Laugh Yourself Healthy Read online

  “He was something, huh?”

  “He had a memory like a trap. He could remember everybody’s birthday, he knew which fork to eat with, and he could fix anything. Not like me. I change a fuse and black out the whole neighborhood.”

  “No wonder you remember him so well.”

  “Well, I never actually met Dave.”

  “Then how do you know so much about him?”

  “I married his widow.”

  Unappreciated

  One afternoon a man came home from work to find total mayhem in his house. His three children were outside, still in their pajamas, playing in the mud, with empty food boxes and wrappers strewn all around the front yard. The door of his wife’s car was open, as was the front door to the house.

  Proceeding into the entry, he found an even bigger mess. A lamp had been knocked over, and the throw rug was wadded against one wall. In the front room, the TV was loudly blaring a cartoon channel, and the family room was strewn with toys and various items of clothing.

  In the kitchen, dishes filled the sink, breakfast food was spilled on the counter, dog food was spilled on the floor, a broken glass lay under the table, and a small pile of sand was spread by the back door. He quickly headed up the stairs, stepping over toys and more piles of clothes, looking for his wife.

  He was worried that she might be ill or that something serious had happened. He found her lounging in the bedroom, still curled up in the bed in her pajamas, reading a novel.

  “What happened here today?” he asked. “Are you OK?”

  “Yes, I’m fine. You know, every day when you come home from work, you ask me what in the world I did all day. Well, today I didn’t do it.”

  You know you’re having a bad day when . . .

  You call your spouse and tell her that you’d like to eat out tonight, and when you get home, you find a sandwich on the front porch.

  FAMILY RELATIONS

  A man was taking his wife, who was pregnant with twins, to the hospital when his car went out of control and crashed.

  Upon regaining consciousness, he saw his brother, a relentless practical joker, sitting at his bedside.

  “Don’t worry,” his brother assured him, “your wife and son and daughter are fine. I just left them. But the hospital was in such a hurry with the birth certificates that I had to name them for you. I named the girl Denise.”

  Relieved, the man responded, “Thank you. That’s a pretty name. What did you name the boy?”

  “Denephew.”

  “I watched my wife’s routine at breakfast for years,” the expert explained. “She made lots of trips between the refrigerator, stove, table, and cabinets, often carrying a single item at a time. One day I told her, ‘Hon, why don’t you try carrying several things at once?’”

  “Did it save time?” the guy in the audience asked.

  “Actually, yes,” replied the expert. “It used to take her twenty minutes to make breakfast. Now I do it in seven.”

  Give a man a fish, and he will eat for a day. Teach a man to fish, and he will go out and buy expensive fishing equipment, stupid-looking clothes, a sports utility vehicle, travel a thousand miles to the “hottest” fishing hole, and stand waist deep in cold water just so he can outsmart a fish. (Average cost per fish: $395.68.)

  Hearing

  A man and his wife sat in their car after a quarrel. The man was so angry that he clammed up and refused to talk.

  His wife, however, sat in the back seat and continued to berate him for his faults. In her excitement, she pounded on the car door, and it flew open.

  Several blocks later, one of their neighbors flagged the man down.

  “Your wife fell out of the car back there,” he said.

  The man looked over at the back seat, turned to this neighbor, and said, “Thank goodness! I thought I had lost my hearing!”

  A guide, showing an old lady through the zoo, took her to a cage occupied by a kangaroo.

  “Here, madam,” he said rather pompously, “we have a native of Australia.”

  She replied, “And to think my sister married one of them.”

  Short ones

  After she woke up, a woman told her husband, “I just dreamed you gave me a pearl necklace for Valentine’s Day. What do you think it means?”

  “You’ll know tonight,” he said.

  That evening the husband came home with a small package and gave it to his wife. Delighted, she opened it—to find a book entitled The Meaning of Dreams.

  WIFE TO SLEEPY HUSBAND: Charlie, wake up. It’s garbage day!

  HUSBAND: Oh, honey, just tell him we don’t want any.

  Push?

  A loud pounding on the door awakened a man and his wife at 3:00 a.m. The man got up and went to the door to find a drunken stranger standing in the pouring rain. The drunken stranger asked for a push. “Not a chance,” answered the man. “It’s three o’clock in the morning!” And he slammed the door and returned to bed.

  After explaining the situation to his wife, she gently reminded him, “Don’t you remember when we broke down on our vacation, and those two guys helped us? I think you should go help this guy.”

  Begrudgingly, the husband dressed and went outside to help the stranger. “Hello, are you still here?” he called.

  “Yes,” came the answer.

  “Do you still need a push?”

  “Yes, thanks.”

  “Where are you?”

  “Over here—on the swing.”

  Experienced motherhood

  I have five siblings: three sisters and two brothers. One night I was chatting with my mom about how she had changed as a mother from the first child to the last. She told me she had mellowed a lot over the years.

  “When your oldest sister coughed or sneezed, I immediately called the ambulance,” she explained. “When your youngest brother swallowed a dime, I just told him it was coming out of his allowance.”

