed and

gasped for water, but he was beached, and after a while he died.

The people fishing in their boats, the people standing on the banks of the pond, and the people who had stopped their cars on the highway, all stared in awe and

wonder at this big stupid fish that was stuck on the side of the pond.

The mayor called a town meeting to decide what to do with the big fish, but members of a nearby cult came by later and claimed that the big fish had been promised

to them by God. After some negotiations, a large fish barbecue was arranged, and everybody had a wonderful time, except Bob, who was of course eaten.

"One day Ima go to No Fock, Virginia to a bigga hotel.

I go down to eat soma breakfast.

I tell the waitress I wanna two piss toast.

She branga me only onea piss, I tell her I wanna two piss, she say go to the

toilet.

I say you no understand.

I wanna two piss on my plate.

She say you better no piss on the plate you Sonna Ma Bitch.

I don't even know the lady and she call me Sonna Ma Bitch!"

Last Boxing Day (that's the day after Xmas for those who don't have one) I was in a local bar with three of my friends. I don't smoke myself, but the others all did and one

of them, Porky, showed us this bar game. You take a box of matches and pierce the top of it with one unlit match, so that this match sticks vertically up out of the top

(i.e. the only side that doesn't have contact with the drawer underneath so that it can still open and close). The challange is to take the box in your hand and with just

that one hand open the box, take out a match, light it and then light the match on top with the match you have just struck.

Turned out the hardest bit was getting the match struck with enough force to ignite it but not so much that it carries on and you burn yourself in the palm of the hand

(try it and you'll see what I mean!). So me, Porky and one of the other guys had been sitting trying this for about fifteen minutes but mostly kept burning ourselves.

Then Toomba, the guy who up to this point had just been watching, decided he would have a go. We were happy to sit back and nurse our burns while he took a blast at it.

So, he takes the box in his hand and pokes it open with a finger. He then takes a match out WITH HIS OTHER HAND and procedes to do it and then gloat at his "success"

assuming our astonished faces were because his genius brain had cracked it - ignore the "do it with one hand" bit!

An 80 year old couple were having problems remembering things, so they decided to go to their doctor to get checked out to make sure nothing was wrong with them.

When they arrived at the doctor's, they explained to the doctor about the problems they were having with their memory. After checking the couple out, the doctor tells

them that they were physically okay but might want to start writing things down and make notes to help them remember things. The couple thanked the doctor and left.

Later that night while watching TV, the old man got up from his chair and his wife asks, "Where are you going?" He replies, "To the kitchen." She asks, "Will you get me

a bowl of ice cream?" He replies, "Sure."She then asks him, "Don't you think you should write it down so you can remember it?" He says, "No, I can remember that." She

then says, "Well I also would like some strawberries on top. You had better write that down cause I know you'll forget that." He says, "I can remember that, you want a

bowl of ice cream with strawberries." She replies, "Well I also would like whipped cream on top. I know you will forget that so you better write it down." With

irritation in his voice, he says, "I don't need to write that down I can remember that." He then fumes into the kitchen. After about 20 minutes he returns from the

kitchen and hands her a plate of bacon and eggs. She stares at the plate for a moment and says, "You forgot my toast."

Once-upon-a-time, there was a worthless piece of land known as the Kingdom of Wartlestoff. In the native language, Wartlestoff meant small painful swelling under

the armpit. The people called it Wartlestoff because they couldn't actually name it shithole which was their first suggestion.

Wartlestoff was known throughout the continent for two things: 1. A really low average age of the citizens that was due to an incredibly high suicide rate and the fact

that most people over five years-old tried to leave the country 2. A really low birth rate that was due to the fact there wasn't anybody in Wartlestoff that anybody

wanted to have sex with.

Wartlestoff had been the object of several brutal wars by its neighboring countries, with each side claiming Wartlestoff belonged to the other. During a particularly

brutal war, someone got the idea that they could declare Wartlestoff an autonomous state and everybody could go home.

A new formed country, even a lousy one like Wartlestoff, could be turned into a larger one by an ambitious, enterprising and charismatic leader. The leaders of the

warring countries realized this and decided to choose the king themselves to make

sure that this didn't happen. They set out to find the most feeble minded, indecisive, and uncharasmatic twit for the throne. The only constraint, they decided, was that

the twit should be of noble birth. All the countries were littered with feeble minded, indecisive, and uncharasmatic nobility who had been unemployed during the great

layoffs of the feeble minded, indecisive, and uncharasmatic aristocracy and Wartlestoff was no exception.

After a great search through the mounds of resumes, the Kings found the man that they were looking for. He was known as Lord Melvin the mildly flatulent.

He was slow, fat, rude, ugly and tended to get lost on the way to the bathroom. His estate had consisted of over thirty people at its height. These people, however,

were all his family or servants in the castle. They had also formed a new barony and revolted.

They invited a nearby Lord to annex them into his estate. The new lord returned the favor by plundering them, killing the women and children and raising taxes tenfold.

It was said of him that "No one would follow him to a coke machine, much less into battle." When he failed to arrive for the interview or even give an explanation of

his absence, this was considered a demonstration of just what a good choice they had made.

