Non-fiction 3

by bill - 2020-07-26 07:49:12 ( in culture, humor) [php version] rebuild

How do these people survive?

Recently, when I went to McDonald's I saw on the menu that you could have an order of 6, 9 or 12 Chicken McNuggets. I asked for a half dozen nuggets.

"We don't have half dozen nuggets", said the teenager at the counter.

"You don't?" I replied.

"We only have six, nine, or twelve," was the reply.

"So I can't order a half-dozen nuggets, but I can order six?"

"That's right."

I shook my head and ordered six McNuggets.

~~~

I was checking out at the local Foodland with just a few items and the lady behind me put her things on the belt close to mine. I picked up one of those "dividers" that they keep by the cash register and placed it between our things so they wouldn't get mixed. After the girl had scanned all of my items, she picked up the "Divider" looking it all over for the bar code so she could scan it. Not finding the bar code she said to me "Do you know how much this is?" and I said to her "I've changed my mind, I don't think I'll buy that today". She said "OK" and I paid her for the things and left. She had no clue to what had just happened.

~~~

A lady at work was seen putting a credit card into her floppy drive and pulling it out very quickly. When inquired as to what she was doing, she said she was shopping on the Internet and they kept asking for a credit card number, so she was using the ATM "thingy".

~~~

I recently saw a distraught young lady weeping beside her car. Do you need some help?" I asked. She replied, "I knew I should have replaced the battery to this remote door unlocker. Now I can't get into my car. Do you think they (pointing to a distant convenient store) would have a battery to fit this?"

"Hmmm, I dunno. Do you have an alarm too?" I asked.

"No, just this remote thingy," she answered, handing it and the car keys to me. As I took the key and manually unlocked the door, I replied, "Why don't you drive over there and check about the batteries it's a long walk.

~~~

Several years ago, we had an Intern who was none too swift. One day she was typing and turned to a secretary and said, "I'm almost out of typing paper. What do I do?"

"Just use copier machine paper," the secretary told her. With that, the intern took her last remaining blank piece of paper, put it on the photocopier and proceeded to make five "blank" copies.

~~~

I was in a car dealership a while ago, when a large motor home was towed into the garage. The front of the vehicle was in dire need of repair and the whole thing generally looked like an extra in "Twister". I asked the manager what had happened. He told me that the driver had set the "cruise control" and then went in the back to make a sandwich.

