Laughter Is the Best Medicine Read online

  —RICHARD N. HARBERT

  Did you hear about the Pepsi exec who got fired?

  He tested positive for Coke.

  PHILLIP REGULINSKI

  When my boss returned to the office, he was told that everyone had been looking for him. That set him off on a speech about how indispensable he was to the company.

  “Actually,” interrupted his assistant, “you left with the key to the stationery closet.”

  —ALEC KAY

  When my printer’s type began to grow faint, I called a local repair shop where a friendly man informed me that the printer probably needed only to be cleaned. Because the store charged $50 for such cleanings, he told me, I might be better off reading the printer’s manual and trying the job myself.

  Pleasantly surprised by his candor, I asked, “Does your boss know that you discourage business?”

  “Actually it’s my boss’s idea,” the employee replied sheepishly. “We usually make more money on repairs if we let people try to fix things themselves first.”

  —MICHELLE R. ST. JAMES

  Many employers motivate workers with bonuses. Some offer gym memberships. A few even supply day care for their working mothers and fathers. Our bosses go a step further. A sign posted in our break room read: “New Incentive Plan…Work or Get Fired!”

  —SUSAN RHEA

  My boss’s tantrum climaxed with him falling out of his chair and hitting the floor. I rushed to his office, but was halted by his secretary. “If he’s hurt,” she said, “he’ll call me in. If he isn’t, he won’t forgive you for finding him on the floor, and you’ll be fired. If he’s dead, what’s your hurry?”

  —BECQUET.COM

  “We’ll take a short break in case anyone needs to change their underwear.”

  Management always needs to have the last word. Case in point: During a meeting at our financial consulting firm, a coworker was asked to guesstimate a realistic closing rate for the larger cases we were handling. “I’d have to say 20 percent,” he answered. “No, no, no,” interrupted my boss. “It’s more like one in five.”

  —DAVID ARMSTRONG

  “Do you believe in life after death?” the boss asked one of his younger employees.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Well, then, that makes everything just fine,” the boss went on. “about an hour after you left yesterday to go to your grandfather’s funeral, he stopped in to see you.”

  —DOROTHEA KENT

  Law and Order

  I am a prosecuting attorney in a small Mississippi town and will admit to having a few extra pounds on me. Not long ago, I was questioning a witness in an armed robbery case. I asked, “Would you describe the person you saw?”

  The witness replied, “He was kind of short and stout.”

  “You mean short and stout like me?” I asked.

  “Oh, no,” the witness said. “He wasn’t that fat.”

  —WILLIAM E. GOODWIN

  When I worked in the law library of the South Carolina attorney general’s office, one of my duties was to handle subscriptions to various law journals. I usually printed the material carefully because I had a habit of crossing double t’s so close to each other that they resembled an H.

  On a particularly busy day, however, I filled out a subscription renewal form too quickly and mailed it in. A few weeks later, as I was sorting the mail, I came across the renewed publication, now addressed to “A Horney General’s Office.”

  —RHONDA H. MCCRAY

  I’m a police officer and occasionally park my cruiser in residential areas to watch for speeders. One Sunday morning I was staked out in a driveway, when I saw a large dog trot up to my car. He stopped and sat just out of arm’s reach. No matter how much I tried to coax him to come for a pat on the head, he refused to budge.

  After a while I decided to move to another location. I pulled out of the driveway, looked back and learned the reason for the dog’s stubbornness. He quickly picked up the newspaper I had been parked on and dutifully ran back to his master.

  —JEFF WALL

  “But boss, when you said to apply for a bailout, I thought you meant for the company.”

  Two lawyers walked into the office one Monday morning talking about their weekends. “I got a dog for my kids this weekend,” said one.

  The other attorney replied, “Good trade.”

  —CHARLES M. NELMS

  Our four-month-old son accompanied my wife and me to our attorney’s office to sign some papers because we couldn’t get a sitter. Unfortunately, it took longer to transact our business than we planned, and eventually the baby was screaming at the top of his lungs.

  “Maybe we should close the door,” my wife suggested, “so this noise won’t bother your colleagues.”

  “Don’t worry,” our lawyer said. “They’ll just think another client has received our bill.”

  —NARAYAN KULKARNI

  My uncle testified at the trial of an organized-crime boss and then begged to be put into the witness-protection program. Instead, the FBI got him a job as a salesclerk at Kmart. It’s been six months and no one’s been able to find him.

  —JAY TRACHMAN

  I was eager to perform well in my new job as a receptionist at a law firm. One day a lawyer asked me to type up a letter that would be sent to the creditors of a man who had recently passed away. I was mortified, therefore, when soon after turning in the letter, I heard howling laughter from my boss’s office. The beginning of the letter read, “To all known predators.”

  —JOANNA B. PARSONS

  I was in juvenile court, prosecuting a teen suspected of burglary, when the judge asked everyone to stand and state his or her name and role for the court reporter.

  “Leah Rauch, deputy prosecutor,” I said.

  “Linda Jones, probation officer.”

  “Sam Clark, public defender.”

