| |
ZL3AI > HUMOUR 20.03.04 12:24l 132 Lines 5761 Bytes #999 (0) @ WW
BID : 3022-ZL3AI
Read: DH0GHU GUEST DL4NWM
Subj: Stranger/Spam/Cat
Path: DB0FHN<DB0FOR<DB0SIF<DB0CWS<DB0ZDF<DB0LJ<DB0RES<ON0AR<ZL2BAU<ZL2BAU<
ZL3VML
Sent: 040320/1043Z @:ZL3VML.#80.NZL.OC #:21156 [Chch-NZ] FBB7.00i $:3022-ZL3AI
From: ZL3AI@ZL3VML.#80.NZL.OC
To : HUMOUR@WW
The stranger in my home
-----------------------
A few months before I was born, back in the late 1950s, my Dad met a
stranger who was new to our small town. From the beginning, Dad was
fascinated with this enchanting newcomer and soon invited him to live with
our family.
The stranger was quickly accepted and was around to welcome me into the
world a few months later. As I grew up, I never questioned his place in our
family.
Mum taught me to love the Word of God, and Dad taught me to obey it, but
the stranger was our storyteller. He could weave the most fascinating
tales. Adventures, mysteries, and comedies were daily conversations. He
could hold our whole family spellbound for hours each evening. He was like
a friend to the whole family.
He took Dad, my brother, and me to our first major league football game. He
was always encouraging us to see the films and he even made arrangements to
introduce us to several stars. The stranger was an incessant talker. Dad
didn't seem to mind, but sometimes Mum would quietly get up -- while the
rest of us were enthralled with one of his stories of faraway places -- go
to her room, read the Bible and pray. I wonder now if she ever prayed that
the stranger would leave?
You see, my Dad ruled our household with certain moral convictions, but
this stranger never felt an obligation to honor them. Profanity, for
example, was not allowed in our house -- not from us, from our friends, or
from adults. Yet, our longtime visitor used occasional four letter words
that burned my ears and made Dad squirm. To my knowledge the stranger was
never confronted.
My Dad was a teetotaler who didn't permit alcohol in his home -- not even
for cooking, but the stranger felt like we needed exposure and enlightened
us to other ways of life.
He offered us beer and other alcoholic beverages often. He made cigarettes
look tasty, cigars manly, and pipes distinguished. He talked freely about
sex. His comments were sometimes blatant, sometimes suggestive, and
generally embarrassing. He spoke of sexual deviances as though they were
totally acceptable.
As I look back, I believe it was by the grace of God that the stranger did
not influence us more. Time after time, he opposed the values of parents,
yet he was seldom rebuked and never asked to leave. Nearly fifty years have
passed since the stranger moved in with us, but if! I were to walk into my
parents home today, I would still see him sitting there waiting for someone
to listen to his stories and watch him draw his pictures.
His name?.......
Well we just called him by his initials, TV.
THANKS FOR THE CHAIN LETTERS AND OTHER "INFORMATIONAL" EMAILS IN 2003:
----------------------------------------------------------------------
I stopped drinking Coca Cola after I found out that it's good for removing
toilet stains.
I stopped going to the movies for fear of sitting on a needle infected with
AIDS.
I smell like a dog since I stopped using deodorants because they cause
cancer.
I don't leave my car in the parking lot or any other place and sometimes I
even have to walk about 7 blocks for fear that someone will drug me with a
perfume sample and try to rob me.
I also stopped answering the phone for fear that they ask me to dial a
stupid number and then I get a phone bill from hell with calls to Uganda,
Singapore and Tokyo.
I stopped consuming several foods for fear that the estrogens they contain
may turn me gay.
I also stopped eating chicken and hamburgers because they are nothing other
than horrible mutant freaks with no eyes or feathers that are bred in a lab
so that places like McDonalds can sell their Big Macs.
I also stopped drinking anything out of a can for fear that I will get sick
from the rat feces and urine.
I think I'm turning gay because when I go to parties, I don't look at any
girl no matter how hot she is, for fear that she will take my kidneys and
leave me taking a nap in a bathtub full of ice.
I also donated all my savings to the Amy Bruce account. A sick girl that
was about to die in the hospital about 7,000 times. Funny that girl, she's
been 7 since 1993...
I went bankrupt from bounced checks that I made expecting the $15,000 that
Microsoft and AOL were supposed to send me when I participated in their
special e-mail program.
My Ericcson phone never arrived and neither did the passes for a paid
vacation to Disneyland.
But I am positive that all this is the cause of a stinking chain that I
broke or forgot to follow and I got a curse from hell.
IMPORTANT NOTE: If you don't send this e-mail to at least 1200 people in
the next 10 seconds, a bird will poop on you today at 7pm.
The Cat
-------
Sometime in the early 1900's, P. T. Barnum, the owner of the Barnum &
Bailey circus and originator of the phrase, "There's a sucker born every
minute," offered $10,000 in cash to any person who could thoroughly dupe or
sucker him.
Barnum was always looking for interesting new acts or novel creatures to
exhibit and one day he received a letter from a fellow in Maine who claimed
to possess a cherry-colored cat and asked if Barnum were interested in such
a thing for his circus. Barnum contacted the man and said yes, if the cat
were truly cherry-colored, he'd gladly put it on display.
Well, a few days later a crate marked "live animal" arrived for him. When
Barnum opened it, he found a somewhat frightened but otherwise perfectly
ordinary-looking black housecat inside, along with a note which read: Maine
cherries are black. There's a sucker born every minute.
Thoroughly tickled, Barnum sent the man a check for $10,000 (I'm not sure
what happened to the cat, I think Barnum may have kept it as a reminder of
the day he got suckered.)
Read previous mail | Read next mail
| |
