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.

1. AQUADEXTROUS (ak wa deks'trus) adj. Possessing the ability to turn the bathtub tap on and off with your toes.

2. CARPERPETUATION (kar' pur pet u a shun) n. The act, when vacuuming, of running over a string or a piece of lint at least a dozen times, reaching over and picking it up, examining it, then putting it back down to give the vacuum one more chance.

3. DISCONFECT (dis kon fekt') v. To sterilize the piece of confection (lolly) you dropped on the floor by blowing on it, assuming this will somehow 'remove' all the germs.

4. ELBONICS (el bon' iks) n. The actions of two people maneuvering for one armrest in a movie theater.

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 factory owner said to a store owner, "Thank you, Mr. Smith, for your patronage. I wish I had twenty customers like you."

"Wow, it's nice to hear that, but I'm kind of surprised," admitted Smith. "You know that I argue every bill and always pay late."

The factory owner said, "I'd still like twenty customers like you. The problem is, I have two hundred."

Written by Danny Dutton, age 8, from Chula Vista, California, for his third grade homework assignment to "Explain God."

"One of God's main jobs is making people. He makes them to replace the ones that die so there will be enough people to take care of things on earth. He doesn't make grown-ups, just babies. I think because they are smaller and easier to make. That way, He doesn't have to take up His valuable time teaching them to talk and walk. He can just leave that to mothers and fathers.

1.  What are you thinking about?
2.  Do you love me?
3.  Do I look fat?
4.  Do you think she is prettier than me?
5.  What would you do if I died?

What makes these questions so difficult is that every one is guaranteed to explode into a major argument if the man answers incorrectly.  Therefore, as a public service, each question is analyzed below, along with possible responses.

Question # 1: What are you thinking about?

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.

About a year ago my sister, who lives in Virginia, was talking with her four year old son, Brent.

He was asking her why all their relatives from Wisconsin talk funny and sound like their noses are plugged up.

"They think we have an accent," she replied.

"But they have an accent, right?" Brent asked. "They talk funny."

"Everybody talks in different ways" she tried to explain.

"To them, we sound like we talk very slow and all our words are d-r-a-w-n out."

His eyes got big, and he whispered seriously, "Oh, no. You mean they hear funny too?"

When you are young, you want to be the master of your fate and the captain of your soul.

When you are older, you will settle for being the master of your weight and the captain of your bowling team.

After enlisting in the 82nd Airborne Division, I eagerly asked my Recruiter what I could expect from jump school.

"Well," he said, "its three weeks long."

"What else," I asked.

"The first week they separate the men from the boys," he said.

"The second week, they separate the men from the fools."

"And the third week?" I asked.

"The third week, the fools jump."

The interviewer examined the job application then turned to the prospective employee.

"I see you have put ASAP down for the date you are available to start, meaning as soon as possible, of course. However, I see you've put AMAP down for required salary. I don't believe I've ever seen that before, what does it mean?"

The applicant replied, "As Much as Possible!"

Some racehorses are staying in a stable.

One of them starts to boast about his track record. "In the last 16 races, I've won 8 of them!"

Another horse breaks in, "Well in the last 27 races, I've won 20!!"

"Oh that's good, but in the last 37 races, I've won 29!" says another, flicking his tail.

At this point, they notice that a greyhound dog has been sitting there listening.

"I don't mean to boast," says the greyhound, "but in my last 91 races, I've won 89!"

The horses are clearly amazed.

"Wow!" says one, after a hushed silence.

"A talking dog."

This year, I resolve to...

- Gain weight; at least 30 pounds.

- Stop exercising; waste of time.

- Read less; makes you think.

- Watch more TV; I've been missing some good stuff.

- Procrastinate more; starting tomorrow.

I'm not saying that the customer service in my bank is bad, but when I went in the other day and asked the clerk to check my balance . . . .

she leaned over and pushed me.

One of my jobs at a bank is to answer the phones and put callers through to the right person.

When a customer called one day asking to speak with a bank representative, I said, "Of course, Sir. What is it about exactly?"

Dryly, he replied, "It's about money."

An angry motorist went back to a garage where he had purchased an expensive battery for his car just six months earlier.

"Listen", the motorist grumbled to the owner of the garage, "when I bought this battery you said it would be the last battery my car would ever need. It died after only six months!"

"Sorry," apologized the garage owner.

