Leaving October

I thought I would leave October with a few funny stories.

On the lighter side of life!  

A doctor that had been seeing an 80-year-old woman for most of her life finally retired.  At her next checkup, the new doctor told her to bring a list of all the medicines that had been prescribed for her.  As the doctor was looking through these his
eyes grew wide as he realized Grandma had a prescription for birth control pills.
“Mrs. Smith, do you realize these are birth control pills?”
“Yes, they help me sleep at night.”
“Mrs. Smith, I assure you there is absolutely nothing in these that could possibly help you sleep!”
She reached out and patted the young doctor’s knee and said, “Yes, dear, I know that.  But every morning, I grind one up and mix it in the glass of orange juice that my 16-year-old Granddaughter drinks.  And believe me it definitely helps me sleep at night.”
You gotta love Grandmas!
 

 A man was riding on a full bus minding his own business when the gorgeous woman next to him started to breast-feed her baby.  The baby wouldn’t take it so she said, “Come on sweetie, eat it all up or I’ll have to give it to this nice man next to us.” 
Five minutes later the baby was still not feeding, so she said, “Come on, honey.  Take it or I’ll give it to this nice man here.”  A few minutes later the anxious man blurted out, “Come on kid.  Make up your mind!  I was supposed to get off four stops ago!” 

 Students in an advanced Biology class were taking their mid-term exam.  The last question was, ‘Name seven advantages of Mother’s Milk.’  The question was worth 70 points or none at all.  One student was hard put to think of seven advantages.  He wrote:
1) It is perfect formula for the child.
2) It provides immunity against several diseases.
3) It is always the right temperature.
4) It is inexpensive.
5) It bonds the child to mother and vice versa.
6) It is always available as needed
And then the student was stuck.  Finally, in desperation, just before the bell rang indicating the end of the test he wrote:
7) It comes in two attractive containers and it’s high enough off the ground where the cat can’t get it.
He got an A+.
  

A woman and her 12-year-old son were riding in a taxi in Detroit.  It was raining and all the prostitutes were standing under awnings.
“Mom,” said the boy, “what are all those women doing?”
“They’re waiting for their husbands to get off work,” she replied
The taxi driver turns around and says, “Geez lady, why don’t you tell him the truth?  They’re hookers, boy!  They have sex with men for money.”
The little boy’s eyes get wide and he says, “Is that true Mom?”
His mother, glaring hard at the driver, answers “Yes.”
After a few minutes the kid asks, “Mom, if those women have babies, what happens to them?”
She said, “Most of them become taxi drivers.”
  

An elderly, but hardy cattleman from Texas once told a young female neighbor that if she wanted to live a long life, the secret was to sprinkle a pinch of gunpowder on her oatmeal each morning.  She did this religiously and lived to the ripe old age of 103.  She left behind 14 children, 30 grandchildren, 21 great-grandchildren, five great-great-grandchildren and a 40-foot HOLE where the crematorium used to be.

Enjoy the dark days of November!

Ghosts???

Last night I was awakened at 3:30 a.m. by my lovely wife. “Joe there is a clicking noise I hear and it is keeping me awake.” It took me several minutes to wake up and realize this was not a dream. Then as soon as I stood up at the side of the bed I needed to pee. I finally joined her wide awake to seek out the troubling noise. Before I began, however, I installed my hearing aids. I could have faked the whole search by keeping them hidden in the charger, but I would have felt guilty about it all day.

I quietly walked around the house looking for sources of possible noise. Is the refrigerator door open? No, is it the smoke detector? No, is it outside? Open the door and listen while feeling the cold breeze chill me, no. Room by room we traipsed listening for a noise. I heard nothing even with the aides turned up, Irena heard a faint sound coming from the second bedroom. I picked up the clock, nothing, I opened the window, nothing, I sat on the edge of the bed and listened calmly for a few seconds, nothing. After searching every room this way it was time to head into the basement. Again, I searched every source of possible noise, furnace, water softener, water meter, toilet pump, sump pump, back-up sump pump, nothing.

It was time to tell my story of being awakened several times by a horn that went off in my head in the middle of the night. Each time it happened at the same hour. I walked the house looking for the source of noise. In my case the sound was a dead ringer for the sump-pump backup horn. It is a battery operated pump and when it triggers it also sounds an alarm that sounds much like a siren. Each time I investigated for that noise but the house was silent, but I kept hearing it in my head. Another time, it sounded like water running through a pipe. That time, I actually went outside in the dead of night to see if I left the water running into the pond.

After that incident it occurred to me to put my fingers into my ears and to block out all external noise. The siren kept sounding in my head, and I concluded it was the tinnitus. I have experienced tinnitus, or continuous ringing in my ears for forty years, and I hear it now as I write this. I have become accustomed to the noise and forget about it, but I believe my brain is inventing a new way to get my attention. Most likely a similar thing is happening inside Irena’s head. Or, maybe, she heard Halloween ghosts creeping around the house.

We both calmed down after the fifteen minute shakedown of the house, and went back to sleep.

211031-Book Report

I don’t always write book reports, but today I feel that I must. I just finished John Grisham’s novel titled “Sooley.” It has been one of the most enjoyable reads of the year. Grisham does such a good job on this one I kept thinking it was a true story, and a biography at that. Sooley is a fictitious basketball player from Sudan, Africa. In the beginning he is a simple high school kid that is six foot two and growing. He lives a happy life with his father, mother and three siblings. He is noticed by a fellow Sudanese basketball scout and convinced to join a special team headed to a special tournament in the U.S.A. He is pushed by his family to go for it. Then the real story begins. This is a feel good story with a surprise ending that turns into more good feelings. I recommend all to read it.

I thought Grisham was over doing it by describing too many basketball games, but it was necessary to tell the story of a developing player who very much reminded me of Michael Jordan. I’m almost positive that Grisham used Jordan as the model for his character.

I couldn’t tell what the scout Ecko Lam saw in Sooley, but he believed in the kid’s potential and pushed hard to get him a break. It wasn’t long before the seventeen year old kid from a mud floored hut in Sudan was in an airplane on his way to America. The story will keep you reading to the very last sentence.