......you've heard these before.
1. King Ozymandias of Assyria was running low on funds after years of war with the Hittites. His last great possession was the Star of the Euphrates, the most valuable diamond in the ancient world. Desperate, he went to Croesus, the pawnbroker, to ask for a loan.
Croesus said, "I'll give you 100,000 dinars for it."
"But I paid a million dinars for it," the King protested. "Don't you know who I am? I am the king!"
Croesus replied, "When you wish to pawn a Star, makes no difference who you are."
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2. Evidence has been found that William Tell and his family were avid bowlers. Unfortunately, all the ancient Swiss League records were destroyed in a fire…...so we'll never know for whom the Tells bowled.
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3. A man rushed into a busy doctor's surgery and shouted, "Doctor! I think I'm shrinking!"
The doctor calmly responded, "Now, settle down, settle down. You'll just have to be a little patient."
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4. An Indian chief was feeling very sick, so he summoned the medicine man. After a brief examination, the medicine man took out a long, thin strip of elk rawhide and gave it to the chief, telling him to bite off, chew, and swallow one inch of the leather every day. After a month, the medicine man returned to see how the chief was feeling. The chief
shrugged and said, "The thong is ended, but the malady lingers on."
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5. A famous Viking explorer returned home from a voyage and found his name missing from the town register. His wife went to the local magistrate to complain.
The magistrate apologized profusely saying, "I must have taken Leif off my census."
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6. A skeptical anthropologist was cataloging South American folk remedies with the assistance of a tribal elder who indicated that the leaves of a particular fern were a sure cure for any case of constipation. When the anthropologist expressed his doubts, the elder looked him in the eye and said, "Let me tell you, with fronds like these, you don't need enemas."
You either have been reading, or need to read, Spider Robinson's stories about Callahan's Bar.
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Once upon a time there was castle with a moat that had been cursed by a wizard. When anyone tried to cross the drawbridge, ghostly, pale yellow hands with long fingers would rise out of the moat and pull the unfortunate person down, never to be seen again. The occupants of the castle were starving and desperate. One brave knight after another tried to cross and failed as the long yellow fingers wrapped around them and pulled them down.
Finally one of the knights' page boys said "Let me try, I have no one to serve and it is no loss to the kingdom if I am pulled down." So he stepped out on the drawbridge and nervously looked around. Another step, and no response. He crept slowly across and was not harmed. He brought back food and saved the people in the castle.
The moral of the story is to let your pages do the walking through the yellow fingers.
(That one is perhaps getting outdated - do they still use the slogan?)
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An explorer found a tribe deep in the jungle and made friends with them. To show his friendliness, he wanted to give the chief a gift, but the only thing he could come up with was his folding camp chair, which had attracted some attention because of its novelty. The chief felt obligated to take the gift, but wasn't sure what to do with the massive wooden throne he usually used. Someone suggested it could be stored in the upper story of the grass and log house he lived in.
This was fine until one night a big wind came up and shook the house. The heavy wooden seat fell on the chief and killed him.
The moral of the story is that people who live in grass houses shouldn't stow thrones.
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Another tribe lived happily in the jungle until one of their chiefs decided they should not harm the wild animals and became vegetarian. Things worked well for a while because they grew big gardens. After a few years, the wild animals were more numerous and bolder and were eating the gardens. The people begged to be able to hunt the animals, or shoot at them to drive them away, but the chief would not permit this. Finally the people got so hungry they revolted and overthrew the chief.
This was perhaps the first time that a reign was ended because of game.
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Back in the 1950's the coolest thing was to be a beatnik, and have a goatee. One young man named Benny wanted so much to be a beatnik but couldn't grow a beard. He wished and wished, and one night a genie appeared to him and told him his wish could be granted, on one condition. If he ever shaved that beard off, he would immediately be burned to a crisp and his ashes put in an urn and buried away.
Well, Benny got his beard, and was the envy of all his beatnik friends. But as time passed, the fashion changed and he wanted to get rid of the beard. He was a little afraid, but figured it had been a lot of years and that genie was long gone. So one day he shaved. Immediately the genie appeared and scolded him "Benny, you were warned." In a flash he was burned up and his ashes put in a jar and none of his friends ever knew what became of him.
The moral of the story is, a Benny shaved is a Benny urned.
Punny....:-)
Another older one....
A painter took on a job at very little profit to paint a church, and, unfortunately, mis-estimated the amount of paint he needed.
He worked day and night to get the job done hoping to only break even. Ran out of paint and got more. He kept working his way up, and near the top of the church he could see that he still wouldn't have enough paint. He added water to thin it out some. Got a little higher and had to thin it out some more. Finally he was at the top of the steeple, and thinned and eked out all he could to finish covering the church. Just as he was painting the last stroke at the top...and wouldn't you know it, clouds moved in, thunder struck and it started to rain hard washing out all of his last efforts to finish off the paint job. And then a great voice from the heavens rang out instructing the painter: "Repaint! and thin no more!"
I likey. :-$
OK....
here's my contribution:
The Museum of Natural History was displaying teakwood carvings from the Chan Dynasty.
Early one morning a museum guard found the displays smashed open and empty. The only clue was small, bare feet prints leading away.
One smart detective knew immediately who the suspect was.....
A bare-foot boy with teaks of Chan...:pinch:
