Situations — best jokes

Hunter Shot to Death By a Fox, Belgrade, Associated Press

A fox shot and killed a 38-year-old hunter in central Yugoslavia, the official Yugoslav news agency Tanjug reported yesterday.

Salih Hajdur, a farmer from the village of Gornje Hrasno in the Republic of Bosnia-Hercegovina, went to a nearby forest Sunday to shoot a fox, Tanjug said.

Hajdur wounded a fox in the leg, the agency said, but to spare the skin he did not fire again. Instead, he hit the animal with his refle butt. The struggling animal triggered a shot that hit Hajdur in the chest and killed him instantly, Tanjug said. The fox died later, Tanjug added.

Boston Globe, April 13, 1990

Is there justice in this world? Well, in Jacksonville, Fla., an Internal Revenue Service car parked outside the federal courthouse was "booted" for unpaid parking tickets, forcing tax collectors to fork over $122.50 to set it free.

The IRS had to pay $95 for five tickets, a $25 removal fee plus $2.50 for processing to get the boot taken off, said Gertrude Bradley, clerical supervisor for the city parking division.

With the tax-filing deadline closing in, courthouse employees were chuckling about the IRS' misfortune. But the agency was not amused.

"We're not pleased with it," said spokesman Holger Euringer. Yeah, we're all really upset.

The odds of winnning the California lottery by matching all six numbers are 14 times greater than the odds of being struck by lightening, according to Lottery magazine. the figure drops to nine times greater in New Jersey, six times greater in Pennsylvania, and four times greater in Connecticut.

As public television viewers in 12 cities sat glued to their sets while doctors in Philadelphia reconstructed 15-month-old Michele Miller's skull during a two-hour operation broadcast live, the girl's parents, Lynn and Paul Miller of Princeton, N.J., opted to watch "The Wizard of Oz" instead.

"Unlawful to Pass School Bus from Either Direction"

I guess that some people misunderstood that, because now it reads:

"Unlawful to Pass Stopped School Bus from Either Direction".

LOS ANGELES TIMES, December 9:
A man walked into a branch of the Antelope Valley Bank and handed a teller a note demanding money. The man had one hand in his pocket, as if holding a gun, so the teller began handing over the contents of her cash drawer.

When she had forked over $7,000 the robber said, "That's enough" and walked out the door. It's hard to find a bank robber who knows when he's had enough.

Los Angeles Times, November 24:
Banning, Blythe and Barstow no longer qualify as "distressed" cities under federal guidelines, nor do Adelanto, Lake Elsinore, or Loma Linda.

But Beverly Hills does.

According to a new U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development list, Beverly Hills can apply for about $56 million a year in business development grants reserved for small cities suffering "physical and economic distress."

The city of Whittier, California was founded many years ago, mainly by Quakers. There is a prominent sign composed of large, brass letters on one of the financial institutions in that community identifying it as the Quaker City Bank. The last letter of the first word fell off during an earthquake yesterday, making the sign read "Quake City Bank."

Chicago Tribune

William P. Holcomb, whose job is to supervise the tracking down of Houston, Texas parking ticket violators. It was revealed that he had 375 unpaid tickets.

Many folks have written with perfectly plausible explanations about why merchants take my phone number on a credit card charge. What these fail to address, however, is that if I'm perpetrating a fraud in the use of this credit card, I'm not about to give out a correct phone number. They make no effort to validate the phone number before I leave, so what they're doing is collecting the phone numbers of a bunch of honest people.

Now then... Why are they collecting the phone numbers of a bunch of honest people?

I once asked why you are asked for your phone number when using your charge cards. The clerk explained that theives have been caught because they stupidly put down THEIR home phone number, not the phone number of the person who "owned" the card.