Shortly after the 911 emergency number became available, an elderly and quite ill lady appeared in a Rochester hospital emergency room, having driven herself to the hospital and barely managing to stagger in from the parking lot. The horrified nurse said, 'Why didn't you call the 911 number and get an ambulance?' The lady said, 'My phone doesn't have an eleven.'
The "Environmental Engineering News" published some rather sobering information about punishment for drunk driving convictions in other countries.
- In Australia, the names of drunk drivers are printed in newspapers under the caption, "He's drunk and in jail."
- In Malaysia the driver is jailed and, if married, the spouse is jailed.
- In the United Kingdom, Finland and Sweden there's an automatic jail term of one year.
- In Turkey, drunk drivers are driven twenty miles out of town and forced to walk back ten miles.
- In Bulgaria, a second drunk-driving conviction results in capital punishment.
- In El Salvador, your first offense is your last -- execution by firing squad.
From the August Road & Track.
According to "The Australian," an airliner recently encountered severe vibration in flight.
The captain decided to make an emergency landing, and switched on the seat belt sign.
The vibration stopped immediately.
A passenger emerged from a lavatory and explained that he had been jogging in place inside.
This last weekend I was reminded at the pace we are converting to metric. I was on I-75 in Ohio when I saw a sign that said:
All signs metric
Next 20 miles
Phone Company Gives Something for Nothing
Dear Ann,
I think I can top the person who wrote complaining about the idiocy of the phone company. Talk about garbage in, garbage out!
When AT&T split with Bell, we had three phones in our house. The equipment belonged to Ma Bell and the service belonged to AT&T. After we returned all the phone equipment to Ma Bell, we received a bill for $0.00. A few weeks later, we received a check for $5 and a note thanking us. Several months later, we received another computerized bill for $0.00. We called again, got nowhere, so we sent another check for $0.00. A few weeks later we received another $5 refund with the same thank you.
This went on every three months for two years. Now we are down to once a year and have given up trying to straighten this out. We just cash the $5 and forget about it.
Linda K. R. in California
A normally sweet Great Dane Psil has one quirk: she hates United Parcel Service drivers.
While walk Psil one day, around the corner of a house came a UPS man.
Struggling to keep hold of Psil, the owner tried to ease the situation said:
- As you can see, he just loves UPS men.
- Don't you feed her anything else? - he responded.
Working at a theater box-office ticket window poses many challenges in dealing with people.
When a disgruntled customer at a window exclaimed:
- No Tickets? What do you mean NO TICKETS?
The women waiting on him smiled sweeting:
- I'm terribly sorry, sir - she replied.
- Which word didn't you understand?
A chauffeur worked for a woman who took her cat with her on rides. During one trip, the driver droped her at a mall before he gasing up. The cat remained in the car, laying down on the top of the limousine's back seat.
The service station's attendant often glanced at unusual passenger. Finally, he asked:
- Sir, is that cat someone important?
A solution to all of your drinking troubles
Symptom: Drinking fails to give satisfaction and taste; shirt front is wet.
Fault: Mouth not open or glass being applied to wrong part of face.
Solution: Buy another pint and practice in front of a mirror. Continue with as many pints as necessary until drinking technique is perfect.
Symptom: Drinking fails to give satisfaction and taste; beer unusually pale and clear.
Fault: Glass is empty.
Solution: Find someone who will buy you another pint.
Symptom: Feet cold and wet.
Fault: Glass being held at incorrect angle.
Solution: Turn glass so that open end is pointing at ceiling.
Symptom: Feet warm and wet.
Fault: Loss of self-control.
Solution: Go and stand beside nearest dog - After a while complain to its owner about its lack of house training.
Symptom: Bar blurred.
Fault: You are looking through the bottom of your empty glass.
Solution: Find someone who will buy you another pint.
Symptom: Bar swaying.
Fault: Air turbulence unusually high - maybe due to darts match in progress.
Solution: Insert broom handle down back of jacket.
Symptom: Bar moving.
Fault: You are being carried out.
Solution: Find out if you are being taken to another bar - if not complain loudly that you are being hi-jacked.
Symptom: The opposite wall is covered in ceiling tiles and has a fluorescent strip across it.
