The Toughest Decision

SHOULD MY LOVED ONE BE PLACED IN AN ASSISTED COMPUTING FACILITY?

For family members, it is often the most difficult and painful decision they will face: to accept that a loved one - a parent, a spouse, perhaps even a sibling - is technologically impaired and should no longer be allowed to live independently, or come near a computer or electronic device without direct supervision. The time has come to place that loved one into the care of an Assisted Computing Facility. But naturally you have questions. So many questions. We at Silicon Pines want to help.

WHAT EXACTLY IS AN "ASSISTED COMPUTING FACILITY"?

Thanks to Norma K. Appel for sending today's CleanLaugh. 

Dear Pastor Tim, this is a true story.

It was Thanksgiving day and my friend's hall bathroom was not working.

She had another bathroom off the master bedroom so she asked her pre-teen daughter to put a sign on the hall bathroom door and then close it.

Both chicks were being bugged in their own way.

Charlie was playing with his little brother Mickey when the little boy asked whether he could fly like Superman.

"Sure you can, Mickey," Charlie said. "Just flap your arms really hard."

So Mickey climbed up on the windowsill, started flapping like mad, jumped, then smashed into the ground just a few inches below.

Horrified, their mother came screaming into the room and said, "What happened?"

Charlie said, "I was just teaching Mickey not to believe everything he's told."

I was driving with my three young children one warm summer evening when a woman in the convertible ahead of us stood up and waved. 

She was stark naked! 

As I was reeling from the shock, I heard my five-year-old shout from the back seat,

"Mom! That lady isn't wearing a seat belt!"

I was with a friend in a cafe' when a noisy car alarm interrupted our conversation.

"What good are car alarms when no one pays any attention to them?" I wondered aloud.

"Some are quite effective," my friend corrected me.

"Last summer, my teenager spent a lot of time at the neighbors'.

Whenever I wanted him home, I'd go out to the driveway and jostle his car."

At one point during a game, the coach said to one of his young players, "Do you understand what cooperation is? What a team is?" The little boy nodded yes.

"Do you understand that what matters is whether we win together as a team?" The little boy nodded yes.

"So," the coach continued, "when a strike is called, or you are out at first, you don't argue or curse or attack the umpire. Do you understand all that?" Again, the boy nodded yes.

"Good," said the coach. "Now go over there and explain it to your mother."

When I was a mother's helper, the mom of the family I worked for sat with her three oldest children and watched a PBS special showing the birth of a baby. The mom thought it would be a good starting point for answering questions about the facts of life.

As her five-year-old studied the baby coming out of the birth canal, he asked, "Mom, does that hurt?"

"Oh, yes, it does," she said, remembering her difficult deliveries.

"Wow," he continued in awe, "does it hurt the mother too?"

The mother of a large family was explaining why she dresses her children alike, right down to the youngest baby.

"When we had just four children, I dressed them alike so we wouldn't lose any of them."

"Now," she added, looking around at her brood of nine, "I dress them alike so we won't pick up any that don't belong to us."

You should be able to park in an “expecting mother” parking space if you’re waiting for your mom.

A young man called his mother and announced excitedly that he had just met the woman of his dreams. Now what should he do?

His mother had an idea: "Why don't you send her flowers, and on the card invite her to your apartment for a home-cooked meal?"

He thought this was a great strategy, and a week later, the woman came to dinner. His mother called the next day to see how things had gone.

"I was totally humiliated," he moaned. "She insisted on washing the dishes."

"What's wrong with that?" asked his mother.

"We hadn't started eating yet."

A man walked into a flower shop and after looking around for several minutes, asked the clerk if there were any potted geraniums he could buy.

"I'm sorry," said the clerk in flower shop,

"We don't have potted geraniums. Could you use African violets instead?"

Replied the customer sadly,

"No, it was geraniums my wife told me to water while she was gone."

A boy was helping his mother bring the clothes in off the line as a storm threatened.

