Brave Firemen

One dark night outside a small town, a fire started inside the local chemical plant and before you could snap your fingers, it exploded into flames. An alarm went out to the fire departments for miles around.
When the firefighters arrived, the chemical company president rushed to the fire chief and said, "All of our secret formulas are in the vault in the center of the plant. I will give $50,000 to the engine company that brings them out intact." The fire chief ordered his men to strengthen their attack on the blaze.

After two hours of fighting the fire another fire department was called in and the president of the chemical company offered $100,000 to the fire fighters who could bring out the secret files.

In the distance, a lone siren was heard as another fire truck came into sight. It was the local volunteer fire company composed entirely of men over the age of 65. To everyone's amazement, the little fire engine raced passed everyone and drove straight into the middle of the inferno.
Outside the regular firemen watched as the old timers jumped off their rig and began to fight the fire with a performance and effort never seen before. Within a short time, the old timers extinguished the fire and saved the secret formulas.

The grateful chemical company president joyfully announced that for such a superhuman feat he was upping the reward to $200,000, and walked over to personally thank each of the brave, elderly, fire fighters. The local TV news reporters rushed in after capturing the event on film asking. "What are you going to do with all that money?" The 70-year-old fire chief answered, "Fix the brakes on the truck".

A man was helping one of his cows give birth, when he noticed his 4-year-old son standing wide-eyed at the fence, soaking in the whole event. 

The man thought, "Great, he's 4 and I'm gonna have to start explaining the birds and bees.  No need to jump the gun, I'll just let him ask, and I'll answer."

After everything was over, the man walked over to his son and said, "Well son, do you have any questions?" 

"Just one," gasped the still wide-eyed lad. 

"How fast was that calf going when he hit that cow?"

JUST A FEW ITEMS TO PLAY WITH, AND WONDER AT THE INTELLIGENCE ON EARTH

Idiot #1: I am a medical student currently doing a rotation in toxicology at the poison control center. Today, this woman called in very upset because she caught her little daughter eating ants. I quickly reassured her the ants are not harmful and there would be no need to bring her daughter into the hospital. She calmed down, and at the end of the conversation happened to mention that she gave her daughter some ant poison to eat in order to kill the ants. I told her that she better bring her daughter into the emergency room right away.

Idiot #2: Seems that a year ago, some Boeing employees on the airfield decided to steal a life raft from one of the 747s. They were successful in getting it out of the plane and home. When they took it for a float on the river, they were surprised by a Coast Guard helicopter coming towards them. It turned out that the chopper was homing in on the emergency locator that is activated when the raft is inflated. They are no longer employed at Boeing.

Idiot #3: A true story out of San Francisco: A man, wanting to rob a downtown Bank of America, walked into the branch and wrote:

 "this iz a stikkup. Put all your muny in this bag."

 While standing in line, waiting to give his note to the teller, he began to worry that someone had seen him write the note and might call the police before he reached the teller window. So he left the Bank of America and crossed the street to Wells Fargo. After waiting a few minutes in line, he handed his note to the Wells Fargo teller. He read it and, surmising from his spelling errors that he wasn't the brightest light in the harbor, told him that he could not accept his stickup note because it was written on a Bank of America deposit slip and that he would either have to fill out a Wells Fargo deposit slip or go back to Bank of America. Looking somewhat defeated, the man said "OK" and left. He was arrested a few minutes later, as he was waiting in line back at Bank of America.

Idiot #4: A motorist was unknowingly caught in an automated speed trap that measured his speed using radar and photographed his car. He later received in the mail a ticket for $40 and a photo of his car. Instead of payment, he sent the police department a photograph of $40. Several days later, he received a letter from the police that contained another picture-of handcuffs.

Idiot #5: A guy walked into a little corner store with a shotgun and demanded all the cash from the cash drawer. After the cashier put the cash in a bag, the robber saw a bottle of scotch that he wanted behind the counter on the shelf. He told the cashier to put it in the bag as well, but he refused, "Because I don't believe you are over 21." The robber said he was, but the clerk still refused to give it to him because he didn't believe him. At this point the robber took his driver's license out and gave it to the clerk. The clerk looked it over, and agreed that the man was in fact over 21 and put the scotch in the bag. The robber then ran from the store with his loot. The cashier promptly called the police and gave the name and address of the robber that he got off the license. They arrested the robber two hours later.