  “John,” said the teen who was on trial. “I’m the one who stole the truck.”

  —LEAH RAUCH

  In my job as a legal secretary, I often review documents that list the allegations and responses from the defendant such as “admitted,” “denied” or “have no knowledge or information to answer.” One day my boss received a response from a defendant who apparently did not have the benefit of counsel. His written reply to the allegations? “Did not!”

  —SHARON A. PETERSON

  After making numerous calls to 911, a Lundar, Canada, man was warned that the next one would land him in jail. That prompted him to give his real reason for calling: “If you’re coming to get me,” he told the dispatcher, “can you bring me some smokes.

  —WINNIPEG FREE PRESS

  My son, a West Virginia state trooper, stopped a woman for going 15 miles over the speed limit. After he handed her a ticket, she asked him, “Don’t you give out warnings?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” he replied. “They’re all up and down the road. They say, ‘Speed Limit 55.’”

  —PATRICIA GREENLEE

  “My car has been tipped over and rammed repeatedly.

  You don’t know anything about this do you, Carl?”

  I’m a deputy sheriff and was parked near a motel, running radar checks, when a man approached my vehicle and asked for help. He complained that the volume on the television in the empty motel room next to his was so loud that he and his wife couldn’t sleep. No one was in the motel office.

  The man’s wife was outside when I reached their door. That’s when I got my idea. I asked her for their remote control, aimed it through the window of the empty room, and turned off the blaring TV.

  —RAY ALLEN

  I was working the graveyard shift as a rookie police officer one night when my partner and I made a routine check at a high school that had suffered a recent rash of vandalism. Right away I noticed a window was open, so we climbed in to investigate.

  We tried to be quiet as we made our way across the room in the dark, but our feet were sticking to the floor and making a squishy noise with every step. Finally w
hen we got to the doorway, I flicked on the light. Looking back, I could easily make out our footprints on the freshly painted concrete floor. The window was open for ventilation, not vandalism.

  —JEFFREY A. MOORE

  As a state trooper, I drive a motor home to various weigh stations. It serves as our office on wheels while we conduct truck inspections. When the motor home is in reverse, it makes a repetitive beeping noise. One quiet morning I backed the unit out of its carport and stopped alongside my regular patrol car to retrieve something. As I walked toward the car, I heard the familiar beeping sound. My heart stopped as I turned, expecting to see the $80,000 vehicle backing itself down the driveway.

  To my relief, the motor home was not moving. But at the top of a nearby tree sat a mockingbird perfectly mimicking the beep.

  —JON LINDLEY

  I glanced out my office window and saw that police had surrounded the motel across the road. A SWAT team had been dispatched, and people in the restaurant next door were being evacuated.

  We soon learned that two armed suspects were holed up in the motel. I phoned my husband at work and described the unfolding drama. When I finished, my husband asked, “Did you call for anything special or just to chat?”

  —VIVIAN J. HARTER

  During an anti-harassment seminar at work, I asked, “What’s the difference between harassment and good-natured teasing?”

  A coworker shouted, “A million dollars.”

  —MARK STEPHENSON

  I picked up the phone one day in the law office where I worked, and the caller asked to speak with an attorney. I didn’t recognize the voice, so I asked his name. He gave it to me, saying our office had just served him with divorce papers.

  I couldn’t place his name right away because this was a new case. Eager to talk, he blurted out, “I’m the despondent!”

  —CAROLINE NIED

  The mine operator called the nearby state prison and asked them to send over a safecracker to open his jammed safe. Soon, a convict and a prison guard showed up at the office. The inmate spun the dials, listened intently and calmly opened the safe door. “What do you figure I owe you?” asked the mine operator.

  “Well,” said the prisoner, “the last time I opened a safe, I got $25,000.”

  The sheriff’s office in Alamance County, North Carolina, tried everything to stop people from using fake IDs to get a driver’s license, but to no avail. Fed up, wrote the News & Record (Greensboro, North Carolina), one industrious sheriff’s deputy concocted an ingenious plan, never before tried. He marched into the DMV waiting room and asked that everyone “with false IDs please step forward.”

  Six did.

  —KATH YOUNG

  I answered a 911 call at our emergency dispatch center from a woman who said her water broke.

  “Stay calm,” I advised. “Now, how far apart are your contractions?”

  “No contractions,” she said breathlessly. “But my basement is flooding fast.”

  —PAT HINTZ

  When I stopped by his office, our company’s security chief was laboring over a memo he was writing announcing a class about the proper use of cayenne pepper spray for personal self-defense.

  “I need a good title,” he said. “Something catchy that will get people’s attention so they’ll want to come.”

  I pondered for a moment and then said, “How about ‘Assault and Pepper’?”

  —BOB MCFADDEN

  My mother is on staff at the Department of Motor Vehicles, and one day a close friend of hers came in to apply for a driver’s license. While entering the information into a computer, my mom noticed the woman had given 150 pounds as her weight.

  Knowing she weighed considerably more, my mom commented, “You’re putting down your weight as 150?”

  “If a policeman pulls me over,” her friend said with a grin, “that’s the part of me he’ll see.”