"I didn't think your car would last longer than that."

Once this atheist decided to take a walk in the mountains to admire all the accidents of nature. The mighty eagle soaring across the sky, the quickly moving mountain stream, the wind blowing through the tree tops. When all of a sudden he heard a noise in the brush behind him. Turning his head to look he saw a huge grizzly bear rushing at him.

So he took off !! Running, running, trying to get away. He looks back again, the bear is almost on him! He trys to run faster! He trips, falls, rolls over just as the bear rushes up to him. The bear rears up on his hind legs and raises one huge paw to rip the guys head off when the man yells out, "My God, help me!"

A college senior took his new girlfriend to a football game.

The young couple found seats in the crowded stadium and was watching the action. A substitute was put into the game, and as he was running onto the field to take his position, the boy said to his girlfriend, "Take a good look at the fellow. I expect him to be our best man next year."

His girlfriend snuggled closer and said to the surprised young man, "That's the strangest way I ever heard of for a fellow to propose to a girl. Regardless of how you said it, I accept!"

What if Biblical characters could be recruited as high-tech promoters?

Consider the following tech advocates and their ad slogans:

Noah for Match.com: We can find a mate for anything. Why not you?

Moses for the Excedrin Headache Resource Center (Excedrin.com):
Take two tablets and call me in the morning.

The dove for UPS.com: Guaranteed delivery in 40 days and 40 nights.

This guy goes to a pet shop to buy a parrot.

He sees one on a perch with a red string tied to its left leg and a green string tied to it's right leg.

He asks the owner the significance of the strings.

"Well, this is a highly trained parrot. If you pull the red string he speaks French; if you pull the green string he speaks German," replies the shop keeper.

"And what happens if I pull both the strings?" our curious shopper inquires.

"I fall off my perch, you goober!!" screeches the parrot.

The CEO was scheduled to speak at an important convention, so he asked one of his employees to write him a punchy, 20-minute speech.

When the CEO returned from the big event, he was furious.

"What's the idea of writing me an hour-long speech?" he demanded to know. "Half the audience walked out before I finished!"

The employee was baffled. "I wrote you a 20-minute speech," he replied. "I also gave you the two extra copies you asked for."

While driving through Buffalo after a heavy snow storm, a motorist noted a policeman, standing waist deep in snow, directing traffic.

Feeling sorry for him, the motorist called out "I'm sorry you have to work half buried in the snow."

The policeman called back, "Don't feel sorry for me, feel sorry for my horse!"

The strong young man at the construction site was bragging that he could out do anyone in a feat of strength.

He made a special case of making fun of one of the older workmen.

After several minutes, the older worker had had enough.

"Why don't you put your money where your mouth is?" he said.

A fire started on some grassland near a farm in Indiana.  The fire department from the nearby town was called to put the fire out.

The fire proved to be more than the small town fire department could handle, so someone suggested that a rural volunteer fire department be called.

Though there was doubt that they would be of any assistance, the call was made.

The volunteer fire department arrived in a dilapidated old fire truck.  They drove straight towards the fire and stopped in the middle of the flames.  The volunteer firemen jumped off the truck and frantically started spraying water in all directions.  Soon they had snuffed out the center of the fire, breaking the blaze into two easily controllable parts.

Two Goobers notice a couple of guys by a bridge.

The one guy drops over the bridge being supported by the other one holding his ankles.

After 5 minutes, the one hanging over the bridge shouts 'pull me up'.

His friend pulls him up and he's holding a 10lb salmon.

So one Goober says to his friend, "We'll try that."

Later, they come to a bridge and the one Goober drops over and the other one grabs his ankles.

After 5 minutes, the one over the bridge shouts 'pull me up'.

"Why, have you got one?" his friend enquires.

"No, there's a train coming" he replies.

Jack Benny and George Burns became friends when both were young performers working their way up through the vaudeville circuit, and they remained friends until Benny died. One day, they were lunching at a Hollywood restaurant, and Benny was wrestling with the problem of whether or not to butter his bread.

"I like butter on my bread," he said. "But my diet strictly forbids butter. Maybe I should call Mary and ask her what to do."

"Jack," Burns said, "don't be ridiculous. You're a grown man. You should be able to decide, without your wife's help, whether or not to butter your own bread."

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."

General Motors doesn't have a "help line" for people who don't know how to drive, because people don't buy cars like they buy computers.  But, imagine if they did . . .

