Encyclopedia of Humor

Working at a theater box-office ticket window poses many challenges in dealing with people.

When a disgruntled customer at a window exclaimed, “No Tickets?” What do you mean NO TICKETS?”

The women waiting on him smiled sweeting. “I’m terribly sorry, sir,” she replied. “Which word didn’t you understand?”

On Saturday last, I had dinner at a local Chinese restaurant. My fortune read:

“You will gain admiration from your pears.”

Comice? Bartlett? Canned? I don’t grow or eat them, anyway.

The following appeared on the back page of one of Australia’s more outrageous computer publications, “Computing Australia”, 21st Sept 1987: … Blame it on the computer.

An unfriendly computer has been held responsible for a “potentially lethal error” involving a Mafia loan collector.

A New York paper inadvertently put the `heavy’ in the running for a pair of custom-fitted concrete shoes when it identified him as a “ruthless informer”.

According to a published retraction (and apology!), a writer on the paper had actually typed “ruthless enforcer” – but the computer system’s spelling checker liked it the other way.

And I thought the worst you could expect from a “computer error” was a bill for a million dollars!

LOS ANGELES TIMES, September 14:

According to a database maintained by Academic Guidance Services, there are 3,000 scholarships earmarked for golf caddies, newspaper carriers, glee clubbers, and band members.

Juanita College in Pennsylvania gives grants to needy left-handers.

Parents whose children were born on June 12, 1979 can plan ahead to apply for a scholarship to the Rochester Institute of Technology in honor of the school’s 150th anniversary.

Bucknell University gives grants to students who do not use alcohol, tobacco, or narcotics and don’t engage in strenuous activities.

A judge in Seattle uses the fines he collects from prostitutes to finance scholarships for their reformed sisters who want to return to school.

Many folks have written with perfectly plausible explanations about why merchants take my phone number on a credit card charge. What these fail to address, however, is that if I’m perpetrating a fraud in the use of this credit card, I’m not about to give out a correct phone number. They make no effort to validate the phone number before I leave, so what they’re doing is collecting the phone numbers of a bunch of honest people.

Now then… Why are they collecting the phone numbers of a bunch of honest people?

I once asked why you are asked for your phone number when using your charge cards. The clerk explained that theives have been caught because they stupidly put down THEIR home phone number, not the phone number of the person who “owned” the card.