Fault: You have fallen over backwards.
Solution: If glass is still full, and no one is standing on your drinking arm, stay put. If not, get someone to lift you up and lash you to the bar.
Symptom: Everything has gone dim and you have a mouth full of teeth and dog-ends.
Fault: You have fallen over forwards.
Solution: Same as for falling over backwards.
Symptom: You have woken up to find your bed cold, hard and wet. You cannot see your bedroom walls or ceiling.
Fault: You have spent the night in the gutter.
Solution: Check your watch to see if its opening time - if not treat yourself to a lie in.
Symptom: Everything has gone dim.
Fault: The pub is closing.
Solution: Panic.
Alp: One of a number of ski mountains in Europe. Also a shouted request for assistance made by a European skier on a U.S. mountain. An appropriate reply: "What Zermatter?"
Avalanche: One of the few actual perils skiers face that needlessly frighten timid individuals away from the sport. See also: Blizzard, Fracture, Frostbite, Hypothermia, Lift Collapse.
Bindings: Automatic mechanisms that protect skiers from potentially serious injury during a fall by releasing skis from boots, sending the skis skittering across the slope where they trip two other skiers, and so on and on, eventually causing the entire slope to be protected from serious injury.
Bones: There are 206 in the human body. No need for dismay, however: TWO bones of the middle ear have never been broken in a skiing accident.
Cross-Country Skiing: Traditional Scandinavian all-terrain snow-travelling technique. It's good exercise. It doesn't require the purchase of costly lift tickets. It has no crowds or lines. It isn't skiing. See Cross-Country Something-Or-Other.
Cross-Country Something-or-Other: Touring on skis along trails in scenic wilderness, gliding through snow-hushed woods far from the hubbub of the ski slopes, hearing nothing but the whispery hiss of the skis slipping through snow and the muffled tinkle of car keys dropping into the puffy powder of a deep, wind-sculped drift.
Exercises: A few simple warm-ups to make sure you're prepared for the slopes:
- Tie a cinder block to each foot with old belts and climb a flight of stairs.
- Sit on the outside of a second-story window ledge with your skis on and your poles in your lap for 30 minutes.
- Bind your legs together at the ankles, lie flat on the floor; then, holding a banana in each hand, get to your feet.
Gloves: Designed to be tight enough around the wrist to restrict circulation, but not so closefitting as to allow any manual dexterity; they should also admit moisture from the outside without permitting any dampness within to escape.
Gravity: One of four fundamental forces in nature that affect skiers. The other three are the strong force, which makes bindings jam; the weak force, which makes ankles give way on turns; and electromagnetism, which produces dead batteries in expensive ski-resort parking lots. See Inertia.
Inertia: Tendency of a skier's body to resist changes in direction or speed due to the action of Newton's First Law of Motion. Goes along with these other physical laws:
- Two objects of greatly different mass falling side by side will have the same rate of descent, but the lighter one will have larger hospital bills.
- Matter can neither be created nor destroyed, but if it drops out of a parka pocket, don't expect to encounter it again in our universe.
- When an irrestible force meets an immovable object, an unethical lawyer will immediately appear.
Prejump: Manuever in which an expert skier makes a controlled jump just ahead of a bump. Beginners can execute a controlled prefall just before losing their balance and, if they wish, can precede it with a prescream and a few pregroans.
Shin: The bruised area on the front of the leg that runs from the point where the ache from the wrenched knee ends to where the soreness from the strained ankle begins.
Ski!: A shout to alert people ahead that a loose ski is coming down the hill. Another warning skiers should be familiar with is "Avalanche!" - which tells everyone that a hill is coming down the hill.
Skier: One who pays an arm and a leg for the opportunity to break them.
Stance: Your knees should be flexed, but shaking slightly; your arms straight and covered with a good layer of goose flesh; your hands forward, palms clammy, knuckles white and fingers icy, your eyes a little crossed and darting in all directions. Your lips should be quivering, and you should be mumbling, "Why?"
Thor: The Scandinavian god of acheth and painth.
Traverse: To ski across a slope at an angle; one of two quick and simple methods of reducing speed.
Tree: The other method.
