1. Building mounted fire hose connections are no substitute for a real hydrant.

2. "Why can't I just make an appointment with the groomer to get my nails done? I can do without the shampoo, blow-dry and stupid pink bows."

3. Nintendo is not easily paw operated.

4. There are no real career opportunities for a dog who has been fixed.

5. Silk plants may look real but when chewed cause extreme flatulence.

6. "If Barbie wasn't meant as a chew toy, why do little girls set up her Dream House within easy reach?"

7. No breakfast in bed.

8. Really cool sneaker companies don't make doggie booties.

9. "Snausages" is not in the dictionary.

10. The average refrigerator door seam is too narrow to be easily opened by a snout.

An elderly woman decided to prepare her will and told her preacher she had two final requests. First, she wanted to be cremated, and second, she wanted her ashes scattered over Wal-Mart.

"Wal-Mart?" the preacher exclaimed. "Why Wal-Mart?"

The woman replied, "Then I'll be sure my family visits me twice a week."

A pregnant woman from Washington, D.C., (whose husband was out of the country) gets in a car accident and is knocked unconscious.

When she wakes up 3 days later she sees that she is no longer pregnant and frantically asks the doctor about her baby.

The doctor replies, "Ma'am you had twins! - a boy and a girl. We couldn't reach your husband and since your brother was the first one here the day they were born we let him name them for you."

The woman thinks to herself, "No, not my brother... he's not very bright!"

She asks the doctor, "Well, what's the girl's name?"

"Denise."

"Wow, that's not a bad name, I like it! What's the boy's name?"

"Denephew."

Friends of ours owned a huge Great Dane named "Bear." He looked menacing but was actually quite harmless. Though Bear has gone on to doggy heaven here are two great stories they often tell.

Bear's playground was a fenced yard about 40 feet square. With a mere 3 foot fence his head easily reached over the top. Standing on his haunches it looked like he could walk over the fence. One of the neighbor boys asked the owner if he could jump the fence. "Shhhhh," she replied. "He can - but don't tell him."

5:30am: Started the day as a hero! When the sound of the newspaper hitting the driveway roused me from my deep slumber, and the impact indicated the paper was much heavier than normal, I realized that no one in the house was yet awake! I roused my master by licking him in the face. He appeared very angry with himself for having overslept, shouting and waving his arms. His ill temper even seemed directed at me a bit, which is silly since it is I who saved him from being fired. Funny thing though: he didn't go into work, but spent the morning leafing through the large newspaper and drinking coffee. He seems to do this once a week, and I don't know why.

7:30am: Invaders! The people who live next door came out into their yard, obviously getting ready to lay siege to our house. Snarling and barking, I let them know in no uncertain terms that I was prepared to tear them limb from limb if they came any closer, and was able to repel the invasion. This is an almost daily occurrence; you'd think they'd learn. My master added his voice to the fray as well, yelling angrily. I am sure the people couldn't hear him, but it was nice of him to lend his support.

"I have to have a raise," the man said to his boss. "Three companies are after me."

"Is that so?" asked the manager. "What other companies are after you?"

"The electric company, the telephone company, and the gas company."

Realizing at the last minute that it was his father's birthday, a teenage boy rushed to the corner store to grab a card.

He quickly found a son-to-father card but neglected to read it carefully.

Later when his father opened his gifts, he was surprised to read aloud,

"Happy birthday to a wonderful Dad. Now that I'm a father too . . ."

A father is asked by his friend, "Has your son decided what he wants to be when he grows up?"

"Yes, he wants to be a garbage collector," replied the boy's father.

His friend thought for a moment and responded, "That's a rather strange ambition to have for a career."

"Well," said the boy's father, "he thinks that garbage collectors only work on Tuesdays!"

When my children received the video of Cinderella as a summer gift, they watched it almost nonstop for three days. Since it was warm outside, we kept the windows open.

Our neighbors were having their roof reshingled by three burly men. As I went out to get the mail one afternoon, I heard a roofer singing, "...put it together and what do you get?"

"From the other side of the house came a chorus of two more husky voices: "Bibbidi bobbidi, bibbidi bobbidi, bibbidi, bobbidi boo!"

Checking out of the grocery store, I noticed that the bag boy was eyeing my two adopted children curiously. They often draw scrutiny, since my son's a blond Russian, while my daughter has shiny black Haitian skin.

The boy continued staring as he carried our groceries to the car.

Finally, he asked. "Those your kids?"

"Yes, they are!" I answered proudly.

"They adopted?" he asked.

"Yes," I replied.

"I thought so," he concluded. "I figured you're too old to have kids that small."

I didn't know if my granddaughter had learned her colors yet, so I decided to test her.

I would point out something and ask what color it was. She would tell me, and always she was correct. But it was fun for me, so I continued.

At last, she headed for the door, saying sagely,

"Grandma, I think you should try to figure out some of these yourself!"

