cold day

One day, this lady decided to breed chickens. She found out, though, that she was unlucky in this hobby. Finally, she wrote to the Department of agriculture, hoping to get some helpful advice.

Her letter read, “Dear Sir or Madam, every morning when I go to check on my prize chickens, I always find one or two of them lying all stiff and cold on the ground with their legs in the air. Would you please be kind enough to tell me what’s wrong?”

About a week later, she recieved a reply letter that read, “Dear Madam, Your chickens are dead.”

1. Never walk down the hall without a document in your hands.
People with documents in their hands look like hardworking employees heading for important meetings. People with nothing in their hands look like they’re heading for the cafeteria. People with the newspaper in their hands look like they’re heading for the bathroom. Above all, make sure you carry loads of stuff home with you at night, thus generating the false impression that you work longer hours than you do.

2. Use computers to look busy.
Any time you use a computer, it looks like “work” to the casual observer. You can send and receive personal email, calculate your finances and generally have a blast without doing anything remotely related to work. These aren’t exactly the societal benefits that everybody from the computer revolution envisioned, but not bad either.

When you get caught by your boss - and you will get caught - your best defense is to claim you’re teaching yourself to use the new software, thus saving valuable training dollars. You’re not a loafer, you’re a self- starter. Offer to show your boss what you learned. That will make your boss scurry away like a frightened salamander.

3. Messy desk.
Top management can get away with a clean desk. For the rest of us, it looks like you’re not working hard enough. Build huge piles of documents around your workspace. To the observer, last year’s work looks the same as today’s work; it’s volume that counts. Pile them high and wide.

If you know somebody is coming to your cubicle, bury the document you’ll need halfway down in an existing stack. When he/she arrives, you can turn around, reach for the correct stack, go in at the right depth and extract the document. It will appear that you have an amazing memory and have things really organized.

4. Voice mail.
Never answer your phone if you have voice mail. People don’t call you just because they want to give you something for nothing - they call because they want YOU to do work for THEM. That’s no way to live.

Screen all your calls through voice mail. If somebody leaves a voice mail message for you and it sounds like impending work, respond during lunch hour when you’re hardworking and conscientious even though you’re being a devious weasel. If you diligently employ the method of screening incoming calls and then returning calls when nobody is there, this will greatly increase the odds that the caller will give up or look for a solution that doesn’t involve you. The sweetest voice mail message you can ever hear is “Ignore my last message. I took care of it”. If your voice mailbox has a limit on the number of messages it can hold, make sure you reach that limit frequently. One way to do that is to never erase any incoming messages. If that takes too long, send yourself a few messages. Your callers will hear a recorded message that says, “Sorry, this mailbox is full” - a sure sign that you are a hardworking employee in high demand.

5. Also, some good excuses if you get caught sleeping in your office:
“They told me at the blood bank this might happen.”
“This is just a 15-minute power nap like they raved about in that time-management course you sent me to.”
“Whew! I musta left the top off the liquid paper.”
“This is one of the seven habits of highly effective people!”
“I was testing the keyboard for drool-resistance.”
“This is in exchange for the six hours last night when I dreamed about work!”
“Someone must’ve put decaf in the wrong pot.”
“Boy, that cold medicine I took last night just won’t wear off!”

For those of you who don’t know, Gay Head is the name of a small town on Martha’s Vineyard, now renamed to Aquinna (I can’t imagine why they renamed it). It is known for its fabulous beach and stunning red cliffs overlooking the beach.

On my recent vacation, I decided to go there for the day. Feeling a little brave, I decided to head for the Northwest end of the beach. This is where bathing suits are optional. As I soon found out, most people opted not to wear one.

However, far from the 20-something meat market I expected (hoped for?), I found it to be just a place where people went to feel “as one with nature”. Very comfortable atmosphere.

So, I decided blend in and “Free Willy”. There were naked 7-year-olds, naked 70-year-olds, groups of friends, whole families. People were there just to have a good time. No one was there to stare and gawk (well, there was this one pervert - but, hey, it was my first time).

If you ever decide to go let me give you a bit of advice: SUNBLOCK! No, I didn’t find this out the hard way, I planned ahead. But a lot of people didn’t. I saw lots of pink breasts
there. Ouch. I saw some women who must have thought to put on sunblock everywhere, except for their butt-cracks! Some people call this part of anatomy “where the sun don’t shine”,
but believe me, it shone there a little too much for some people. Combine this with the fact that the Vineyard has lots of Mexican restaurants, and… Oh, man, I can’t even imagine the pain. I don’t think that the devil himself could come up with a worse torture.