HELPLINE: "General Motors Help line, how can I help you?"

CUSTOMER: "I got in my car and closed the door, and nothing happened!"

HELPLINE: "Did you put the key in the ignition slot and turn it?"

CUSTOMER: "What's an ignition?"

HELPLINE: "It's a starter motor that draws current from your battery and turns over the engine."

CUSTOMER: "Ignition? Motor? Battery? Engine? How come I have to know all of these technical terms just to use my car?"

HELPLINE: "General Motors Help line, how can I help you?"

CUSTOMER: "My car ran fine for a week, and now it won't go anywhere!"

HELPLINE: "Is the gas tank empty?"

CUSTOMER: "Huh? How do I know?"

A man walked by a table in a hotel and noticed three men and a dog playing cards.

The dog was exhibiting an extraordinary performance.

"This is a very smart dog," the man commented.

"He's not so smart," said one of the irked players.

"Every time he gets a good hand he wags his tail."

An elderly lady, who lived on the third floor of a boardinghouse, broke her leg. As the doctor put a cast on it, he warned her not to climb any stairs.

Several months later, the doctor took off the cast.

"Can I climb stairs now?" asked the little old lady.

"Yes," he replied.

"Thank goodness!" she said.

"I'm sick and tired of shinnying up and down that drainpipe!"

A man goes to a doctor for a physical checkup.

The nurse starts with certain basic items. "How much do you weigh?" she asks.

"One-seventy." he says.

The nurse puts him on the scale.

It turns out that his weight is 183.

The nurse asks, "Your height?"

"Five-eleven." he says.

The nurse checks and sees that he's only 5' 8 1/2".

She then takes his blood pressure, and it's very high.

The man explains, "Of course it's high. When I came in here, I was tall and wiry. Now, I'm short and fat!"

I was browsing in a souvenir shop when the man next to me struck up a conversation.

Just as he was telling me that his wife was getting carried away with her shopping, a brief power shortage caused the lights to flicker overhead.

"Ah," he sighed, "that must be her checking out now."

If you are wondering what a Goober is, there is a picture of one here. 

There were two Goobers walking toward each other down the street.

One Goober was carrying a sack.

When they met up, the second Goober asked, "Whatcha got in that there sack?"

The Goober with the sack replied, "Just some chickens."

The second Goober said, "If I guess how many chickens are in that there sack, can I have one?"

The first Goober answered, "I'll give ya both of them if you get it right."

So, the second Goober thought and thought. Finally he guessed. "Five?"

*Children's Attempts at Singing Well Known Hymns*

Sometimes kids get things a little......well, maybe these came from kids:

- Give us this day our deli bread!

- Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Whole East Coast.

- We shall come to Joyce's, bringing in the cheese.

- Gladly, the consecrated, cross-eyed bear.

- He carrots for you.

Over the years, people have come up with a number of great reasons to eat chocolate. The following 11 reasons are all viable options for yourself or a friend to eat chocolate with a clear conscience. ENJOY!

*Chocolate is derived from cacao beans. Bean = vegetable. Sugar is derived from either sugar CANE or sugar BEETS. Both are plants, which places them in the vegetable category. Thus, chocolate is a vegetable. To go one step further, chocolate candy bars also contain milk, which is dairy. So candy bars are a health food.

*Chocolate-covered raisins, cherries, orange slices and strawberries all count as fruit, so eat as many as you want.

*If you've got melted chocolate all over your hands, you're eating it too slowly.

What is King Wenceslas' favorite pizza?

One that's deep pan, crisp, and even.

Rick, my husband, and I had a hectic holiday schedule encompassing careers, teenagers, shopping, and all the required doings of the season.

Running out of time, I got the stationer to print our signature on our Christmas cards, instead of signing each one.

Soon we started getting cards from friends signed "The Modest Morrisons," "The Clever Clarks," and "The Successful Smiths."

Then it hit me.

I had mailed out a hundred cards neatly imprinted with "Happy Holidays from the Rich Armstrongs."

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!"

A man decides to join the circus. He shows up to demonstrate his skills to Morris, the circus impresario.

"I have the most unusual act," he announces. "I'm sure it will amaze you."

He proceeds to climb a tall tower, and jumps off. He flaps his arms wildly, and finally his fall slows. He soars forward, then swoops upward, turns and swoops back again. Finally he stops in mid air and gently lowers himself to the ground landing softly on the toe of one foot.