A father was at the beach with his children when his four-year-old son ran up to him, grabbed his hand, and led him to the shore, where a seagull lay dead in the sand.

"Daddy, what happened to him?" the son asked. 

"He died and went to Heaven," the dad replied.

The boy thought a moment and then said,

"Did God throw him back down?"

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."

Little Mikey and his family were having Sunday dinner at his grandmother's house. Everyone was seated around the table as the food was being served. When Little Mikey received his plate, he started eating right away.

"Mikey! Please wait until we say our prayer," said his mother.

"I don't need to," the boy replied.

"Of course, you do," his mother insisted through gritted teeth. "We always say a prayer before eating at our house."

"That's at our house," Mikey explained. "But this is Grandma's house and she knows how to cook."

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."

My mother's friend joined Weight Watchers, and the other day when she was getting ready to go to the weekly meeting her little grandson asked her where she was going. She said she was going to her fat club.

When she got back home her grandson said, "Well Grandma, are you fat yet?"

*Here are some actual answers from contestants who have appeared on the game show Family Feud:*

Name something a blind person might use: a sword

Name a song with moon in the title: blue suede moon

Name a bird with a long neck: a penguin

Name an occupation where you need a torch: a burglar

A boy is about to go on his first date, and is nervous about what to talk about. He asks his father for advice.

The father replies: "My son, there are three subjects that always work. These are food, family, and philosophy."

The boy picks up his date and they go to a soda shoppe. Ice-cream sundaes in front of them, they stare at each other for a long time, as the boy's nervousness builds.

I was trying to get my seventh-grade history class to understand how the Indians must have felt when they first encountered the Spanish explorers.

"How would you feel," I asked, "if someone showed up on your doorstep who looked very different, spoke a strange language and wore unusual clothes? Wouldn't you be a bit scared?"

"Nah," one boy answered, "I'd just figure it was my sister's date."

All eyes were on the radiant bride as her father escorted her down the aisle.

They reached the altar and the waiting groom; the bride kissed her father and placed something in his hand.

The guests in the front pews responded with ripples of laughter.

Even the priest smiled broadly.

As her father gave her away in marriage, the bride gave him back his credit card.

Many years ago, a grandfather bought a hobby horse by mail order as a birthday present for his granddaughter.

The toy arrived in 189 pieces. The instructions said that it could be put together in an hour.

However it took the man two days to assemble the toy.

Finally, when it was all put together, he wrote a check, cut it into 189 pieces and mailed it off to the company.

While talking with my semi-deaf uncle one evening, I noticed that his "hearing aid" was actually an earphone from a transistor radio. The wire had been cut and was sticking out of his shirt.

"How does that help your hearing?" I asked.

"Don't help my hearing none," he replied. "Makes people talk louder."

One day a young boy ran crying to his mother and rubbing his behind.

His mother said, "Bobby, why are you crying?"

"Because daddy hit his thumb with the hammer!" little Bobby wailed.

"Why, that's not something to cry over," his mother told him. "That should make you laugh."

Bobby rubbed his behind and said tearfully, "I DID laugh!"

A boy was assigned a paper on childbirth and asked his parents, "How was I born?"

"Well, Honey..." said the slightly prudish parent, "the stork brought you to us."

"Oh," said the boy. "Well, how did you and daddy get born?" he asked.

"Oh, the stork brought us too."

"Well how were grandpa and grandma born?" he persisted.

"Well darling, the stork brought them too!" said the parent, by now starting to squirm a little in the Lazy Boy recliner.

Several days later, the boy handed in his paper to the teacher who read with confusion the opening sentence:

"This report has been very difficult to write because there hasn't been a natural childbirth in my family for three generations."

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

"Everyone has feelings, except for snakes and principals."
- Donna Maria G, age 9

"Laugh and the world laughs with you, cry and the world laughs at you."
- Rob P, age 8

"If life gives you nothing but lemons, make up a better shopping list for it."
- Steven B, age 8

"Moses came down with the Ten Amendments, which were God's Bill of Wrongs."
- Susie F., age 7

"Doctors automatically know what's wrong with you. They have a sick sense."
- Beau M., age 10

"All I Need to Know about Life I Learned From a Snowman.... "

--It's okay if you're a little bottom heavy.

--Hold your ground, even when the heat is on.

--Wearing white is always appropriate.

--Winter is the best of the four seasons.

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!"

1. The tennis shoes you must replace today will go on sale next week.

2. Leak proof thermoses will.

3. The chance of a piece of bread falling with the grape jelly side down is directly proportional to the cost of the carpet.

4. The garbage truck will be two doors past your house when the argument over whose day it is to take out the trash ends.

5. The shirt your child must wear today will be the only one that needs to be washed or mended.

When Diane found out she was pregnant, she told the good news to anyone who would listen.

Her 4-year-old son overheard some of his parents' private conversations.