~~~

I was sitting in my science class, when the teacher commented that the next day would be the shortest day of the year. My lab partner became visibly excited, cheering and clapping. I explained to her that the amount of daylight changes, not the actual amount of time. Needless to say, she was very disappointed.

~~~

Police in Radnor, Pennsylvania, interrogated a suspect by placing a metal colander on his head and connecting it with wires to a photocopy machine. The message "He's lying" was placed in the copier, and police pressed the copy button each time they thought the suspect wasn't telling the truth. Believing the "lie detector" was working, the suspect confessed.

A Jury of Peers

January 2000: Kathleen Robertson of Austin, Texas was awarded $780,000.00 by a jury of her peers after breaking her ankle tripping over a toddler who was running amok inside a furniture store. The owners of the store were understandably surprised at the verdict, considering the misbehaving tyke was Ms. Robertson's son.

June 1998: A 19-year-old Carl Truman of LosAngeles won $74,000.00 and medical expenses when his neighbor ran his hand over with a Honda Accord. Mr. Truman apparently didn't notice someone was at the wheel of the car whose hubcap he was trying to steal.

October 1998: A Terrence Dickson of Bristol, PA, was exiting a house he finished robbing by way of the garage. He was not able to get the garage door to go up, the automatic door opener was malfunctioning. He couldn't reenter the house because the door connecting the house and garage locked when he pulled it shut. The family was on vacation, so Mr. Dickson found himself locked in the garage for eight days. He subsisted on a case of Pepsi he found, and a large bag of dry dog food. This upset Mr. Dickson, so he sued the homeowner's insurance claiming the situation caused him undue mental anguish. The jury agreed to the tune of half a million dollars and change.

October 1999: Jerry Williams of Little Rock, AK was awarded $14,500.00 and medical expenses after being bitten on the buttocks by his next door neighbor's beagle. The beagle was on a chain in its owner's fenced-in yard, as was Mr. Williams. The award was less than sought after because the jury felt the dog may have been provoked by Mr. Williams who, at the time, was shooting it repeatedly with a pellet gun.

May 2000: A Philadelphia restaurant was ordered to pay Amber Carson of Lancaster, PA, $113,500.00 after she slipped on a spilled soft drink and broke her coccyx. The beverage was on the floor because Ms. Carson threw it at her boyfriend 30 seconds earlier during an argument.

December 1997: Kara Walton of Claymont, Delaware, successfully sued the owner of a night club in a neighboring city when she fell from the bathroom window to the floor and knocked out her two front teeth. This occurred while Ms. Walton was trying to sneak through the window in the lady's room to avoid paying the $3.50 cover charge. She was awarded $12,000.00 and dental expenses.

Formal

Formal dress: $120.00

Dinner and drinks before formal: $80.00

Having a picture passed around on the internet that shows you duct taped your boobs together: PRICELESS

These guys work for us?

When NASA first started sending up astronauts, they quickly discovered that ballpoint pens would not work in zero gravity. To combat the problem, NASA scientists spent a decade and $12 Billion to develop a pen that writes in zero gravity, upside down, underwater, on almost any surface including glass and at temperatures ranging from below freezing to 300C.

The Russians used a pencil.

Rocket Scientists

Sometimes it DOES take a Rocket Scientist (true story)

Scientists at NASA built a gun specifically to launch dead chickens at the windshields of airliners, military jets and the space shuttle, all travelling at maximum velocity. The idea is to simulate the frequent incidents of collisions with airborne fowl to test the strength of the windshields.

British engineers heard about the gun and were eager to test it on the windshields of their new high-speed trains. Arrangements were made, and a gun was sent to the British engineers. When the gun was fired, the engineers stood shocked as the chicken hurled out of the barrel, crashed into the shatterproof shield, smashed it to smithereens, blasted through the control console, snapped the engineer's backrest in two and embedded itself in the back wall of the cabin, like an arrow shot from a bow.

The horrified Brits sent NASA the disastrous results of the experiment, along with the design of the windshield and begged the US scientists for suggestions.

NASA responded with a one-line memo: "Defrost the chicken."

Air Traffic Exchanges

The following are accounts of actual exchanges between airlines and control towers from around the world:

The controller, working a busy pattern told the 727 on downwind to make three-sixty (do a complete circle, usually to provide spacing between aircraft). The pilot of the 727 complained, "Do you know it costs us two thousand dollars to make a three-sixty in this airplane?" Without missing a beat the controller replied, "Roger, give me four thousand dollars worth!"

A DC-10 had an exceedingly long roll out after landing with his approach speed just a little too high.

San Jose Tower: "American 51 heavy, turn right at the end if able. If not able, take the Guadeloupe exit off of Highway 101 and make a right at the light to return to the airport."

Unknown Aircraft: "I'm f***ing bored!".

Air Traffic Control: "Last aircraft transmitting, identify yourself immediately!!"

Unknown Aircraft: "I said I was f***ing bored, not f***ing stupid!"

Tower: "Eastern 702, cleared for takeoff, contact Departure on 124.7." (124.7 would be the radio frequency for Departure Control).

Eastern 702: "Tower, Eastern 702 switching to Departure... By the way, after we lifted off, we saw some kind of dead animal on the far end of the runway."