Morris stares blankly at him for a long time. Finally he says, "Is that all you've got? Bird imitations?"

In a rush to work one morning, I pulled up to the drive-through window at a fast-food restaurant and ordered some coffee.

Because I was in a hurry, I asked them to put a couple of ice cubes in the coffee so it would cool down more quickly and I could drink it faster.

I sat there at the pickup window for a few minutes, wondering where they had to go to get my coffee, when a frustrated teenager finally came up and said, "I'm sorry for the delay, but the ice you wanted in your coffee keeps melting!"

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."

Nine year old Joey, was asked by his mother what he had learned in Sunday school.

"Well, Mom, our teacher told us how God sent Moses behind enemy lines on a rescue mission to lead the Israelites out of Egypt. When he got to the Red Sea, he had his engineers build a pontoon bridge and all the people walked across safely. Then he used his walkie-talkie to radio headquarters for reinforcements. They sent bombers to blow up the bridge and all the Israelites were saved."

"Now, Joey, is that really what your teacher taught you?" his mother asked.

"Well, no, Mom. But if I told it the way the teacher did, you'd never believe it!"

For those computer literate souls out there:

ISDN - It Still Does Nothing

APPLE - Arrogance Produces Profit-Losing Entity

SCSI - System Can't See It

DOS - Defective Operating System

BASIC - Bill's Attempt to Seize Industry Control

IBM - I Blame Microsoft

CD-ROM - Consumer Device, Rendered Obsolete in Months

OS/2 - Obsolete Soon, Too.

MACINTOSH - Most Applications Crash; If Not, The Operating System Hangs

PENTIUM - Produces Erroneous Numbers Through Incorrect Understanding of Mathematics

COBOL - Completely Obsolete Business Oriented Language

WINDOWS - Will Install Needless Data On Whole System

GIRO - Garbage In Rubbish Out

MICROSOFT - Most Intelligent Customers Realize Our Software Only Fools Teenagers

Tongue: A variety of meat, rarely served because it clearly crosses the line between a cut of beef and a piece of dead cow.

Yogurt: Semi-solid dairy product made from partially evaporated and fermented milk. Yogurt is one of only three foods that taste exactly the same as they sound. The other two are goulash and squid.

Recipe: A series of step-by-step instructions for preparing ingredients you forgot to buy, in utensils you don't own, to make a dish the dog won't eat.

Porridge: Thick oatmeal rarely found on tables since

The newspaper editor was instructing the cub reporter in important details of his calling.

"Never state as a fact anything you are not absolutely sure about," said the editor.

"To avoid putting the paper in the position of stating something which it may not be able to prove, you should always use the words 'alleged,' 'claimed,' 'reputed,' 'rumored,' and so on, unless you know positively that everything is true as stated.

Reverend Smith, a respected church leader, arrived in a large city to deliver a series of speeches.  At a banquet the first evening, he noticed some reporters in the audience.

Because he wanted to use some of the stories he told that night in his speeches the next day, he asked the reporters to omit them from their articles. 

One article that came out the next day, written by a cub reporter, concluded with this line: "Reverend Smith also told a number of stories that cannot be printed."

Did you hear about the banker who was recently arrested for embezzling $100,000 to pay for his daughter's college education?

As the policeman, who also had a daughter in college, was leading him away in handcuffs, he said to the banker,

"I have just one question for you. Where were you going to get the rest of the money?"

In response and reaction to today's events in New York City, all Cybersalt.org e-mail groups will be observing a day of silence and mourning tomorrow, September, 12, 2001.

". . . . .a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance," Ecclesiastes 3:4

Pastor Tim

A man driving his car down a country road was forced to stop before a giant puddle blocking the entire way. Looking to the side of the road, the man noticed a goober leaning on a fence. "Think it's safe to cross?" the man asked.

"I reckon so," replied the goober.

Pulling ahead, the mans car was immediately swallowed by the puddle. In fact, it was so deep that he had to roll his window down to swim out and up to the surface. As his head broke the surface the man said to the goober, "I thought you said I could safely drive through this puddle!"

"Well, shoot!" he relied, scratching his head. "It only comes up chest-high on my ducks!"

(Wondering what a goober is?  Find out at www.cybersalt.org/policies/what-is-a-goober)