Tech Support
I had been doing Tech Support for Hewlett-Packard's DeskJet division for about a month when I had a customer call with a problem I just couldn't solve. She could not print yellow. All the other colors would print fine,which truly baffled me because the only true colours are cyan, magenta, and yellow. For instance, green is a combination of cyan and yellow, but green printed fine. Every color of the rainbow printed fine except for yellow. I had the customer change ink cartridges. I had the customer delete and reinstall the drivers. Nothing worked. I asked my coworkers for help; they offered no new ideas. After over two hours of troubleshooting, I was about to tell the customer to send the printer in to us for repair when she asked quietly, "Should I try printing on a piece of white paper instead of this yellow paper?"
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Generation to Generation
"Mummy, Mummy!" called Little Johnny one day. "Do you know the beautiful vase in the dining room that's been handed down from generation to generation?" "Yes", said his mother. "What about it?" "Well the last generation just dropped it."
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Tired from waiting for their overdue baby, my daughter and her husband broke
the monotony one night with a trip to the movies. My daughter went inside to
get seats while my son-in-law bought popcorn and drinks in the lobby.
Paying for the refreshments, my son-in-law knocked over his soda. The clerk
mopped up the mess and refilled his cup. Rattled, he then joined his wife.
Talking over the background music, he dramatically described his
embarrassing episode. One of his expressive gestures upset the bucket of
popcorn. He sheepishly headed back to the lobby.
When he was out of earshot, the woman sitting next to my daughter turned and
said, "You're not going to let him hold the baby, are you?"
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Last summer my wife and I met a couple at a restaurant. After lunch, the
women decided to go shopping, and I invited the man to go sailing. While we
were out on the water, a storm blew up. The tide had gone out, and we were
down wind trying to work our way back through a narrow channel. At one point
the boat grounded and we had to climb overboard and shove with all our might
to get it back in deeper water.
As my new friend stood there, ankle deep in muck, the wind blowing his hair
wildly, rain streaming down his face, he grinned at me, and with
unmistakable sincerity said, "Sure beats shopping."
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When my doctor finished with his exam I said, "This may hurt a little, Doc.
I don't have any money."
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As the result of an explosive argument with our mother, my little brother pasted a sign reading "I hate Mom" on the door to his room, and slammed it shut. My dad, a school psychologist, came home after work to this tense standoff. "I'll take care of it," he confidently told Mom, and went into my brother's room. Minutes later, Dad came out. "He doesn't hate you anymore," he reassured her. Sure enough, my brother had crossed out "Mom" on his sign. It now read "I hate Dad." -- Michele Pecoraro
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My wife and I were at my high school reunion. As I looked around, I noticed the other men in their expensive suits and bulging stomachs. Proud of the fact that I weighed just five pounds more than I did when I was in high school -- the result of trying to beat a living out of a rocky hillside farm -- I said to my wife, "I'm the only guy here who can wear the suit he graduated in." She glanced at the prosperous crowd, then back at me. "You're the only one who has to." -- George Crenshaw
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Sitting in his cab waiting for a fare, my friend's husband, William, watched as a torrential downpour left lake-size puddles just off the curb of the busy street. Then the back door opened and a customer got in. As William asked the destination, the would-be passenger exited through the other door, successfully avoiding the puddles. "Thanks," she said. "Chivalry isn't dead after all." -- Robert Gardinier
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Basic Math is the subject I teach at a small community college in western North Carolina. I call one part of the curriculum Practical Applications for Living in the Real World. The day after I presented a lesson on simple and compound interest, one of my older students approached me in the hallway. "You really taught me a great deal about my life yesterday," he said. "I realized I've been struggling with a lack of interest, compounded daily, for thirty years." -- Mary Farthing
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While getting dressed one morning, I decided I'd been spending too much time on my computer: I caught myself checking the lower right corner of my makeup mirror to see what time it was. -- Darlene Jacobs
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When I went to a Christian school, I walked into the cafeteria and there on the table was a plate of fruit. Next to it was a sign that said "Take one. God is watching."
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The college football player knew his way around the locker room better than he did the library. So when my husband's co-worker saw the gridiron star roaming the stacks looking confused, she asked how she could help. "I have to read a play by Shakespeare," he said."Which one?" she asked. He scanned the shelves and answered, "William." -- Sandra J. Yarbrough
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After leaving the regulated life of the Navy, an old friend of mine, a retired officer, took a civilian job but had trouble getting to work on time. Finally his boss asked, "What would they have said to you in your previous job about being late?"
My friend answered him, "Good morning, Admiral."
-- Salvador Sepulveda, Jr.
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At the school where my mother worked, the two first-grade teachers were named Miss Paine and Mrs. Hacking. One morning the mother of a student called in the middle of a flu epidemic to excuse her daughter from school. "Is she in Paine or Hacking?" the school secretary asked. "She feels fine," said the confused mom. "We have company and I'm just keeping her home." -- Merri Lee Colvin
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Working on a computer all day has definitely messed with my girlfriend's view of reality. We had just placed our lunch order, and as our waitress walked away, she slipped in a wet spot on the floor.
"How about that?" Amy observed dryly. "Our server is down."
-- Joseph Lassegard
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A co-worker returned after lunch carrying a dress from the cleaners. "Pretty," said one of the guys. "Big date tonight?"
"I picked it up for a friend," she replied, adding, "Do you really think I could fit in a tiny thing like this?"
Jerry smiled and said, "Do you really think I've lived this long by answering questions like that?"
-- Francis Calverase, St. Thomas, Pennsylvania
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The DVD player had conked out and we weren't able to watch the movie we'd rented. Then my husband had a brilliant idea: "Why don't we use the PlayStation?" We pushed all the buttons, but couldn't get it to work, so we gave up and went upstairs. We were reading in bed when our 17-year-old son appeared in our doorway."Someone left a DVD in my PlayStation," he said."We were trying to watch a movie on it," my husband admitted, "but we couldn't get past the parental control screen."
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Dog Care
A little boy was roughhousing with his dog. His mother said to him, "Now, Peter, I know you love Granger, but you're loving him too much. How would you feel if someone huge picked you up and squeezed you so hard you couldn't breathe?" The boy thought a moment and then said, "I guess I'd feel like it was my birthday and Aunt Doreen was here!"
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