Encyclopedia of Humor

THE ORIGINAL VERSION

The ant works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building his house and laying up supplies for the winter. The grasshopper thinks he’s a fool and laughs and dances and plays the summer away. Come winter, the ant is warm and well fed. The grasshopper has no food or shelter so he dies out in the cold.

MODERN CANADIAN VERSION

The ant works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building his house and laying up supplies for the winter. The grasshopper thinks he’s a fool and laughs and dances and plays the summer away. Come the winter, the shivering grasshopper calls a press conference and demands to know why the ant should be allowed to be warm and well fed while others are cold and starving.

The CBC shows up to provide pictures of the shivering grasshopper next to the ant in his comfortable home with a table filled with food. Canadians are stunned by the sharp contrast. How can it be that, in a country of such wealth, this poor grasshopper is allowed to suffer so?

Then a representative of the NAGB (The national association of green bugs) shows up on The National and charges the ant with green bias, and makes the case that the grasshopper is the victim of 30 million years of greenism. Kermit the Frog appears on the Nature of Things with the grasshopper, and everybody cries when he sings “It’s not easy being green.

“Jean Chretien makes a special guest appearance on the CBC Evening News to tell a concerned public that they will do everything they can for the grasshopper who has been denied the prosperity he deserves by those who benefited unfairly during the Reagan/Thatcher summers. Sheila Copps exclaims in an interview with Peter Mansbridge that the ant has gotten rich off the back of the grasshopper, and calls for an immediate tax hike on the ant to make him pay his “fair share.”

Finally, the Liberals draft the “Economic Equity and Anti-Greenism Act,” retroactive to the beginning of the summer. The ant is fined for failing to hire a proportionate number of green bugs and, having nothing left to pay his retroactive taxes, his home is confiscated by the government. John Turner gets his law firm to represent the grasshopper in a defamation suit against the ant, and the case is tried before a panel of federal hearing officers that Chretien appointed from a list of single-parent welfare moms who can only hear cases on Thursday’s between 1:30 and 3 PM.

The ant loses the case.

The story ends as we see the grasshopper finishing up the last bits of the ant’s food while the government house he’s in, which just happens to be the ant’s old house, crumbles around him since he doesn’t know how to maintain it.

The ant has disappeared in the snow.

And on the TV, which the grasshopper bought by selling most of the ant’s food, they are showing Jean Chretien standing before a wildly applauding group of liberals announcing that a new era of “fairness” has dawned in Canada.

Two Polish guys were taking their first train trip to Warsaw on the train. A vendor came down the corridor selling bananas which they’d never seen before. Each bought one.

The first one eagerly peeled the banana and bit into it just as the train went into a tunnel. When the train emerged from the tunnel, he looked across to his friend and said, “I wouldn’t eat that if I were you.”

“Why not?”

“I took one bite and went blind for half a minute.”

Two Arabs boarded a shuttle out of Washington for New York. One sat in the window seat, the other in the middle seat. Just before takeoff a fat, little Israeli guy got on and took the aisle seat next to the Arabs. He kicked off his shoes, wiggled his toes and was settling in when the Arab in the window seat said, “I think I’ll go up and get a coke.”

“No problem,” said the Israeli. “I’ll get it for you.” While he was gone, the Arab picked up the Israeli’s shoe and spit in it. When the Israeli returned with the coke, the other Arab said, “That looks good. I think I’ll have one too.”

Again, the Israeli obligingly went to fetch it, and while he is gone the Arab other picked up the other shoe and spit in it. The Israeli returned with the coke, and they all sat back and enjoyed the short flight to New York.

As the plane was landing the Israeli slipped his feet into his shoes and knew immediately what had happened.

“How long must this go on?” he asked. “This enmity between our peoples….. this hatred… this animosity… this spitting in shoes and peeing in cokes?”

An Arab diplomat visiting the U.S. for the first time was being wined and dined by the State Department. The Grand Emir was unused to the salt in American foods (french fries, cheeses, salami, anchovies etc.) and was constantly sending his manservant Abdul to fetch him a glass of water. Time and again, Abdul would scamper off and return with a glass of water, but then came the time when he returned empty-handed. Abdul, you son of an ugly camel, where is my water? demanded the Grand Emir. A thousand pardons, O Illustrious One, stammered the wretched Abdul, white man sit on well.

A family was visiting an Indian reservation when they happen upon an old tribesman laying face down in the middle Of the road with his ear pressed firmly against the blacktop.

The father of the family asked the old tribesman what he was doing.

The tribesman began to speak…”woman, late thirties, three kids, one barking dog in late model, Four door station wagon, traveling at 65 m.p.h.”

“That’s amazing” exclaimed the father.

“You can tell all of that by just listening to the ground”?

“No”, said the old tribesman. “They just ran over me five minutes ago”!