I walked into the post office to buy stamps to mail my Christmas greetings.
“What denomination?” the clerk asks.
“Errr, Mennonite,” I replied.
Ooooh, no, Mr. Jim! Isn’t it bad enough that only a few days into the Advent season there’s still leftover turkey in the refrigerator and area radio stations have already played “The Christmas Song (Chestnuts Roasting . . . ),” “White Christmas” and horrid versions of “O Holy Night” three too many times? Now, we’re about to be punneled about our corporate craniums with awful assonance and fusty fruitcake.
Hey, it could be verse . . .
I know I wasn’t pleased to see a review of my book on cappuccinos. It said it was “all froth and no substance.”
Meanwhile, the frustrated cannibal threw up his hands (after playing swallow the leader?). But at least his wife makes good soup.
Mechanic to trainee: “Tell him two hundred seventy-five dollars. If he doesn’t flinch, add ‘plus parts.'”
Carpenter: “You hammer like lightning.”
Apprentice: “Really fast, huh?”
Carpenter: “No, you seldom hit the same place twice.”
This is an age of medical specialists. Nowadays, what four out of five doctors recommend is another doctor.
A doctor fell into a well
And broke his collar bone.
The doctor should attend the sick
And leave the well alone.
I looked up the definition of the word “oxymoron” in the American Heritage Dictionary, which read: “A rhetorical figure in which an epigrammic effect is created by the conjunction of incongruous or contradictory terms.” Well, that clears that up!
Chiropractor: A disc jockey (who doesn’t get under your skin).
December 26: The day greeting cards begin arriving from people who wouldn’t send you one if you hadn’t sent them one first.
Lazy: Getting up early to have more time to loaf, or getting up late to have less time to work.
Leftovers: repast history. (As one leftover said to the other, “Looks like we’re foiled again”).
Oration: A flood of words and a drought of ideas.
Politics: The conduct of public affairs for private advantage.
Q: How did Mr. Webster come to write the first dictionary?
A: Every time he’d say something, his wife would ask, “Well, now, just what’s that supposed to mean?”
Then there was the church custodian who also played the piano on Sunday.
He minded his keys and pews.
Seen in church bulletin: A cookbook is being compiled. Please submit your favorite recipe and a short antidote concerning it.
A man told his landlord about the tenants in the apartment over his: “Many nights they stomp on the floor and shout till midnight.” When the landlord asked if it bothered him, he replied. “Not really. I usually practice my trumpet until that time every night anyway.”
Q: Who was the world’s first and wisest financier?
A: Noah, because he floated stock while the rest of the world was in liquidation.
Gal: “Would you like to take a walk?”
Guy: “I’d love to.”
Gal: “Well, don’t let me detain you.”
Newly-hatched termites are babes in the wood.
A tourist stopped his car on a country road and asked a young boy, “How far is it to Stokesville?” “Well,” said the lad, “the way you are going, it’s about 25,000 miles, but if you turn around it’s about four.”
The seamstress was recently inducted into the Pin Pushers Hall of Fame. I guess now she is a status thimble.
For years I’ve been threatening to open a French Revolutionary restaurant, called, of course, “Chez Guevara.”
I’m going to the guillotine (a French chopping center) at dawn, and my wife has already collected my severance pay.
One ear of corn said to the other, “You’re getting husky.”
Winston Churchill’s said that not ending sentences with prepositions was nonsense up with which he would not put.
Then there’s the sentence that ends with five prepositions. Little kid to dad who has promised to read him a story if he’d get into bed and wait: “What did you bring that book I didn’t want to be read to out of up for?”
So the next time people fault you for ending a sentence with a preposition, ask them: “What are you talking about?”
Meanwhile, back at the post office, first class stamps are now 42 cents each. Cancel that Christmas letter. I’ll send our family greeting via e-mail this year (and recipients can promptly hit the “delete” key).
– Jim (Punjab from Punsylvania) Bishop directs the department of redundancy department (how’s that again?) at Eastern Mennonite University.
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