Sue Hartigan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
A police officer in a small town stopped a motorist who was speeding
down
Main Street.
"But officer," the man began, "I can explain."
"Just be quiet," snapped the officer. "I'm going to let you cool your
heels in jail until the chief gets back."
"But, officer, I just wanted to say,"
"And I said to keep quiet! You're going to jail!" A few hours later
the
officer looked in on his prisoner and said, "Lucky for you that the
chief's at his daughter's wedding. He'll be in a good mood when he gets
back."
"Don't count on it," answered the fellow in the cell. "I'm the groom."
-------------
"Windows 95"
There was a knock on the door. It was the man from Microsoft.
"Not you again," I said.
"Sorry," he said, a little sheepishly. "I guess you know why I'm
here."
Indeed I did. Microsoft's $300 million campaign to promote the
Windows
95 operating system was meant to be universally effective, to
convince
every human being on the planet that Windows 95 was an essential,
some
would say integral, part of living. Problem was, not everyone had
bought it. Specifically, I hadn't bought it. I was the Last Human
Being Without Windows 95. And now this little man from Microsoft was
at my door, and he wouldn't take no for an answer.
"No," I said.
"You know I can't take that," he said, pulling out a copy of Windows
95 from a briefcase. "Come on. Just one copy. That's all we ask."
"Not interested." I said. "Look, isn't there someone else you can go
bother for a while? There's got to be someone else on the planet who
doesn't have a copy."
"Well, no," The Microsoft man said. "You're the only one."
"You can't be serious. Not everyone on the planet has a computer," I
said. "Hell, not everyone on the planet has a PC! Some people own
Macintoshes, which run their own operating system. And some people
who
have PCs run OS/2, though I hear that's just a rumor. In short, there
are some people who just have no use for Windows 95."
The Microsoft man look perplexed. "I'm missing your point," he said.
"Use!" I screamed. "Use! Use! Use! Why BUY it, if you can't USE it?"
"Well, I don't know anything about this 'use' thing you're going on
about," The Microsoft man said. "All I know is that according to our
records, everyone else on the planet has a copy."
"People without computers?"
"Got 'em."
"Amazonian Indians?"
"We had to get some malaria shots to go in, but yes."
"The Amish."
"Check."
"Oh, come on," I said. "They don't even wear BUTTONS. How did you get
them to buy a computer operating system?"
"We told them there were actually 95 very small windows in the box,"
the Microsoft man admitted. "We sort of lied. Which means we are all
going to Hell, every single employee of Microsoft." He was somber for
a minute, but then perked right up. "But that's not the point!" he
said. "The point is, EVERYONE has a copy. Except you."
"So what?" I said. "If everyone else jumped off a cliff, would you
expect me to do it, too?"
"If we spent $300 million advertising it? Absolutely."
"No."
"Jeez, back to that again," the Microsoft man said. "Hey. I'll tell
you what. I'll GIVE you a copy. For free. Just take it and install it
on your computer." He waved the box in front of me.
"No," I said again. "No offense, pal. But I don't need it. And
frankly, your whole advertising blitz has sort of offended me. I
mean,
it's a computer operating system! Great. Fine. Swell. Whatever. But
you guys are advertising it like it creates world peace or
something."
"It did."
"Pardon?"
"World peace. It was part of the original design. Really. One button
access. Click on it, poof, end to strife and hunger. Simple."
"So what happened?"
"Well, you know," he said. "It took up a lot of space on the hard
drive. We had to decide between it or the Microsoft Network. Anyway,
we couldn't figure out how to make a profit off of world peace."
"Go away," I said.
"I can't," he said. "I'll be killed if I fail."
"You have got to be kidding," I said.
"Look," the Microsoft man said, "We sold this to the AMISH. The
Amish!
Right now, they're opening the boxes and figuring out they've been
had. We'll be pitchforked if we ever step into Western Pennsyvania
again. But we did it. So to have YOU holding out, well, it's
embarassing. It's embarassing to the company. It's embarassing to the
product. It's embarassing to BILL."
"Bill Gates does not care about me," I said.
"He's watching right now," the Microsoft man said. "Borrowed one of
those military spy satellites just for the purpose. It's also got one
of those high-powered lasers. You close that door on me, zap, I'm a
pile of grey ash."
"He wouldn't do that," I said, "He might hit that copy of Windows 95
by accident."
"Oh, Bill's gotten pretty good with that laser," the Microsoft man
said, nervously.
"Okay. I wasn't supposed to do this, but you leave me no choice. If
you take this copy of Windows 95, we will reward you handsomely. In
fact, we'll give you your own Caribbean island! How does Montserrat
sound?"
"Terrible. There's an active volcano there."
"It's only a small one," the Microsoft man said.