Tower: "Continental 635, cleared for takeoff, contact Departure on 124.7; did you copy the report from Eastern?"

Continental 635: "Continental 635, cleared for takeoff. Roger; and yes, we copied Eastern and we've already notified our caterers."

O'Hare Approach Control: "United 329 Heavy, your traffic is a Fokker, one o'clock, 3 miles, eastbound."

United 329: "Approach, I've always wanted to say this... I've got that Fokker in my sights."

The German air controllers at Frankfurt Airport are a short-tempered lot. They not only expect one to know one's gate parking location but how to get there without any assistance from them. So it was with some amusement that we (a PanAm 747) listened to the following exchange between Frankfurt ground control and a British Airways 747 (call sign "Speedbird 206") after landing:

Speedbird 206: "Top of the morning Frankfurt, Speedbird 206 clear of the active runway."

Ground: "Guten Morgen! You vill taxi to your gate!" The big British Airways 747 pulled onto the main taxiway and slowed to a stop.

Ground: "Speedbird, do you not know vare you are going?"

Speedbird 206: "Stand by a moment Ground, I'm looking up our gate location now."

Ground (with some arrogant impatience): "Speedbird 206, haff you never flown to Frankfurt before?!?"

Speedbird 206 (coolly): "Yes I have, Ground, in 1944. In another type of Boeing... I didn't stop."

True stories

Idiot #1

I am a medical student currently doing a rotation in toxicology at the poison control center. Today, this woman called in very upset because she caught her little daughter eating ants. I quickly reassured her that the ants are not harmful and there would be no need to bring her daughter into the hospital.

She calmed down, and at the end of the conversation happened to mention that she gave her daughter some ant poison to eat in order to kill the ants. I told her that she better bring her daughter into the emergency room right away.

Idiot #2

Seems that a year ago, some Boeing employees on the airfield decided to steal a life raft from one of the 747s. They were successful in getting it out of the plane and home. When they took it for a float on the river, they were surprised by a Coast Guard helicopter coming towards them. It turned out that the chopper was homing in on the emergency locator that is activated when the raft is inflated.

They are no longer employed at Boeing.

Idiot #3

A woman came home to find her husband in the kitchen, shaking frantically with what looked like a wire running from his waist towards the electric kettle. Intending to jolt him away from the deadly current, she whacked him with a handy plank of wood, breaking his arm in two places. Until that moment he had been happily listening to his Walkman.

Idiots

. . . IN SERVICE

This week, all our phones went dead and I had to call the phone repair people. They promised to be out between 8a.m. and 7p.m. When I asked if they could give me a smaller time window, he asked and I quote, "Would you like us to call before we come?" He also requested that we report future outages by email.

Does YOUR email work without a telephone line??????

AT WORK

I was signing the receipt for my credit card purchase when the clerk noticed that I had never signed my name on the back of the credit card. She informed me that she could not complete the transaction unless the card was signed. When I asked why, she explained that it was necessary to compare the signature on the credit card with the signature I just signed on the receipt. So I signed the credit card in front of her. She carefully compared the signature to the one I had just signed on the receipt. As luck would have it, they matched.

IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD

I live in a semi-rural area. We recently had a new neighbor call the local township administrative office to request the removal of the Deer Crossing sign on our road. The reason: Too many deer were hit by cars and he no longer wanted them to cross there.

IN FOOD SERVICE

My daughter went to a local Taco Bell and ordered a taco. She asked the individual behind the counter for "minimal lettuce." He said he was sorry, but they only had iceberg.

AT THE AIRPORT

I was at the airport, checking in at the gate, when the airport employee asked, "Has anyone put anything in your baggage without your knowledge?" I said, "If it was without my knowledge, how would I know?" He smiled and nodded knowingly, "That's why we ask."

ON THE ROAD

The stoplight on the corner buzzes when it is safe to cross the street. I was crossing with an intellectually challenged coworker of mine, when she asked if I knew what the buzzer was for. I explained that it signals blind people when the light is red. She responded, appalled, "What on earth are blind people doing driving?"

IN MANAGEMENT

At a good-bye lunch for an old and dear coworker who is leaving the company due to "downsizing" our manager spoke up and said, "This is fun. We should have lunch like this more often." Not another word was spoken. We just looked at each other like deer staring into the headlights of an approaching truck.

AT WORK

I worked with an individual who plugged her power strip back into itself and for the life of her, could not understand why her system would not turn on.

IDIOTS IN GENERAL

When my husband and I arrived at an automobile dealership to pick up our car, we were told that the keys had been accidentally locked in it. We went to the service department and found a mechanic working feverishly to unlock the driver's side door. As I watched from the passenger's side, I instinctively tried the door handle and discovered it was open. "Hey," I announced to the technician, "it's open." The young man answered, "I already got that side."

There, now don't you feel better?