As they brought in the last armload and closed the door, the boy waved his hand at the heavens and said, "Okay God! Let'er go!"

I want to be a bear......

If you're a bear, you get to hibernate. You do nothing but sleep for six months. I could deal with that.

Before you hibernate, you're supposed to eat yourself stupid. I could deal with that too.

If you're a bear, you birth your children (who are the size of walnuts) while you are sleeping and wake to partially grown, cute, cuddly cubs. I could definitely deal with that.

If I were ol' Santa, you know what I'd do?
I'd dump silly gifts that are given to you
And deliver some things just inside your front door...
Things you have lost, but treasured before.

I'd give you back all your maidenly vigor,
And to go along with it, a neat tiny figure.
Then restore the old color that once graced your hair
Before rinses and bleaches took residence there. 

Mrs. Jones was reading a letter at breakfast.

Suddenly she looked up suspiciously at her husband.

"Henry," she said, "I've just received a letter from mother saying she isn't accepting our invitation to come and stay, as we do not appear to want her. What does she mean by that? I told you to write and say that she was to come at her own convenience. You did write, didn't you?"

"Er, yes, I did," said the husband. "But I couldn't spell convenience, so I made it risk."

Sometimes being a mother is a dish best served cold after 29 years.

When the man came home, his wife was crying.

"Your mother insulted me," she sobbed.

"My mother? How could she do that when she is on vacation on the other side of the world?" the man asked.

"I know. But this morning a letter addressed to you and marked private arrived. I opened it because I was curious."

"And?"

"At the end of the letter it was written: PS. Dear Diane, when you have finished reading this letter, don't forget to give it to my son."

My kids love going to the Web, and they keep track of their passwords by writing them on Post-it notes.

I noticed their Disney password was "MickeyMinnieGoofyPluto," and so I asked why it was so long.

"Because," my son explained, "they say it has to have at least four characters."

A mother was telling her little girl what her own childhood was like.

She said, "We used to skate outside on a pond. I had a swing made from a tire; it hung from a tree in our front yard. We rode our pony. We picked wild raspberries in the woods."

The little girl was wide-eyed, taking this in.

At last she said, "I sure wish I'd gotten to know you sooner!"

A strained voice called out through the darkened theater, "Please, is there a doctor in the house?!"

Several men stood up as the lights came on.

An older lady pulled her daughter to stand next to her, "Good, are any of you doctors single and interested in a date with a nice, girl?"

Two mothers were talking about their sons.

The first said, "My son is such a saint. He works hard, doesn't smoke, and he hasn't so much as looked at a woman in over two years."

The other woman said, "Well, my son is a saint himself. Not only has he not looked at a woman in over three years, but he hasn't touched a drop of liquor in all that time."

"My word," the first mother said. "You must be so proud."

"I am," the second mother replied. "And when he's paroled next month, I'm going to throw him a big party."

To prepare for my daughter's First Communion, I called the church in the town where we used to live to get a copy of her baptismal certificate. We lived there for only a short while, so I didn't know the priest there well.

When the secretary asked me the name of the father, I told her that I couldn't remember.

After a brief silence, she chuckled and said, "Ma'am, I'm talking about the name of the baby's father."

Look Bruce, just because you call it the "Batcave" doesn't change the fact that you still live in your parents basement.

You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can never fool mom.

I was scheduled to fly from North Carolina to Germany, where my husband was stationed in the military.

As I checked in at the airport, the ticket agent asked me some standard security questions.

"Has anyone given you any packages that you didn't pack yourself?" he asked.

As a member of the organization that installs computer systems aboard Navy ships, I am mindful of how important the off-ship e-mail capabilities are to sailor morale, especially when some vessels are deployed for up to six months.

One day while shopping at the base commissary, I noticed another crucial aspect of my job. I was trailing a frazzled mother with two active children, and I watched as she stalked over to where her young son had perched himself on the rail of the freezer case.

"If you don't get off there right now," she commanded, "I'm going to e-mail your father!"

