R. Loeffelbein's WHATCHAMA COLUMN: "Smile Awhile: Best Jokes I've Heard This Week"

     The best jokes I've heard this week are not all new, but don't stop me telling them because I want to hear those recycled ones again myself anyway. As you readers know by now, I love surprise endings.

1) There was a papa mole, a mama mole and a baby mole living in a hole in the country near a farmhouse. One morning papa mole poked his head out of the hole, sniffed and said, "Mama, I smell sausages."
     So mama mole poked her head out of the hole, sniffed and said, "Mmmm, and I smell pancakes too."
     So baby mole tried to stick his head out of the hole to sniff, but he couldn't because papa and mama moles were blocking the whole hole. And he complained, "The only thing I can small is molasses!"


2) The little girl asked her mother for a dollar to give the old lady she had seen in the park. Her mother was touched that her child was kind enough to want to share. So she gave the child the dollar.
     "There you are, darling," said mama. "But isn't the lady able to work any more?"
     "Oh, yes," the girl replied, "She sells candy."

3) Jerry met the pastor at the church door after services. "You know, Reverend, I'm in a quandary. I want to attend church next Sunday, but I just can't miss the big game. You understand, don't you?"           "But, Jerry," the pastor remonstrated, "don't you know that's what DVRs are for?"
    A big smile lit up Jerry's face. "You mean I can record your sermon?"

4)  My neighbor was talking to her four-year old daughter, Amy, about a group of relatives from Wisconsin, who were going to visit them. Amy, remembering a previous visit,  complained about their accent, saying she couldn't understand them, that they talked as though their noses were plugged up.
     "Well, they think we talk funny, that we have an accent too," answered her mother. "Everyone from different places talk in different ways. They think we talk funny, too, that we talk very slow with all our words drawn way out."
     Amy's eyes got big and she said she understood. "You mean they hear funny too?"

5) A flight attendant, during a cross-country flight about 50 minutes outbound from Los Angeles, nervously announced, "I don't know how this happened, but we have 103 passengers aboard today and only 40 dinners to serve."
     When the passengers' muttering had died down enough for her to continue, she added, "Anyone who is kind enough to give up his or her meal for someone else will receive free drinks for the length of the flight."
     An hour later she made another announcement. "If anyone wants to change their mind, we still have 29 dinners available!"

6) As happens eventually in all families, the small boy was asking his father how people came to be. After a pause to gather his lines,the dad said,"There was Adam and Eve to begin with, and they had babies, and their children grew up and had babies, just like today."
     That didn't jibe with what a neighbor boy had told him, so he went to his mother and asked the same question.
     "We were all monkeys,"mom said and we evolved to become the humans we are today."
     Still questing, the boy returned to his father and complained, "You lied to me. Mom said we were from monkeys, not Adam and Eve."
     Yes,"tiredly explained dad, "but your mother was talking about her side of the family."









  

R. Loeffelbein's DOG BLOG: "Dog Persons' Thoughts"

     "A dog is not a person's whole life, but a dog makes a person's life whole." That's a quote I picked up by Roger Caras that I think does man's best friend justice.

A dog is the only thing on earth that loves you more than it loves itself. --Josh Billings

Another quoted truism by a dog person, Ben Williams, is "There is no psychiatrist in the world like a puppy licking your face." I know that first-hand.

A dog also, of course, teaches a boy, according to humorist Robert Benchley, fidelity, perseverance, and to turn around three times before lying down.

Sue Murphy adds: "Have you ever walked into a room and forgotten why you walked in? I think that's how dogs spend their lives."

An unnamed writer in a Saturday Evening Post (July/August 2006) piece titled "It's A Dog's World," that came into my hands recently when my local library was cleaning out shelf space, had an epiphany I think quoting various celebrities presenting interesting thoughts about their dogs.

Let's lead off with Holbrook Jackson's over-the-top, "Man is a dog's idea of what God should be."

Ann Landers, in her column, once expressed a different opinion: "Don't accept your dogs' admiration as conclusive evidence  that you are wonderful."

"I've seen a look in dogs' eyes, a quickly vanishing look of amused contempt, and I am convinced  that basically dogs think humans are nuts." --John Steinbeck

Dereke Bruce: "In order to keep a true perspective of one's importance, everyone should have a dog that will worship him and a cat that will ignore him."

Ann Tyler: Ever consider what they think of us? I mean, here we come back from a grocery store with the most amazing haul: chicken, pork, half a cow. They must think we are the greatest hunters on earth."

Christopher Morley: "No one appreciates the very special genius of your conversation as the dog does."

That's refuted by comedienne Fran Lebouvitz with this: "No animal should ever jump up onto the living room furniture unless absolutely certain that he can hold his own in the conversation."

Humor writer Dave Barry: "You can say any foolish thing to a dog and the dog will give you a look that says, 'Wow, you're right. I never would have thought of that.'"

(Barry is also the one who has said, "Dogs feel very strongly that they should always go with you in the car, in case the need should arise for them to bark violently at nothing right in your ear.")

My dog barks regularly when sighting the poodle down the street. Rita Rudner has a thought on such occurrence: "Maybe he thinks poodles are members of a weird religious cult."

My father when I was 14; "If your dog is fat, you aren't getting enough exercise."

Me, also at 14: "Anyone who doesn't know what soap tastes like has never washed a dog. And, if you think dogs can't count, try putting  three dog biscuits in your pocket and then give him only two of them."

"Heaven goes by favor. If it went by merit, you would stay out and your dog would go in." --Mark Twain

    

James Thurber: "If I have any beliefs about immortality, it is that certain dogs I have known will go to Heaven and very, very few persons."