One day, when Diane and her 4-year-old were shopping, a woman asked the little boy if he was excited about the new baby.

"Yes!" the 4-year-old said, "and I know what we are going to name it, too. If it's a girl we're going to call her Christina, and if it's another boy we're going to call it quits!!"

A few years ago, I decided to visit my brother who was stationed in Germany. I assumed that most Germans would speak English. But I found that many people spoke only their native tongue - including the ticket inspector on the train.

He punched my ticket, then chatted cordially for a bit, making gestures like a windmill. I simply nodded from time to time to show him that I was interested.

When he had gone, an American woman in the compartment leaned forward and asked if I spoke German.

"No," I confessed.

"Then that explains," she said, "why you didn't bat an eyelid when he told you that you were on the wrong train."

After a lady's car had leaked motor oil on her cement driveway, she bought a large bag of cat litter to soak it up.

It worked so well, that she went back to the convenience store to get another bag to finish the job.

Remembering her, the clerk remarked, "Lady, if that were my cat, I'd put him outside!"

I sent that "Ancestry" site some information on my family tree and they sent me back a packet of seeds and suggested that I just start over.

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.

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.

Two young boys were spending the night at their grandparents.

At bedtime, the two boys knelt beside their beds to say their prayers when the youngest one began praying at the top of his lungs, "I PRAY FOR A NEW BICYCLE. I PRAY FOR A NEW NINTENDO. I PRAY FOR A NEW PVR..."

His older brother leaned over and nudged the younger brother and said, "Why are you shouting your prayers? God isn't deaf."

To which the little brother replied, "No, but Grandma is!"

An irritated father complained to his golf buddy.

"When I was a kid, my parents sent me to my room without supper if I misbehaved. But my son has his own color TV, telephone, computer, every computer game and CD player in his room!"

"So how do you handle it?" his friend asked.

"I send him to MY room!"

It was in the early 1960's and spray deodorant, new to the market, was being advertised on television about six times a day. I was still living at home with my parents saving money for college. One afternoon after a hard day of construction and before dinner I took a nice hot shower.

After drying off I spotted a new spray can on the bathroom shelf.

The label read "SafeGuard" and I was so surprised that my mom had bought some of that new deodorant so I sprayed a liberal amount under each arm.

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."

- It just entered itself in the heavyweight division on BattleBots.

- I don't care what mortgage company you use, they're not going to ask for paycheck stubs from anything earlier than the Eisenhower administration.

- Environmentalists picket in your driveway to save the old-growth cobwebs.

- You have 12 leaf rakes with a total of 19 tines.

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."

Our seven-year-old daughter was thrilled when we took her to Disney World for the first time, and she headed straight for Space Mountain.

I worried that the roller coaster would be too scary for her, but she insisted.

To her delight, we rode it twice.

The next year we returned to the Magic Kingdom, and my daughter, now eight, again dragged me to Space Mountain.

As we stood in line, though, I could see her soberly studying the signs that warn about the ride's speed.

"Dad," she said, "I don't think I want to go."

I asked her why she would be nervous when she had enjoyed herself last time.

She replied, "This year, I can read."

At the end of their first date, a young man takes the girl back to her home. Emboldened by the night, he decides to try for that important first kiss. With an air of confidence, he leans with his hand against the wall and, smiling, he says to her, "Darling, how 'bout a good night kiss?"

Embarrassed, she replies, "Oh, I couldn’t do that. My parents will see us!"

"Oh come on! Who's gonna see us at this hour?"

10. Try to pep up the dance recital crowd by starting "the wave."

9. Do a halftime trampoline show.

8. With your buddies, spell out your child's name on your chests.

7. Mimic the conductor.

6. Start a paper airplane contest with the program.

5. Clip your toenails.

A tiny sweet baby was born to a goober and his wife.

They had always dreamed of having a child and naming her for the wife's beloved Aunt Rose.

But the baby was so tiny and precious, Rose was too much of a name for her.

They named her Bud instead.

Jill had applied for a job and when she returned home, her mother asked how the interview went.

"Pretty good I think," replied Jill. "But if I go to work there, I won't get a vacation unless I'm married."

Her mother, of course, had never heard of such a thing and asked, "Is that what they told you?"

"No," replied Jill, "they didn't tell me that, but on the application it said,

'Vacation time may not be taken until you've had your First Anniversary.'"

Having lost weight over the past few years, a lady was discarding things from her wardrobe that no longer fit.

Her seven-year-old niece was watching as she held up a huge pair of capris.

"Wow," the lady said, "I must have worn these when I was 183."

Her niece looked puzzled, then asked, "How old are you now?"

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."

I was in my wills and trusts course when the professor posed this question to the students:

"Why do people choose to have their children, rather than their siblings, inherit their estate?"

After students offered various theories, one fellow raised his hand.

"This may be a bit off the point," he said, "but when I was little, after my brother and sister finished playing with me, they would put me into a drawer."