The other night I ate at a true family restaurant.
Every table had an argument going.
______
All of us could take a lesson from the weather. It pays no attention to criticism.
______
Welcome to this special anniversary edition of TIDBITS! Not only does this mark the one thousand and fiftieth edition of this humor newsletter — as well as the 50th since I restarted it a year ago — we are also only a week away from the 21st anniversary of the very first issue. To mark the occasion I’m bumping the joke count by 50% today, from eight to twelve humorous items.
______
The girl knelt in the confessional and said, “Bless me, Father, for I have sinned.”
“What is it, child?”
“Father, I have committed the sin of vanity. Twice a day I gaze at myself in the mirror and tell myself how beautiful I am.”
The priest turned, took a good look at the girl, and said, “My dear, I have good news. That isn’t a sin — it’s only a mistake.”
______
Quotable
“I have had a perfectly wonderful evening. But this wasn’t it.” – Groucho Marx
______
One evening after dinner, my five-year-old son Brian noticed that his mother had gone out. In answer to his questions, I told him, “Mommy is at a Tupperware party.”
This explanation satisfied him for only a moment. Puzzled, he asked, “What’s a Tupperware party, Dad?”
I’ve always given my son honest answers, so I figured a simple explanation would be the best approach. “Well, Brian,” I said, “at a Tupperware party, a bunch of ladies sit around and sell plastic bowls to each other.”
Brian nodded, indicating that he understood. Then he burst into laughter. “Come on, Dad,” he said. “What is it really?”
______
An investment counselor decided to go out on her own. She was shrewd and diligent, so business kept coming in, and pretty soon she realized that she needed an in-house counsel.
She began to interview young lawyers. “As I’m sure you can understand,” she started off with one of the first applicants, “in a business like this, our personal integrity must be beyond question.”
She leaned forward. “Mr. Peterson, are you an honest lawyer?”
“Honest?” replied the job prospect. “Let me tell you something about honest. Why, I’m so honest that my father lent me $15,000 for my education, and I paid back every penny the minute I tried my very first case.”
“Impressive. And what sort of case was that?”
The lawyer squirmed in his seat and admitted, “He sued me for the money.”
A young British couple, trying to live up to a snobbish lifestyle, went to a party. The conversation turned to Mozart. “Absolutely brilliant, magnificent, a genius!”
The wife, wanting to join in the conversation, remarked casually, “Ah, Mozart. You’re so right. I love him. Only this morning I saw him getting on the No. 5 bus going to Victoria station.”
There was a sudden hush, and everyone looked at her. Her husband was mortified. He pulled her away and whispered, “We’re leaving right now. Get your coat and let’s get out of here.”
As they drove home, he kept muttering to himself. Finally his wife turned to him. “You’re angry about something.”
“Oh really? You noticed?” he sneered. “I’ve never been so embarrassed in my life! You saw Mozart take the No.5 bus to Victoria station, did you? You idiot! Don’t you know the No.5 bus doesn’t go out to Victoria station?”
______
An Army driver was chauffeur to a major who was a notorious womanizer. One day, the major saw a lovely girl. “Turn the car around,” he ordered.
The driver promptly stalled the car. By the time he had restarted it, the girl had vanished.
“Driver,” said the major, “you’d be a total loss in an emergency.”
“I thought I did pretty well,” the driver replied. “That was my girl.”
______
Reader Comments
A subscriber to the email version of TIDBITS recently sent me a note about my joke mailings that began with this line:
“Hi Trent, You bring joy to my life.”
Upon receiving a special subscriber-only edition of TIDBITS last week, one reader responded:
“Thank you Trent! You are awesome!”
A reader who’s been following my various joke mailings ever since 2003 — during the original run of TIDBITS — unsubscribed from the mailing list this week. I feared the worst, that I’d given offense, but instead found this comment on her unsubscribe notice:
“Reason: Hi Trent, Life has gotten really crazy for these past months. Thank [you for] your time in bringing in some lightness in this dark world.”
______
Liz goes to her first show at an art gallery and is looking at the paintings. One is a huge canvas that has black with yellow blobs of paint splattered all over it.
The next painting is a murky gray color that has drips of purple paint streaked across it.
Liz walks over to the artist and says, “I don’t understand your paintings.”
“I paint what I feel inside me,” explains the artist.
“Have you ever tried Alka-Seltzer?”
______
Everybody is somebody else’s weirdo.
______
A father and son went fishing one day. While they were out in the boat, the boy suddenly became curious about the world around him. He asked his father, “How does the boat float?”
The father replied, “Don’t rightly know son.”
A little later, the boy looked at his father and asked, “How do fish breath underwater?”
Once again the father replied, “Don’t rightly know son.”
A little later the boy asked his father, “Why is the sky blue?”
Again, the father repied. “Don’t rightly know son.”
Finally, the boy asked his father, “Dad, do you mind my asking you all of these questions?”
The father replied, “Of course not. You don’t ask questions, you never learn nothin’.”
______
Bubba walked into a doctor’s office and the receptionist asked him what he had come in to see the doctor about.
Bubba said, “I’ve got the shingles.”
So she wrote down his name, address, medical insurance number and told him to have a seat.
Fifteen minutes later a nurse’s aide came out and asked Bubba what he had.
Bubba said, “Um, shingles.”
So she wrote down his height, weight, took his complete medical history and told him to wait in the examining room.
A half hour later a nurse came in and asked Bubba what he had.
Bubba said, “Well, see, I’ve got the shingles, so I came right over…”
The nurse cut him off and handed him a cup and asked him to step into the adjacent bathroom for a urine sample. Bubba obediently complied.
When he came back the nurse gave him a blood test, a blood pressure test, and an electrocardiogram. When she had finished, she said, “Please take off all of your clothes and wait for the doctor.”
“Um, are you sure that’s necessary?” asked Bubba.
“Yes, that’s standard procedure. The doctor is a professional, so you don’t need to feel shy.”
“Okay,” Bubba said, and proceeded to undress when she left the room.
Forty-five minutes later the doctor came in and found Bubba sitting patiently in the nude. He asked Bubba what he had.
Bubba shrugged and said, “Shingles.”
The doctor began to look him over, front to back. He finally asked, “Exactly where do you have shingles?”
Bubba said, “Outside on the truck. Where do you want me to unload ’em?”