He was dragged from his castle and forcibly crowned. Afterwards the occupying armies fled the country as fast as their horses would take them. Stragglers were left behind.

One of Melvin's first acts was to put his face on every coin that was stamped in the realm. This helped the economy in two ways: 1. The sheer ugliness of the coins

caused people in other realms to refuse them outright, as a result money no longer left

the country due to trade imbalances 2. The sheer ugliness of the coins meant that folks inside the realm didn't really want the coins either, as a result much less money

changed hands and inflation was curbed. It was said on the street that "You could once again buy a loaf of bread for less than 400 GOLDcrowns!"

Ironically, the reduction of the trade imbalance and the rate of inflation would have been greatly heralded by the economists if he hadn't put them all to death.

King Melvin the mildly flatulent then decided to find a new wife since his ex still refused to come back. He decided to try a strategy that had worked so well in the

past, he sent out tons of resumes. When the various eligible women visited the castle

for the interview, they asked questions like "You don't expect me to have sex with you do you?" and "We wouldn't actually have to have sex if I got this job right?".

Melvin was unfazed. When Lady Bovina failed to refuse immediately, Melvin decided to go

after her with unceasing effort. He organized a festival and a series of games in her honor. The week before the festival, he had all the roads from her castle to the

amphitheater lined with lawyers stapled to crosses. The games were a series of contests

between economists armed with shields and swords and lions. The crowds went wild as economist after economist was chewed up by the lions. The economists were

eaten so quickly that several market analysts, psychotherapists and poets had to be rounded up to keep the crowds amused.

By the end of the day, the crowd was at a fever pitch. They were screaming "Melvin! Melvin! Melvin!" at the top of their lungs. Melvin, whose ego was just barely able to

fit in the amphitheater with all those people began to give a speech. He was possessed. He began to tell them that he would raise an army to give the people what

they had wanted most for their entire lives, another decent country to live in, decent land to build hovels on and new and better neighbors.

When his speech reached a crescendo, he asked the crowd to be silent. He bent down on his knees and asked Lady Bovina to marry him.

She was startled. "Would you promise to love me forever?" she asked.

"Forever!" he said.

"Would you turn over your treasury to me?" she asked.

"Every last coin!" he responded.

"Would we have to have sex?" she asked.

"Do we have to talk about this here?"

She looked around at all the quiet faces who were staring directly at her and made the biggest mistake of her life.

The stirring speech, the ascension of the new queen, and the extermination of all the lawyers were exactly the sort of inspiring things that the country had been

starving for for

years, and would have been duly celebrated by the historians and political analysts if they hadn't all been exterminated during the later games of the festival.

After the festival was over, Melvin raised a large and inspired if untrained and unequipped army. He led his army on muleback to the closest country and proceeded to

attack by sending all his troops over the boarder as fast as he could, while he waited behind to see what happened.



Epilogue

Melvin's army was thrashed as they charged into the waiting canons of the enemy. He blamed the loss on foreign treachery, but many pundits felt the loss was due to

the fact that all the officers had sacrificed to the lions during the festival.

Melvin himself was later killed when the mule that he was riding on collapsed of a broken back.

Lady Bovina was the guest of honor at one last festival where she placed on the field to combat the last remaining economists.

The Kings who had placed Melvin at the throne of Wartlestoff were taken out and beaten.

And the people of Wartlestoff still wait for the day when the clouds will open and a voice proclaim from the Heavens to the people all across the land that they can finally leave.

In the town where I live we've got this guy who is about three sandwiches short of a picnic. He drinks in the bar down the road and one night one of the new neighbors

stopped in for a pint. Turns out he's a beekeeper and has two or three hives at the bottom of his garden. Somehow we all got to talking about pets and we're comparing

them all. The beekeeper tells us that bees are actually quite smart for insects and to prove it told us this:

Every morning at 5 he'd go out to the hives and flip the latches to let the bees out. They'd all fly down to the park and wouldn't return until around five sharp that evening

when he replaced the latch. Our friend (the Looney) started laughing at this point and when we asked why he thought this was funny he said, "cos it's bullshit! Everybody

knows the park gates don't open till 10!

When I was 12 or 13 my father had cable service added to the upstairs for myself and my siblings. The guy was able to install everything just fine, but when it came to

hooking up the cable to the tv with a VCR, Nintendo, and Super Nintendo attached, the guy was clueless. He said he'd come back to it while he put the cable box in my

sister's room. He came back not 5 minutes later to find me happily playing video games. He said "How did you do that?" My reply: I'm the kid. Never trust an adult to fiddle

with electronics." And to think I almost worked for them years later...

An old man was sitting on a bench in the mall when a young man with spiked hair came over and sat down beside him. The boy's hair was yellow and green and orange and

purple. He had black makeup around his eyes. The old man just stared at him. The boy said, "What's the matter, old man, haven't you ever done anything wild in your

life?" The old man answered, "Well yes, actually, I have. I once got drunk and had sex with a parrot. I was just wondering if you were my son.