Idiot #6: A pair of Michigan robbers entered a record shop nervously waving revolvers. The first one shouted, "Nobody move!" When his partner moved, the startled first bandit shot him.

Idiot #7: Arkansas: Seems this guy wanted some beer pretty badly. He decided that he'd just throw a cinder block through a liquor store window, grab some booze, and run. So he lifted the cinder block and heaved it over his head at the window. The cinder block bounced back and hit the would-be thief on the head, knocking him unconscious. Seems the liquor store window was made of Plexi-Glass. The whole event was caught on videotape.

In case you are having a bad day:

1. The average cost of rehabilitating a seal after the Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska was $80,000. At a special ceremony, two of the most expensively saved animals were released back into the wild amid cheers and applause from onlookers. A minute later, in full view, they were both eaten by a killer whale.
   
2. A woman came home to find her husband in the kitchen, shaking frantically with what looked like a wire running from his waist towards the electric kettle. Intending to jolt him away from the deadly current she whacked him with a handy plank of wood by the back door, breaking his arm in two places. Until that moment he had been happily listening to his Walkman.
   
3. Two animal rights protesters were protesting at the cruelty of sending pigs to a slaughterhouse in Bonn. Suddenly the pigs, all two thousand of them, escaped through a broken fence and stampeded, trampling the two hapless protesters to death.
   
4. Iraqi terrorist, Khay Rahnajet, didn't pay enough postage on a letter bomb. It came back with "return to sender" stamped on it. Forgetting it was the bomb, he opened it. He was 38.

The Parrot 

This fella has a friend going out of town for the holidays and accepts the job of watching his parrot over the holiday. Problem is, this parrot swears like a sailor, and this guy is a quiet, conservative type. Before long, the bird's foul mouth is driving him crazy. The guy finally snaps, grabs the bird, shakes him and yells, "QUIT IT!!!" This, of course, just makes the bird mad and he swears more than ever. Then the guy gets angry and locks the bird in a kitchen cabinet. This really aggravates the bird and he claws and scratches, and when the guy finally lets him out, the bird cuts loose with a stream of vulgarities that would make a veteran sailor blush! At that point, the guy is so mad that he throws the bird into the freezer.

For the first few seconds there is a terrible din. The bird kicks and claws and thrashes. Then it suddenly gets very quiet. At first the guy just waits, but then he starts to think that the bird may be hurt. After a couple of minutes of silence, he's so worried that he opens up the freezer door.

The bird calmly climbs onto the man's outstretched arm and says, "Awfully sorry about the trouble I gave you, old chap. I will do my best to improve my vocabulary from now on." The man is astounded. He can't understand the transformation that has come over the parrot. "So, by the way," the parrot says, looking nervously back towards the freezer, "what did the turkey do?"

Lawyer Story

A big-city, California, lawyer went duck hunting in rural Texas. He shot and dropped a bird, but it fell into farmer's field on the other side of a fence. As the lawyer climbed over the fence, an elderly farmer drove up on his tractor and asked him what he was doing.

The litigator responded, "I shot a duck and it fell into this field, and now I'm going to retrieve it." The old farmer replied, "This is my property, and you are not coming over here." The indignant lawyer said, "I am one of the best trial attorneys in the U.S. and, if you don't let me get that duck, I'll sue you and take everything you own."

The old farmer smiled and said, "Apparently, you don't know how we do things in Texas. We settle small disagreements like this with the Texas Three-Kick Rule." The lawyer asked, "What is the Texas Three-Kick Rule?"

The Farmer replied,  "Well, first I kick you three times and then you kick me three times, and so on, back and forth, until someone gives up."

The attorney quickly thought about the proposed contest and decided that he could easily take the old codger. He agreed to abide by the local custom. The old farmer slowly climbed down from the tractor and walked up to the city feller. His first kick planted the toe of his heavy work
boot into the lawyer's groin and dropped him to his knees. His second kick nearly wiped the man's nose off his face. The barrister was flat on his belly when the farmer's third kick to a kidney nearly caused him to give up.