Another piece of advice: If you are a man, and go to a nude beach to pick up women, well, forget it. You’re not there with your cool sports car, or flashy 3-piece-suit, or whatever, to impress women with. It’s just you. And let’s just say that that ocean water is cold.

Let’s face it, your most impressive feature is, well, not so impressive. “Hey, baby, check THIS out! Did I say something funny?”

So I didn’t meet too many women. At one point, while standing in the water, I was talking to a guy. Normal conversation. Where are you from, yada yada yada, I come down here with my
family every year, yada yada, so those must be your wife’s tits I’m staring at, yada, what do you do for a living, yada.

Suddenly it dawned on me that I’m standing here, talking to a 52-year-old fat naked man, from Connecticut, who is wearing nothing but a bad toupe, and he’s trying to sell me life
insurance. A decidedly low-quality situation. The devil had, at last, come up with a worse torture.

Dude, I hafta go, yada.

So I decided to take a walk up the beach to see the sites, if you know what I mean. I saw a woman lying on her stomach, facing away from the beach. Her husband (I assume) was lying
next to her. He had his hand on her buttocks. Well, actually, a little lower. In between her legs. And I thought, “Gee, what a nice man. He’s protecting his wife from getting a sunburn on her ’special place’. And the poor man, he must have been in a horribly disfiguring accident, because one of his fingers was missing. Wait a minute - Oh Man! I wish my finger was missing right about now!”

As I was coming back, I saw a funny sight. I wish I had a camera. OK, all day I wish I had a camera, but THIS was a true Kodak moment. There was a woman sitting on the beach, staring blankly out to sea. Fully clad in nature’s garb. Legs slightly spread. She was eating a bag of potato chips. And what an advertisement for the chips! All I could see was the logo between her legs… “Lay’s”.

Once a long time ago, there was a season when neither the Packers nor the Vikings made the post-season playoffs. It seemed so unusual that the management of both teams got together and decided that there should be some sort of competition between the two teams, because of their great on-going rivalry.

So they decided on a week-long fishing competition. The team that catches the most fish at the end of the week wins.

On a cold, northern Wisconsin lake, they began their contest.

The first day, after 8 hours of fishing, the Vikings had caught 100 fish, and the Packers had none.

At the end of the second day, the Vikings had caught 200 fish, and the Packers caught none again.

That evening the Packers’ coach got his team together and said, “I suspect some kind of cheating is taking place.” So the next morning, he dressed one of his players in purple and gold and sent him over to the Viking camp to act as a spy.

At the end of the day, he came back to report to the coach. The coach asked, “Well, how about it? Are they cheating?”

“The sure are!” the player reported. “They’re cutting holes in the ice!”

These are actual excuse notes teachers have received; spelling mistakes included.

“My son is under a doctor’s care and should not take P.E. today. Please execute him.”

“Please excuse Lisa for being absent. She was sick and I had her shot.”

“Dear School: Please ekscuse John being absent on Jan. 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, and also 33.”

“Please excuse Gloria from Jim today. She is administrating.”

“Please excuse Roland from P.E. for a few days. Yesterday he fell out of a tree and misplaced his hip.”

“John has been absent because he had two teeth taken out of his face.”

“Carlos was absent yesterday because he was playing football. He was hurt in the growing part.”

“Megan could not come to school today because she has been bothered by very close veins.”

“Chris will not be in school cus he has an acre in his side.”

“Please excuse Ray Friday from school. He has very loose vowels.”

“Please excuse Tommy for being absent yesterday. He had diarrhea and his boots leak.”

“Irving was absent yesterday because he missed his bust.”

“Please excuse Jimmy for being. It was his father’s fault.”

“I kept Billie home because she had to go Christmas shopping because I don’t know what size she wear.”

“Please excuse Jennifer for missing school yesterday. We forgot to get the Sunday paper off the porch, and when we found it Monday, we thought it was Sunday.”

“Sally won’t be in school a week from Friday. We have to attend her funeral.”

“My daughter was absent yesterday because she was tired. She spent a weekend with the Marines.”

“Please excuse Jason for being absent yesterday. He had a cold and could not breed well.”

“Please excuse Mary for being absent yesterday. She was in bed with gramps.”

“Please excuse Burma, she has been sick and under the doctor.”