"Look," I said, "even if you DID convince me to take that copy of
Windows 95, what would you do then? You'd have totally saturated the
market. That would be it. No new worlds to conquer. What would you do
then?"
The Microsoft man held up another box and gave it to me.
"'Windows 95....For Pets'?!?!?"
"There's a LOT of domestic animals out there," he said.
I shut the door quickly. There was a surprised yelp, the sound of a
laser, and then nothing.
-----------
Murphy's Household Laws
A child's eagerness to assist in any project varies in inverse
proportion to his ability to actually do the work involved
Leftovers always expand to fill all available containers plus one
A newly washed window gathers dirt at twice the speed of an unwashed
one
The availability of a ball-point pen is inversely proportional to how
badly it is needed
The same clutter that will fill a one-car garage will fill a two-car
garage
Three children plus two cookies equals a fight
The potential for disaster is in direct proportion to the number of TV
remote-controls divided by the number of viewers
The number of doors left open varies inversely with the outside
temperature
The capacity of any water-heater is equal to one and a half sibling
showers
What goes up must come down, except bubble gum and slightly used
cereal
------
Harry's Problem
Harry had a bit of a drinking problem.
Every night, after dinner, he took off for the local watering hole. He
spent the whole evening there, and arrived home, well inebriated,
around midnight each night.
He always had trouble getting his key into the keyhole, and getting
the door opened. His wife, waiting up for him, would go to the door
and let him in. Then she would proceed to yell and scream at him, for
his constant nights out, and coming home in a drunken state. But,
Harry continued his nightly routine.
One day, the wife was talking to a friend about her husband's
behavior, and was particularly distraught by it all.
The friend listened to her, and then said, "Why don't you treat him a
little differently when he comes home? Instead of berating him, why
don't you give him some loving words, and welcome him home with a
kiss? He then might change his ways."
The wife thought it was worth trying.
That night, Harry took off again, after dinner. And, about midnight,
he arrived home, in his usual condition. His wife heard him at the
door, quickly went to it, opened the door, and let Harry in.
This time, instead of berating him, as she had always done, she took
his arm, and led him into the living room. She sat him down in an easy
chair, put his feet up on the ottoman and took his shoes off. Then she
went behind him, and started to cuddle him a little. After a while,
she said to him, "It's pretty late. I think we had better go upstairs
to bed now, don't you?"
At that, Harry replied, in his inebriated state, "I guess we might as
well. I'll get in trouble when I get home anyway!"
--------
LANGUAGE
Here are definitions of language that are found among the over 5,000
definitions in Quinn's Devious Dictionary.
-----
AMBIGUITY, n. [1] the lack of clarity in speech -- or, perhaps,
something else; [2] the language of politics and statesmanship
DICTIONARY, n. [1] the only place where: (a) divorce comes before
marriage, and (b) success comes before work; [2] a malevolent literary
device for cramping the growth of language and making it hard and
inelastic. This dictionary, however, is a more useful work {Ambrose
Bierce - The Devil's Dictionary}
HUMOR, n. [1] a feat, after the invention of language, which is
man's proudest achievement
ITALIC, n. [1] the language spoken by ancient Italians
KANGAROO, n. [1] is actually "what did you say?" in the language of
the Australian natives. {Captain Cook's mistake}
KINDNESS, n. [1] a language that the dumb can speak and the deaf can
hear
LANGUAGE, n. [1] the most important form of intercourse practiced by
man -- next to sex; [2] a system which was developed to allow humanity
to complain without killing or maiming.
LINGUIST, n. [1] a talented fellow who has mastered the ability to
make mistakes in more than one language; [2] a person who can be
misunderstood in many languages
LOVE, n. [1] the most slippery word in the human language -- used by
knaves to seduce, by fools for comfort, and by most men to placate the
female of the species
OFFICIALESE, n. [1] a government language where you can understand
the words, but not the sentences
PHILOSOPHY, n. [1] a system of labeling and redefining our language to
allow us to rescue the absurd
POET(S) n. [1] an individual so in love with language who can, for the
sake of art, survive any hardship -- except a misprint
RIOT, n. [1] the language of the unheard
SLANDER, n. [1] to lie about someone -- or tell the truth
SLANG, n. [1] a language that takes off its coat, spits on its hands,
and goes to work; [2] the one stream of poetry which is continually
flowing outward
SLOGAN, n. [1] a good old American substitute for the facts; [2] our
modern commercial replacement for quality; [3] a politician's banner,
often changed, but always held high above the voters brains
SPECIALIST, n. [1] a learned person who can name a horse in nine
langu- ages and buys a cow to ride
YIDDISH, n. [1] a tongue that never takes its tongue out of its cheek;
[2] the rich traditional language of organized complaint
-----------
RESERVATIONS OF AN AIRLINE AGENT
(After Surviving 130,000 Calls From The Traveling Public)
By: Jonathan Lee -- The Washington Post
<Dedicated to all the people out there on the phones every day.>
I work in a central reservation office of an airline company. After
more than 130,000 conversations -- all ending with "Have a nice day
and thanks for calling" -- I think it's fair to say that I'm a
survivor.