A boy with a pea shooter, ran out of ammunition, and discovering a box of laxative pills, tried one in his blow gun. To his great joy, it fit. 

There was a boarding house near by, and every Wednesday noon a big pan of custard was placed upon the window sill to cool. From his vantage point in the window of another house, the boy shot all the pills into the custard. 

The boy soon found out that he was an expert marksman and the custom of custards on Wednesday quickly passed into history.

While on maternity leave, a woman from our office brought in her new bundle of joy.

She also had her seven-year-old son with her.

Everyone gathered around the baby, and the little boy asked, "Mommy, can I have some money to buy a soda?"

"What do you say?" she asked.

Respectfully, the boy replied, "You're thin and beautiful."

The woman reached in her purse and gave her son the money.

We had spent the day moving from our farmhouse into our new house in town.

Early the next morning, a Saturday, our 3 1/2-year-old ran into our bedroom to wake us up.

I dressed him and told him to play in the yard and to quit bothering us.

About 20 minutes later, he came running back.

"Mommy, Mommy," he exclaimed, "everybody has doorbells - and they all work."

 To my children: Never make fun of having to help me with computer stuff. I taught you how to use a spoon.

- Sue Fitzmaurice

My son Zachary, 4, came screaming out of the bathroom to tell me he'd dropped his toothbrush in the toilet.

So I fished it out and threw it in the garbage.

Zachary stood there thinking for a moment, then ran to my bathroom and came out with my toothbrush.

He held it up and said with a charming little smile, "We better throw this one out too then, 'cause it fell in the toilet a few days ago."

I think I'll tell my kids that the Titanic sunk because Jack and Rose had sex before marriage.

Late one Saturday evening, I was awakened by the ringing of my phone.

In a sleepy grumpy voice I said hello. The party on the other end of the line paused for a moment before rushing breathlessly into a lengthy speech.

"Mom, this is Susan and I'm sorry I woke you up, but I had to call because I'm going to be a little late getting home. See, Dad's car has a flat but it's not my fault. Honest! I don't know what happened. The tire just went flat while we were inside the theater. Please don't be mad, okay?"

Since I don't have any daughters, I knew the person had dialed my number by mistake.

"I'm sorry dear," I replied, "but you've reached the wrong number. I don't have a daughter named Susan."

"Wow, Mom," the young woman's voice replied. "I didn't think you'd be this mad."

The mother of three notoriously unruly youngsters was asked whether or not she'd have children if she had to do over again.

"Sure," she replied, "but not the same ones."

Out in Kansas, tornadoes often hit with sudden devastation, and without warning. In one case, a house was completely whisked away leaving only the foundation and first floor. A silver-haired farm lady was seen sitting dazed, in a bathtub, the only remaining part of the house left above the floor.

The rescue squad rushed to her aid and found her unhurt. She was just sitting there in the tub, talking to herself. "It was the darndest thing...  it was the darndest thing." she kept repeating dazedly.

Although we had recently moved into a new neighborhood, our young son had already made many new friends, ten of whom were invited to his birthday party. When the happy day arrived and he opened his presents, I was amazed to see that eight guests had presented him with sweaters.

Later I visited the mother of one of the boys to explain about the multiplicity of sweaters in the hope that an exchange might be arranged.

She said coolly, "Well, after all, you were the one who wrote on the invitation what you wanted me to buy."

This husband and wife decided to have some fun and surprise all their friends and family with the big news of not just gender, but having twins.

Cassie was a really good mom. When her children were growing up, her one son gave her more "stop and count to 10" periods than any of the others.

Once, after her small son fell into the pond and came home with his good school clothes dripping wet, the exasperated Cassie sent him to his room while she washed and dried his clothes.

A little later, Cassie heard a commotion in the back yard. She called out, "Are you out there wetting your pants again!?"

There was dead silence for a moment. Then a deep, masculine voice answered meekly, "No, ma'am, I'm just reading the meter."

 Moms work their buns off all day and yet somehow nothing is done at the end of the day...this is why.