Good Questions...

Thank you, Helen, for these:

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Why isn't the number 11 pronounced  onety-one?

If 4 out of 5 people SUFFER from diarrhea...does that mean that one out of five enjoys  it?

Why do croutons come in airtight packages? Aren't they just stale bread to begin with?

If people from Poland are called Poles, then why aren't people from Holland called  Holes?

If it's true that we are here to help  others, then what exactly are the others here for?

Do Lipton Tea employees take 'coffee breaks?'

What  hair color do they put on the driver's licenses of bald  men?

I thought about how mothers feed their babies with tiny little spoons and forks, so I wondered what do Chinese mothers use, Toothpicks?

Why do  they put pictures of criminals up in the Post Office? What are we supposed to do, write to them?  Why don't they just put their pictures on the postage stamps so the mailmen can look for them while they deliver the mail?

Is it true that you never really learn to swear until you learn to drive? (or work for KFC)

Why, Why, Why do we press harder on the remote control when we know the batteries are getting weak?

Why do banks charge a fee due to insufficient funds; when they already know you're broke?

Why is it that when  someone tells you that there are one billion stars in the universe you believe them, but if they tell you there is wet paint you have to touch it to check?

Why doesn't Tarzan have a beard?

Why does Superman stop bullets with his chest, but ducks when you throw a revolver at him?

Why did Kamikaze pilots wear helmets?

Whose cruel idea was it to put an "s" in the word "lisp"?

If people evolved from apes, why are there still apes?

Why is it that, no matter what color bubble bath you use, the bubbles are always white?

Why do people constantly return to the refrigerator with hopes that something new to eat will have materialized?

Why do people run over a string a dozen times with their vacuum cleaner, then reach down, pick it up, examine it and then put it down to give the vacuum one more chance?

How do those dead bugs get into the enclosed light fixtures?

Why is it that whenever you attempt to catch something that's falling off the table you always manage to knock something else over?

Why, in winter, do we try to keep the house as warm as it was in summer when we complained about the heat?

Do you  ever wonder why you gave me your e-mail address in the first  place?

And A FAVORITE:

The statistics on sanity say that one  out of every four persons is suffering from some sort of mental  illness. Think of your three best friends.  If they're OK..? (then it's  you!)

Lost Words from our childhood

Heavens to Murgatroyd!    Would you believe the email spell checker did not recognize the word Murgatroyd?

Words gone as fast as the buggy whip! Sad really! The other day, a not-so-elderly (65) lady said something to her son about driving a Jalopy and he looked at her quizzically and said,  “What the heck is a Jalopy?” OMG (new) phrase!  He never heard of the word “jalopy”!!

  She knew she was old but not that old...

  Well, I hope you are Hunky Dory after you read this and chuckle...

  by Richard Lederer

  About a month ago, I illuminated some old expressions that have become obsolete because of the inexorable march of technology. These phrases included "Don't touch that dial," "Carbon copy," "You sound like a broken record" and "Hung out to dry."

  Back in the olden days we had a lot of moxie. We'd put on our best bib and tucker to straighten up and fly right.

  Heavens to Betsy!  Gee whillikers!  Jumping Jehoshaphat!   Holy moley!

  We were in like Flynn and living the life of Riley, and even a regular guy couldn't accuse us of being a knucklehead, a nincompoop or a pill. Not for all the tea in China!

  Back in the olden days, life used to be swell, but when's the last time anything was “swell”?

  Swell has gone the way of beehives, pageboys and the days of spats, knickers, fedoras, poodle skirts, saddle shoes and pedal pushers.

  Oh, my aching back. Kilroy was here, but he isn't anymore.

  We wake up from what surely has been just a short nap, and before we can say, “Well, I'll be a monkey's uncle!”, or “This is a fine kettle of  fish!”  We discover that the words we grew up with, the words
  that seemed omnipresent, as oxygen, have vanished with scarcely a notice from our tongues and our pens and our keyboards.

  Poof, go the words of our youth, the words we've left behind. We
  blink, and they're gone. Where have all those phrases gone?

  Long gone: Pshaw, The milkman did it.

  Hey! It's your nickel.

  Don't forget to pull the chain.

  Knee high to a grasshopper.

  Well, Fiddlesticks!

  Going like sixty.

  I'll see you in the funny papers.

  Don't take any wooden nickles

  Heavens  to  Murgatroyd!