  —GINA BREMMER

  When a Middletown, New Jersey, police officer retired, he cited low morale. But he didn’t leave quietly. While walking the beat on his last day, he wrote 14 tickets for expired inspection stickers…all to police patrol cars.

  —ASSOCIATED PRESS

  Early in my career as a judge, I conducted hearings for those involuntarily committed to our state psychiatric hospital. On my first day, I asked a man at the door of the hospital, “Can you tell me where the courtroom is?”

  “Why?” he asked.

  “I’m the judge.”

  Pointing to the building, he whispered, “Don’t tell them that. They’ll never let you out.”

  —CHRISTOPHER DIETZ

  My wife was raised in Sweden, yet speaks English without an accent. She does, however, sometimes confuse her idioms.

  One day a man entered the law office where she works as a secretary. Using a Swedish phrase, but not quite translating it right, she asked, “May I help you take your clothes off?”

  Startled by her remark, the man stepped back. Realizing what she had said and trying to put him at ease, she added, “It’s okay, really. I’m Swedish.”

  —ROBERT E. ALEXANDER

  When I worked for the security department of a large retail store, my duties included responding to fire and burglar alarms. A side door of the building was wired with a security alarm, because it was not supposed to be used by customers. Nevertheless they found the convenience of the exit tempting. Even a sign with large red letters warning “Alarm will sound if opened,” failed to keep people from using it.

  One day, after attending to a number of shrieking alarms, I placed a small handmade sign on the door that totally eliminated the problem: “Wet Paint.”

  —L. J. HINES-JOHNSON

  The woman in front of me at the motor vehicles office was taking the eye test, first with her glasses on, then off. “Here’s your license,” the examiner said when she was done. “But there’s a restriction. You need to wear glasses to drive your car.”

  “Honey,” the woman declared, “I need them to find my car.”

  —NICOLE HAAKE

  “Fine print doesn’t work anymore— the reader can just change the font size.”

  Executive behind desk to prospective employee: “It’s always cozy in here. We’re insulated by layers of bureaucracy.”

  —COTHAM IN THE NEW YORKER

  Chris was sent to prison, and the warden made arrangements for him to learn a trade. In no time, Chris became known as one of the best carpenters in the area, and often got passes to do woodworking jobs for people in town.

  When the warden started remodeling his kitchen, he called Chris into his office and asked him to build and install the cabinets and countertops. Chris refused.

  “Gosh, I’d really like to help you,” he said, “but counterfitting is what got me into prison in the first place.”

  An investment banker decides she needs in-house counsel, so she interviews a young lawyer.

  “Mr. Peterson,” she says. “Would you say you’re honest?”

  “Honest?” replies Peterson. “Let me tell you something about honesty. My father lent me $85,000 for my education, and I paid back every penny the minute I tried my first case.”

  “Impressive. And what sort of case was that?”

  “Dad sued me for the money.”

  —DEE HUDSON

  While working as a corrections officer at a maximum–security prison, I was assigned to the guest area one day to monitor the inmates and their visitors.

  I received a call from the reception desk, and was told there was a cab out front, probably waiting for one of the visitors.

  Sticking my head into the room, I announced, “Did anyone call for a cab?”

  About 40 inmates immediately raised their hands.

  —JANET E. HUMPHREY

  The fist knocking on the door belonged to a cop. Bracing for the worst, my husband, who was working on a job site, opened up.

  “Is that yours?” asked the officer, pointing to a company van that was jutting out into the narrow street
.

  “Uhh, yes, it is,” said my husband.

  “Would you mind moving it?” asked the officer. “We’ve set up a speed trap and the van’s causing everyone to slow down.”

  —JUNE STILL

  I am a deputy sheriff assigned to courthouse security. As part of my job, I explain court procedures to visitors. One day I was showing a group of ninth graders around. Court was in recess and only the clerk and a young man in custody wearing handcuffs were in the courtroom.

  “This is where the judge sits,” I began, pointing to the bench. “The lawyers sit at these tables. The court clerk sits over there. The court recorder, or stenographer, sits over here. Near the judge is the witness stand and over there is where the jury sits.

  “As you can see,” I finished, “there are a lot of people involved in making this system work.”

  At that point, the prisoner raised his cuffed hands and said, “Yeah, but I’m the one who makes it all happen.”

  —MICHAEL MCPHERSON

  Our community still has teenage curfew laws. One night I was listening to my scanner when the police dispatcher said, “We have a report of a 14-year-old male out after curfew. The subject, wearing jeans and a gray sweatshirt, is six-foot-four and weighs 265 pounds.” After a long pause, one of the patrols replied, “As far as I’m concerned, he can go anywhere he wants.”

  —JAMES VAN HORN

  Hired by a bank as a personal trainer, I was supposed to make fitness a part of the workday routine. During one session, I told my students to lean against the bank lobby’s walls and instructed them on how to stretch their hamstrings. A short time later I was shocked when several policemen stormed through the doors. A passerby had seen the people facing the wall and assumed I was robbing the bank.