I've made it through all the calls from adults who didn't know the
difference between a.m. and p.m., from mothers of military recruits
who didn't trust their little soldiers to get it right, from the woman
who called to get advice on how to handle her teenage daughter, from
the man who wanted to ride inside the kennel with his dog so he
wouldn't have to pay for a seat, from the woman who wanted to know why
she had to change clothes on our flight between Chicago and Washington
(she was told she'd have to make a change between the two cities) and
from the man who asked if I'd like to discuss the existential humanism
that emanates from the soul of Habeeb.
In five years, I've received more than a boot camp education regarding
the astonishing lack of awareness of our American citizenry. This
lack of awareness encompasses every region of the country, economic
status, ethnic background, and level of education. My battles have
included everything from a man not knowing how to spell the name of
the town he was from, to another not recognizing the name of "Iowa" as
being a state, to another who thought he had to apply for a foreign
passport to fly to West Virginia.
They are the enemy and they are everywhere. In the history of the
world there has never been as much communication and new things to
learn as today. Yet, after asking a woman from New York what city she
wanted to go to in Arizona, she asked "Oh...is it a big place?"
I talked to a woman in Denver who had never heard of Cincinnati, a man
in Minneapolis who didn't know there was more than one city in the
South ("wherever the South is"), a woman in Nashville who asked,
"Instead of paying for my ticket, can I just donate the money to the
National Cancer Society?", and a man in Dallas who tried to pay for
his ticket by sticking quarters in the pay phone he was calling from.
I knew a full invasion was on the way when, shortly after signing on,
a man asked if we flew to exit 35 on the New Jersey Turnpike. Then a
woman asked if we flew to area code 304. And I knew I had been
shipped off to the front when I was asked, "When an airplane comes in,
does that mean it's arriving or departing?" I remembered the strict
training we had received -- four weeks of regimented classes on
airline codes, computer technology, and telephone behavior -- and it
allowed for no means of retaliation. We were told, "it's real hell
out there and ya got no defense. You're going to hear things so silly
you can't even make 'em up. You'll try to explain things to your
friends that you don't even believe yourself, and just when you think
you've heard it all, someone will ask if they can get a free
round-trip ticket to Europe by reciting 'Mary Had a Little Lamb'."
It wasn't long before I suffered a direct hit from a woman who wanted
to fly to Hippopotamus, NY. After assuring her that there was no such
city, she became irate and said it was a big city with a big airport.
I asked if Hippopotamus was near Albany or Syracuse. It wasn't. Then
I asked if it was near Buffalo. "Buffalo!" she said. "I knew it was
a big animal!"
Then I crawled out of my bunker long enough to be confronted by a man
who tried to catch our flight in Maconga. I told him I'd never heard
of Maconga and we certainly didn't fly to it. But he insisted we did
and to prove it he showed me his ticket: Macon, GA.
I've done nothing during my conversational confrontations to indicate
that I couldn't understand English. But after quoting the round-trip
fare the passenger just asked for, he'll always ask: "...Is that
one-way?" I never understood why they always question if what I just
gave them is what they just asked for. But I've survived to direct
the lost, correct the wrong, comfort the weary, teach U.S. geography
and give tutoring in the spelling and pronunciation of American
cities. I have been told things like: "I can't go stand-by for your
flight because I'm in a wheelchair."
I've been asked such questions as: "I have a connecting flight to
Knoxville. Does that mean the plane sticks to something?" And once a
man wanted to go to Illinois. When I asked what city he wanted to go
to in Illinois, he said, "Cleveland, Ohio." After 130,000 little wars
of varying degrees, I'm a wise old veteran of the communication
conflict and can anticipate with accuracy what the next move by "them"
will be. Seventy-five percent won't have anything to write on. Half
will not have thought about when they're returning. A third won't
know where they're going; 10 percent won't care where they're going.
A few won't care if they get back. And James will be the first name
of half the men who call. But even if James doesn't care if he gets to
the city he never heard of; even if he thinks he has to change clothes
on our plane that may stick to something; even if he can't spell,
pronounce, or remember what city he's returning to, he'll get there
because I've worked very hard to make sure that he can. Then with a
click of the phone, he'll become a part of my past and I'll be hoping
the next caller at least knows what day it is. Oh, and James..."Thanks
for calling and have a nice day."
--
Two rules in life:
1. Don't tell people everything you know.
2.
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