  THE SECRET OF A LONG MARRIAGE

  A couple was celebrating their golden wedding anniversary. Their domestic tranquility had long been the talk of the town. A local newspaper reporter was inquiring as to the secret of their long and happy marriage.

  “Well, it dates back to our honeymoon,” explained the husband. “We visited the Grand Canyon and took a trip down to the bottom of the canyon by pack mule. We hadn’t gone too far when my wife’s mule stumbled. My wife quietly said, ‘That’s once.’ We proceeded a little farther when the mule stumbled again. Once more, my wife quietly said, ‘That’s twice.’ We hadn’t gone half a mile when the mule stumbled a third time. My wife promptly removed a revolver from her purse and shot the mule dead. I started to protest her treatment of the mule when she looked at me and quietly said, ‘That’s once.’”

  three

  CHUCKLE WITH CHILDREN

  RAISING LITTLE ONES

  If it was going to be easy to raise kids, it never would have started with something called labor.

  Children finish proverbs

  • Strike while . . . the bug is close.

  • It’s always darkest before . . . Daylight Savings Time.

  • Never underestimate the power of . . . termites.

  • You can lead a horse to water . . . but why?

  • Don’t bite the hand that . . . looks dirty.

  • You can’t teach an old dog . . . new math.

  • The pen is mightier than . . . the pigs.

  • Where there’s smoke, there’s . . . pollution.

  • A penny saved is . . . not much.

  • Don’t put off till tomorrow what . . . you put on to go to bed.

  • If at first you don’t succeed . . . get new batteries.

  A group of children were in the schoolyard bragging about their fathers. The first boy said, “My dad scribbled a few words on a piece of paper, called it a poem, and they gave him $50.”

  The second boy said, “That’s nothing. My dad scribbled a few words on a piece of paper, called it a song, and they gave him $100.�
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  The third boy said, “I got you both beat. My dad scribbled a few words on a piece of paper, called it a sermon, and it took eight people to collect all the money!”

  Fourth graders complete

  Laugh and the world laughs with you. Cry, and . . . someone yells, “Shut up!”

  CHILDREN AND PRAYERS

  I had been teaching my three-year-old daughter, Caitlin, the Lord’s Prayer. For several evenings at bedtime, she would repeat after me the lines from the prayer.

  Finally, she decided to go solo. I listened with pride as she carefully enunciated each word, right up to the end of the prayer:

  “Lead us not into temptation,” she prayed, “but deliver us some e-mail. Amen.”

  A little boy was overheard praying, “Lord, if you can’t make me a better boy, don’t worry about it. I’m having a real good time like I am.”

  KIDS AND RELIGION

  A mother was preparing pancakes for her sons Kevin, age five, and Ryan, age three. The boys began to argue over who would get the first pancake. Their mother saw the opportunity for a moral lesson. “If Jesus were sitting here, He would say ‘Let my brother have the first pancake; I can wait.’”

  Kevin turned to his younger brother and said, “Ryan, you be Jesus!”

  Short story

  Little Johnny’s new baby brother was screaming up a storm.

  Johnny asked his mom, “Where’d we get him?”

  “He came from heaven, Johnny.”

  “Wow! I can see why they threw him out!”

  My grandson was visiting one day when he asked, “Grandma, do you know how you and God are alike?”

  I mentally polished my halo while I asked, “No, how are we alike?”

  “You’re both old,” he replied.

  School

  At the Henry Street Hebrew School, the rabbi finished the day’s lesson.

  It was then time for the usual question period. “Rabbi,” said little Walter, “there’s something I need to know.”

  “What’s that, my child?” asked the rabbi.

  “Well, according to the Scriptures, the children of Israel crossed the Red Sea. Right?”

  “Right.”

  “And the children of Israel beat up the Philistines. Right?”

  “Right.”

  “And the children of Israel built the temple. Right?”

  “Again, you are correct,” reassured the rabbi.

  “And the children of Israel fought the Egyptians, and the children of Israel fought the Romans, and the children of Israel were always doing something important. Right?”

  “Yes. What’s your question?”

  “What I need to know,” demanded Walter, “is where were all the grownups?”

  Helpful?

  A priest was walking down the street one day when he noticed a very small boy trying to press a doorbell on a house across the street. However, the boy was very small, and the doorbell was too high for him to reach.

  After watching the boy’s efforts for some time, the priest moved across the street and walked up behind the little fellow. Placing his hands kindly on the child’s shoulder, he leaned over and gave the doorbell a solid ring. Crouching down to the child’s level, the priest smiled benevolently and asked, “And now what, my little man?”

  To which the boy replied, “Now we run!”

  SCHOOL DAYS

  Listening to teacher

  A little kid started kindergarten. The teacher was trying to help the kids with their hygiene. “Remember, children, every day you must put on a clean pair of underwear.”

  The little kid took his teacher’s words to heart. But by Saturday he found it difficult to get his jeans on.

  Question

  In class, the teacher was trying desperately to get the students to think. He asked, “If the Pilgrims were alive today, what would they be most famous for?”

