Two men died and went to Heaven. St. Peter greeted them, and said “I’m sorry, gentlemen, but your mansions aren’t ready yet. Until they are, I can send you back to Earth as whatever you want to be.”

“Great!” said the first guy, “I want to be an eagle soaring above beautiful scenery!”

“No problem,” replied St. Peter, and POOF! The guy was gone. “And what do you want to be,” St. Peter asked the other guy.

“I’d like to be one cool stud!” was the reply.

“Easy,” replied St. Peter, and the other guy was gone.

After a few months, their mansions were finished, and St. Peter sent an angel to fetch them back. “You’ll find them easily,” he says, “One of them is soaring above the Grand Canyon, and the other one is on a snow tire somewhere in Detroit!”

The policeman arrived at the scene of an accident to find that a car had struck a telephone pole.

Searching for witnesses, he discovered a pale, nervous young man in work clothes who claimed he was an eyewitness.

“Exactly where were you at the time of the accident?” inquired the officer.

“Mister,” exclaimed the telephone lineman, “I was at the top of the pole!”

There once was a snake breeder who had two snakes he was trying to mate. For the life of him, he couldn’t get them within two feet of each other. Frustrated, he called up the local zoologist, and explained the situation. She hurried over, picked up the snakes and looked at them. “You know what I would do?” she said. “See that tree over there? Chop it down, chop off a good sized log, split the log in two, and make two tables out of them. Put the tables and the snakes into a cage, and let them go at it.”

Well, the breeder thought that this was insane, but having no other options, he tried it. Sure enough, a few days later he had a whole slew of baby snakes. He called up the zoologist, and asked her how that was possible. She replied, “Well, you see, those snakes were adders. And everybody knows that to get adders to multiply you need log tables.”

John got off the elevator on the 50th floor and nervously knocked on his blind date’s door. She opened it and was as beautiful and charming as everyone had said.

“I’ll be ready in a few minutes,” she said. “Why don’t you play with Spot, my dog, while you’re waiting?” He does wonderful tricks. He rolls over, shakes hands, sits up and if you make a hoop with your arms, he’ll jump through.”

The dog followed John onto the balcony and started rolling over. John made a hoop with his arms and Spot jumped through–over the balcony railing. Just then John’s date walked out.

“Isn’t Spot the cutest, happiest dog you’ve ever seen?”

“To tell the the truth, ” he replied, “Spot seemed a little depressed to me!”

Recently, the Psychic Hotline and Psychic Friends Network have launched hotlines for frogs. Here is the story of one frog and his discussing with his psychic.

A frog telephones the Psychic Hotline and is told, “You are going to meet a beautiful young girl who will want to know everything about you.”

The frog says, “This is great! Will I meet her at a party, or what?”
“No,” says the psychic. “Next semester in her biology class.”

Martin had just received his brand new drivers license. The family troops out to the driveway, and climbs in the car, where he is going to take them for a ride for the first time. Dad immediately heads for the back seat, directly behind the newly minted driver.

“I’ll bet you’re back there to get a change of scenery after all those months of sitting in the front passenger seat teaching me how to drive,” says the beaming boy to his father.

“Nope,” comes dad’s reply, “I’m gonna sit here and kick the back of your seat as you drive, just like you’ve been doing to me all these years.”

Differences Between Men & Women

NICKNAMES: If Gloria, Suzanne, Debra and Michelle go out for lunch, they will call each other Gloria, Suzanne, Debra and Michelle. But if Mike, Phil, Rob and Jack go out for a brewsky, they will affectionately refer to each other as Fat Boy, Godzilla, Peanut-Head and Useless.

EATING OUT: And when the check comes, Mike, Phil, Rob and Jack will each throw in $20 bills, even though it’s only for $22.50. None of them will have anything smaller, and none will actually admit they want change back. When the girls get their check, out come the pocket calculators.

BATHROOMS: A man has six items in his bathroom-a toothbrush, shaving cream, razor, a bar of Dial soap, and a towel from the Holiday Inn. The average number of items in the typical woman’s bathroom is 437. A man would not be able to identify most of these items.

GROCERIES: A woman makes a list of things she needs and then goes out to the store and buys these things. A man waits till the only items left in his fridge are half a lime and a soda. Then he goes grocery shopping. He buys everything that looks good. By the time a man reaches the checkout counter, his cart is packed tighter than the Clampett’s car on Beverly Hillbillies. Of course, this will not stop him from going to the 10-items-or-less lane.

SHOES: When preparing for work, a woman will put on a Mondi wool suit, then slip on Reebok sneakers. She will carry her dress shoes in a plastic bag from Saks. When a woman gets to work, she will put on her dress shoes. Five minutes later, she will kick them off because her feet are under the desk. A man will wear the same pair of shoes all day.

