| An elderly Jewish man is bumped by a car while crossing the street. He is seemingly unhurt, but his wife persuades him to go to the doctor, just in case. He returns home, and his wife says, "Nu, vos zogt der doktor?" (What did the doctor say?) "Der doktor zogt az ich hob a flucky." ("The doctor says I have a flucky.") "Oy, gevalt! A flucky! Terrible! What do you do for a flucky?" "I don't know--he didn't say, and I forgot to ask." Well, by this time the wife is in a state of high anxiety. She tells her neighbors "My husband was hit by a car, and now he has a flucky! I don't know what to do!" Neighbor #1 says, "In the old country, when someone had a flucky, we always applied cold. Ice cold is the best thing for a flucky." Neighbor #2 says, "What are you talking about? Cold is absolutely the worst thing you could do for a flucky! We always applied heat, that's the only thing to do for a flucky." Cold, heat, oy! Now thoroughly agitated, the wife decides to call the doctor herself. "Doctor, please tell me, what's wrong with my husband?" "I told him...nothing's wrong. He got off lucky." |
| Long ago, when sailing ships ruled the waves, a captain and his crew were in danger of being boarded by a pirate ship. As the crew became frantic, the captain bellowed to his First Mate, "Bring me my red shirt!" The First Mate quickly retrieved the captain's red shirt, which the captain put on and led the crew to successfully battle the pirate boarding party. Later, the lookout screamed that there were two pirate vessels sending boarding parties. The crew cowered in fear, but the captain, calm as ever bellowed, "Bring me my red shirt!" And once again the battle was on. This time they repelled both boarding parties. That night, the men sat around on deck celebrating the day's victories. An ensign asked the Captain, "Sir, why do you call for your red shirt before battle?" "Ensign, if I were wounded in battle, the red shirt would hide the blood and my men will continue the fight, unafraid." The men sat in silence marveling at the courage of such a Captain. As dawn broke, the lookout screamed there were ten pirate ships, all with boarding parties on their way. The men fell silent and looked to the Captain. The Captain, always calm, ordered, "Bring me my brown trousers!" |
| In a terrible accident at a railroad crossing, a train smashed into a car and pushed it nearly four hundred yards down the track. Though no one was killed, the driver took the train company to court. At the trial, the engineer insisted that he had given the driver ample warning by waving his lantern back and forth for nearly a minute. He even stood and convincingly demonstrated how he'd done it. The court believed his story, and the suit was dismissed. "Congratulations," the lawyer said to the engineer when it was over. "You did superbly under cross-examination." "Thanks," he said, "but he sure had me worried." "How's that?" the lawyer asked. "I was afraid he was going to ask if the damned lantern was lit!" |
| IT'S OFFICIAL - CHEMISTRY LECTURES ARE A YAWN. October 9, 1995 A scientist has come up with proof of something students have known for years -- chemistry lectures are boring. In an article published in the current issue of Chemistry in Britain, a university chemistry lecturer introduced a guest lecturer to a class of 50 doctoral candidates. Then, he and his colleagues studied variations in what he calls the HTFDR -- "head-to-floor distance reduction." After about an hour, the average HTFDR dropped from 135cm to 121cm, said the author of the study, who preferred to remain anonymous. The HTFDR immediately bounced back to normal when the speaker uttered the magic words: "And in conclusion..." |