  One student quickly responded, “Their age.”

  Another silly question

  The teacher posed a question: “George Washington not only chopped down his father’s cherry tree, but he also admitted doing it. Now, do you know why his father didn’t punish him?”

  Quickly one of the students replied, “Because George still had the axe in his hand.”

  Kids’ answers to test questions

  • Name a major disease associated with cigarettes. Premature death.

  • What is a terminal illness? When you get sick at the airport.

  Help

  Little Johnny’s mother was called into the school one day by the principal. “We’re worried about little Johnny,” he said. “He goes around all day cluck, cluck, clucking.”

  “That’s right,” said little Johnny’s mother. “He thinks he’s a chicken.”

  “Haven’t you taken him to a psychiatrist?” asked the principal.

  Little Johnny’s mother replied, “Well, we would, but we really need the eggs.”

  Listening to kids

  When my granddaughter Ann was nine years old, she was given an assignment by her teacher to write a story on, “Where My Family Came From.” The purpose for the assignment was to help the kids understand genealogy.

  I was not aware of her assignment when she asked at the dining room table one night, “Grandma, where did I come from?”

  I responded quite nervously because my son and daughter-in-law were out of town. I tried to stall until they returned home, “Well, honey, I’ll tell you. The stork brought you.”

  “Where did Mom come from, then?”

  “The stork brought her too.”

  “OK, where did you come from?” continued my granddaughter.

  “The stork brought me too, dear.”

  “OK, thanks, Grandma,” she replied as the conversation turned to another topic.

  I did not think anything more about it until two days later when I was cleaning Ann’s room and read the first sentence of her paper: “For three generations there have been no natural births in our family.”

  Ain’t it the truth?

  Mrs. Applebee, the sixth-grade teacher, posed the following problem to one of her arithmetic classes: “A wealthy man died and left ten million dollars. One-fifth was to go to his wife, one-fifth to his son, one-fifth to his butler, and the rest to charity. Now, what does each get?”

  After a very long silence in the classroom, little Morris raised his hand.

  The teacher asked him for his answer.

  With complete sincerity in his voice, Morris answered, “A lawyer!”

  The teacher asked little Sammy to tell the class what his father did for a living. “Oh, he’s a magician. His best trick is sawing people in half.”

  “Wonderful!” said the teacher. “Are there other children in your family?”

  “Yes, ma’am. I have two half brothers.”

  They are watching

  The children were lined up in the cafeteria of a Catholic school for lunch. At the head of the long serving table was a large pile of apples. The nun made a sign, “Take only one. We are watching.”

  At the other end of the table was a large pile of chocolate chip cookies. One of the boys wrote a sign, “Take all you want. The nuns are watching the apples.”

  Brotherly love

  The teacher asked a young boy this test question: “What would you do if you saw two trains doing fifty miles per hour approaching each other on the same track?”

  The boy replied, “I would get a red lantern and wave it at them, warning them to stop.”

  “What if you had no lantern?”

  The boy replied, “Then I’d wave a red handkerchief.”

  “What if you didn’t have a red handkerchief?” asked the teacher.

  “Then I would go get my younger brother.”

  “Why in the world would you get your younger brother?” asked the teacher.

  “My younger brother,” responded the student, “has never seen a big train wreck.”

  Miss Jones had been giving her second-grade students a
lesson on science. She had explained about magnets and showed how they would pick up nails and other bits of iron. Now it was question time, and she asked, “My name begins with the letter m, and I pick up things. What am I?”

  The little boy on the front row said, “You’re a mother.”

  Kids vs. teachers

  TEACHER: George, go to the map and find North America.

  GEORGE: Here it is!

  TEACHER: Correct. Now, class, who discovered America?

  CLASS: George!

  KIDS AND ADULTS TOGETHER

  Sweet revenge

  When little Johnny opened up one of the holiday presents from his grandmother, he discovered a water pistol. He squealed with delight and headed for the sink.

  His mother was not so pleased. She turned to her mother and said, “I’m surprised at you. Don’t you remember how we kids used to drive you crazy with water guns?”

  Her mom smiled and then replied, “I remember quite distinctly.”

  A dinner party

  During a dinner party, the hosts’ two little children entered the dining room totally nude and walked slowly around the table. The parents were so embarrassed that they pretended nothing was happening and kept the conversation going. The guests cooperated and also continued as if nothing extraordinary was happening. After going all the way around the room, the children left. As they disappeared out of sight, there was a moment of silence at the table, during which one child was heard to say, “You see, it IS vanishing cream!”

  Guaranteed to roll your eyes

  A tourist on his way to Tuscaloosa came to a fork in the road and stopped. There was no sign indicating which route went where. Spotting a young boy by the road, he yelled out, “Hey! Kid! Does it matter which road I take to get to Tuscaloosa?”

  “Not to me it doesn’t,” quickly replied the boy.

  MOTHERS

  Mom’s definition: The speed of light is 186,000 miles per second, or the distance a baby can crawl when you turn your back.

  More common sense

  A man driving through the countryside passed a young boy walking along wearing only one shoe.