  It turns out there are more of these lost words and expressions than Carter has liver pills.

  This can be disturbing stuff!

  We of a certain age have been blessed to live in changeful times.

  For a child each new word is like a shiny toy, a toy that has no age.

  We at the other end of the chronological arc have the advantage of remembering there are words that once did not exist and there were words that once strutted their hour upon the earthly stage and now are heard no more, except in our collective memory. It's one of the greatest advantages of aging.

  See ya later, alligator!

Dad's Safe Cubicle

What a fantastic idea!

It probably works for grandpas too!!!

The Stella Awards

Helen passed this along to me.

For those unfamiliar with these awards, they are named after 81-year-old Stella Liebeck who spilled hot coffee on herself and successfully sued the McDonald's in New Mexico, where she purchased coffee.  You remember, she took the lid off the coffee and put it between her knees while she was driving. Who would ever think one could get burned doing that, right?
That's right; these are awards for the most outlandish lawsuits and verdicts in the U.S. You know, the kinds of cases that make you scratch your head. So keep your head scratcher handy. 

Here are the seven Stellas for this year:

*SEVENTH PLACE * 

Kathleen Robertson of Austin, Texas was awarded $80,000 by a jury of her peers after  breaking her ankle tripping over a toddler who was running inside a furniture store. The store owners were understandably surprised by the verdict, considering the running toddler was her own son. 
*SIXTH PLACE * 

Carl Truman, 19, of Los Angeles, California won $74,000 plus medical expenses when his neighbour ran over his hand with a Honda Accord. Truman apparently didn't notice there was someone at the wheel of the car when he was trying to steal his neighbour’s hubcaps. 

*FIFTH PLACE * 

Terrence Dickson, of Bristol, Pennsylvania, who was leaving a house he had just burglarized by way of the garage. Unfortunately for Dickson, the automatic garage door opener malfunctioned and he could not get the garage door to open. Worse, he couldn't re-enter the house because the door connecting the garage to the house locked when Dickson pulled it shut.  Forced to sit for eight, count 'em, EIGHT days and survive on a case of Pepsi and a large bag of dry dog food, he sued the homeowner's insurance company claiming undue mental anguish.  Amazingly, the jury said the insurance company must pay Dickson $500,000 for his anguish.  We should all have this kind of anguish.

There are more... 

*FOURTH PLACE * 

Jerry Williams, of Little Rock, Arkansas, garnered 4th Place in the Stella's when he  was   awarded $14,500 plus medical expenses after being bitten on the butt by his next door neighbour’s beagle - even though the beagle was on a chain in its owner's fenced yard. Williams did not get as much as he asked for [sigh] because the jury believed the beagle might have been provoked at the time of the butt bite because Williams had climbed over the fence into the yard and repeatedly shot the dog with a pellet gun.

*THIRD PLACE * 

Amber Carson of Lancaster, Pennsylvania because a jury ordered a Philadelphia restaurant to pay her $113,500after she slipped on a spilled soft drink and broke her tailbone. The reason the soft drink was on the floor: Ms. Carson had thrown it at her boyfriend 30 seconds earlier during an argument.  

*SECOND PLACE* 

Kara Walton, of Claymont, Delaware sued the owner of a night club in a nearby city because she fell from the bathroom window to the floor, knocking out her two front teeth. Even though Ms. Walton was trying to sneak through the ladies room window to avoid paying the $3.50 cover charge, the jury said the night club had to pay her $12,000....oh, yeah, plus dental expenses. Go figure. 

*FIRST PLACE * 

This year's runaway First Place Stella Award winner was: Mrs. Merv Grazinski, of Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, who purchased a new 32-foot Winnebago motor home.  On her first trip home, from an OU football game, having driven on to the freeway, she set the cruise control at 70 mph and calmly left the driver's seat to go to the back of the Winnebago to make herself a sandwich. Not surprisingly, the motor home left the freeway, crashed and overturned. Also not surprisingly, Mrs. Grazinski sued Winnebago for not putting in the owner's  manual that she couldn't actually leave the driver's seat while the cruise  control was set. The Oklahoma jury awarded her, are you sitting down? . . . $1,750,000.  PLUS a new motor home.  Winnebago actually changed their manuals as a result of this suit, just in case Mrs. Grazinski

has any relatives who might also buy a motor home.