CATS: Women love cats. Men say they love cats, but when women aren’t looking, men kick cats.

DRESSING UP: A woman will dress up to: go shopping, water the plants, empty the garbage, answer the phone, read a book, get the mail. A man will dress up for: weddings, funerals.

LAUNDRY: Women do laundry every couple of days. A man will wear every article of clothing he owns, including his surgical pants that were hip about eight years ago, before he will do his laundry. When he is finally out of clothes, he will wear a dirty sweatshirt inside out, rent a U-Haul and take his mountain of clothes to the Laundromat. Men always expect to meet beautiful women at the Laundromat. This is a myth perpetuated by re-runs of old episodes of “Love, American Style.”

OFFSPRING: Ah, children. A woman knows all about her children. She knows about dentist appointments and soccer games and romances and best friends and favorite foods and secret fears and hopes and dreams. A man is vaguely aware of some short people living in the house.

Graptolites (Melody: Danny Boy)
by Brenna Lorenz

Oh, graptolites -
Your stipes, your stipes are calling
From every shale in every ancient land;
Oh, graptolites -
Through dream’s dark oceans falling,
Your rhabdosomes with grace in every strand.

Oh, take me back to Cambro-Ordovician days,
With all your youth and glory in full blaze -
You lived to see a mighty ocean wax and wane,
But modern oceans spread for you in vain.

Dendroidea -
Your autothecae smiling,
Through Tremodocian trials they would last -
Dendroidea -
Your bithecae are crying,
For when you fade, alas, they too must pass.

Why did you leave the ocean bottom safe and wide
To drift with plankton on the roving tide?
Oh, Dictyonema, from thy thecal loins emerged
Proud Graptoloids, that from their past diverged.

A small boy is sent to bed by his father…

[Five minutes later]

“Da-ad…”

“What?”

“I’m thirsty. Can you bring me a drink of water?”

“No. You had your chance. Lights out.”

[Five minutes later]

“Da-aaaad…”

“WHAT?”

“I’m THIRSTY…Can I have a drink of water??”

“I told you NO! If you ask again I’ll have to spank you!!”

[Five minutes later]

“Daaaa-aaaAAAAD…”

“WHAT??!!”

“When you come in to spank me, can you bring me a drink of water?”

Below are fine examples of what happens when marketing translations fail to reach a foreign country in an understandable way.

Coors put its slogan, “Turn it loose,” into Spanish, where it was read as “Suffer from diarrhea.”

Clairol introduced the “Mist Stick,” a curling iron, into German only to find out that “mist” is slang for manure. Not too many people had use for the “manure stick”.

Scandinavian vacuum manufacturer Electrolux used the following in an American campaign: Nothing sucks like an Electrolux.

The American slogan for Salem cigarettes, “Salem-Feeling Free”, was translated into the Japanese market as “When smoking Salem, you will feel so refreshed that your mind seems to be free and empty.”

When Gerber started selling baby food in Africa, they used the same packaging as in the US, with the beautiful baby on the label. Later they learned that in Africa, companies routinely put pictures on the label of what’s inside, since most people can’t read English.

An American T-shirt maker in Miami printed shirts for the Spanish market which promoted the Pope’s visit. Instead of “I saw the Pope” (el Papa), the shirts read “I saw the potato” (la papa).

In Italy, a campaign for Schweppes Tonic Water translated the name into “Schweppes Toilet Water.”

Pepsi’s “Come alive with the Pepsi Generation” translated into “Pepsi brings your ancestors back from the grave,” in Chinese.

When Parker Pen marketed a ballpoint pen in Mexico, its ads were supposed to say “It won’t leak in your pocket and embarrass you.” However, the company mistakenly thought the spanish word “embarazar” meant embarrass. Instead the ads said that “It wont leak in your pocket and make you pregnant.”

The name Coca-Cola in China was first rendered as Ke-kou-ke-la. Unfortunately, the Coke company did not discover until after thousands of signs had been printed that the phrase means “bite the wax tadpole” or “female horse stuffed with wax” depending on the dialect. Coke then researched 40,000 Chinese characters and found a close phonetic equivalent, “ko-kou-ko-le,” which can be loosely translated as “happiness in the mouth.”

Also in Chinese, the Kentucky Fried Chicken slogan “finger-lickin’ good” came out as “eat your fingers off.”

When General Motors introduced the Chevy Nova in South America, it was apparently unaware that “no va” means “it won’t go.” After the company figured out why it wasn’t selling any cars, it renamed the car in its Spanish markets to the Caribe.

Colgate introduced a toothpaste in France called Cue, the name of a notorious porno magazine.