The lawyer summoned every bit of  his will and managed to get to his feet and said, "Okay, you old coot!  Now, it's my turn!"

The old farmer grinned and said, "Naw, I give up. You can have the duck!"

In Merry Ole England...

Most people got married in June because they took their yearly bath in May, and were still smelling pretty good by June, although they were starting to smell, so brides carried a bouquet of flowers to hide the b.o.

Baths equaled a big tub filled with hot water. The man of the house had the privilege of the nice clean water, then all the other sons and men, then the women and finally the children. Last of all the babies. By then, the water was so dirty you could actually lose someone in it. Hence the saying, "don't throw the baby out with the bath water".

Houses had thatched roofs. Thick straw, piled high, with no wood underneath. It was the only place for animals to get warm, so all the pets...dogs, cats and other small animals, mice, rats, bugs lived in the roof. When it rained it became slippery and sometimes the animals would slip and fall off the roof. Hence the saying, "it's raining cats and dogs."

There was nothing to stop things from falling into the house. This posed a real problem in the bedroom where bugs and other droppings could really mess up your nice clean bed, so they found if they made beds with big posts and hang a sheet over the top, it addressed that problem. Hence those beautiful big 4 poster beds with canopies.

The floor was dirt. Only the wealthy had something other than dirt, hence the saying "dirt poor". The wealthy had slate floors which in the winter they would get slippery when wet. So they spread thresh on the floor to help keep their footing. As the winter wore on they kept adding more thresh until when you opened the door it would all start slipping outside. A piece of wood was placed at the entry way, hence a "thresh hold".

They cooked in the kitchen in a big kettle that always hung over the fire. Every day, they lit the fire and added things to the pot. They mostly ate vegetables and didn't get much meat. They would eat the stew for dinner leaving leftovers in the pot to get cold overnight and then start over the next day. Sometimes, the stew had food in it that had been in therefor a month. Hence the rhyme: peas porridge hot, peas porridge cold, peas porridge in the pot nine days old." Sometimes, they could obtain pork and would feel really special when that happened. When company came over, they would bring out some bacon and hang it to show it off. It was a sign of wealth and that a man "could really bring home the bacon. "They would cut off a little to share with guests and would all sit around and "chew the fat."

Those with money had plates made of pewter. Food with a high acid content caused some of the lead to leach into the food. This happened most often with tomatoes, so they stopped eating tomatoes ... for 400 years. Most people didn't have pewter plates, but had trenchers-a piece of wood with the middle scooped out like a bowl. Trenchers were never washed and a lot of times worms got into the wood. After eating off wormy trenchers, they would get "trench mouth."

Bread was divided according to status. Workers got the burnt bottom of the loaf, the family got the middle, and guests got the top, or the "upper crust".

Lead cups were used to drink ale or whiskey. The combination would sometimes knock them out for a couple of days. Someone walking along the road would take them for dead and prepare them for burial. They were laid out on the kitchen table for a couple of days and the family would gather around and eat and drink and wait and see if they would wake up. Hence the custom of holding a "wake."

England is old and small. They started running out of places to bury people. They would dig up coffins and would take their bones to a house and re-use the grave. In reopening these coffins, one out of 25coffins were found to have scratch marks on the inside, and they realized they had been burying people alive. So they thought they would tie a string on their wrist and lead it through the coffin and up through the ground and tie it to a bell. Someone would have to sit out in the graveyard all night to listen for the bell. Hence, on the "graveyard shift" they would know that someone was "saved by the bell" or he was a "dead ringer".

"The Cowboy in Church"

One Sunday a cowboy went to church. When he entered, he saw that he and the preacher were the only ones present. The preacher asked the cowboy if he wanted him to go ahead and preach. The cowboy said, "I'm not too smart, but if I went to feed my cattle and only one showed up, I'd feed him."

So the minister began his sermon.

One hour passed, then two hours, then two-and-a-half hours. The preacher finally finished and came down to ask the cowboy how he liked the sermon. The cowboy answered slowly, "Well, I'm not very smart, but if I went to feed my cattle and only one showed up, I sure wouldn't feed 'em all the hay."