An elderly man visits the doctor for a checkup. "Mr. Smith, you're in great shape," says the doctor afterward. "How do you do it?"

"Well," says Mr. Smith, "I don't drink, I don't smoke, and the good Lord looks out for me. For weeks now, every time I go to the bathroom in the middle of the night, he turns the light on for me."

Concerned, the doctor finds Mrs. Smith in the waiting room and tells her what her husband said.

"I don't think that's anything to worry about," she says. "And on the bright side, it does explain who's been peeing in the fridge."

Found in a heap of recycled files donated to our school was this curiously labeled folder: "Excuses I Have Used."

My 45-year-old sister was attending the wedding of a childhood friend when she ran into people she hadn't seen in years. How long exactly? One of them shouted, "Kathy, you got your braces off!"

My father was telling his young nephew about fighting in Vietnam.

"Are you a hero?" Jose asked.

"Nah," said Dad.

"Did you ever shoot anyone?"

"No. All I did was aim at 'em."

Pause … "Who's Adam?"

One of our visiting Italian students at Sheppard Air Force Base said he wouldn't be able to fly that day.

"Why?" his teacher asked.

Marshaling all the English he knew, the student pointed to his ears and explained, "It's my fallopian tubes."

Mother's Day is nigh, so we're loath to say this: Mothers aren't perfect. Here they admit it:

"My son knows he's not allowed downstairs until 9 a.m. Reason? He's been told that between 8 and 9 a.m., Mommy's fighting the monster that lives in the laundry basket."

"I just ate a full pint of Häagen-Dazs, and when my three-year-old asked me what I was eating, I told her it was special medicine for mommies, because I didn't want to share."

"My son was so excited for his second birthday, but when the day rolled around, I hadn't pulled anything together—so I told him that he had the day wrong and his birthday was actually the following week."

"I haven't taught my kids to tell time yet … That way, I can say it's bedtime whenever I want."

I was sound asleep when the telephone jarred me awake.

"Hi!" It was my peppy mother-in-law. She proceeded to rattle on about the busy day she had ahead and all the things that awaited her the rest of the week.

"Mom," I interrupted. "It's five in the morning."

"Really? What are you doing up so early?"

Overheard in a ladies' fitting room: "Honestly, do these pants make my rear end look big?" "Honestly? Your rear end makes the pants look big."

There was a typo on a test I was taking. Instead of "(D) none of the above," it said "(D) one of the above." So I circled it.

Suspecting he had a serious medical condition, I nagged my husband until he agreed to see a doctor. Once there, he was handed a mountain of forms to fill out. Next to "Reason for visit?" he wrote, "My wife made me."

When I asked my friend if she was planning to attend church, she just shook her head. "I haven't gone in a long time," she said. "Besides, it's too late for me. I've probably already broken all seven commandments."

It was time for my dog's annual checkup. Following the vet's instructions, I collected a stool sample and dropped it in a plastic container before we left for his office. When we arrived, I handed the sample to the receptionist, who immediately cracked a smile. The container read "I Can't Believe It's Not Butter."

Our elementary school was honoring local veterans. The students were a bit intimidated and didn't know how to approach them.

"Start by introducing yourself,"

I said. "Then ask what branch of the military they served in."

One student walked over to a vet and promptly asked, "What tree are you from?"

Three guys are talking about what constitutes fame. The first guy defines it as being invited to the White House for a chat with the president. "Nah," says the second guy. "Real fame would be if the red phone rang when you were there, and the president wouldn't take the call." "You're both wrong," says the third. "Fame is when you're in the Oval Office and the red phone rings, the president answers it, listens for a second, and then says, "'It's for you.'"

Seen outside a professor's door at Georgetown College: "Psychology 376: Dying, Grieving, and Coping. Take for your major or minor, or as a fun elective."

A brother of a student of mine showed me a photo their father had sent from Iraq. In it, his dad is sitting atop a tank. On the back of the tank is this bumper sticker: "My son is an honor student at Clear Creek Elementary School."

With airlines adding fees to fees, The Week magazine asked its readers to predict the next surcharge they'll levy for something previously free.

1. In the unlikely event of loss of cabin pressure, oxygen masks will drop down. To start the flow of oxygen, simply insert your credit card …

2. $100 On-Time Departure Fee; $25 Delay Complaint Fee.

3. View seating (formerly window seats), $10; Access seating (formerly aisle seats), $10 $20 to use roll-away stairs to enter or exit the aircraft in lieu of no-charge rope-ladder alternative.

4. $9 fee for bumping your head on the overhead bin as you take your seat; $3 additional penalty for looking up at the bin after you bump into it.

Whenever someone says, "I'm not book-smart; I'm street-smart," all I hear is "I'm not real smart; I'm imaginary smart."

My grandmother told me how she ended up marrying Grandpa. She was in her 20s, and the man she was dating left for war. "We were in love," she recalled, "and wrote to each other every week. It was during that time that I discovered how wonderful your grandfather was."

"Did you marry Grandpa when he came home from the war?" I asked.

"Oh, I didn't marry the man who wrote the letters. Your grandfather was the mailman."

To get his mind off his losing streak at the racetrack, I took my friend horseback riding. Being a novice, he freaked when his mount took off.

"How do I stop?" he yelled.

"Bet on it!" I hollered back.

Our school had just installed a new air-conditioning system, and a representative from the company wanted to make sure it was running smoothly. Poking his head into an empty classroom, he asked the teacher, "Any little problems here?"

"No," she said, smiling. "All our little problems have gone home."

When a body was brought to her funeral home, my friend contacted the next of kin. Per previous instructions, the deceased would be cremated, she told him, so he needed to come in to identify the body.

Considering the task at hand, the relative asked, "Does this need to be done before or after the cremation?"

I stole a couple of minutes from work to give my wife a call. She put my two-year-old son on, and we chatted a while before he ended it with an enthusiastic "I love you!"

"I love you too," I said, with a dopey grin plastered on my face. I was about to hang up when I heard him ask sweetly, "Mommy, who was that?"

Every year on my birthday, I looked forward to my aunt's gift—a scarf, hat, or sweater knitted by hand. One year, she must have had better things to do because I received a ball of yarn, knitting needles, and a how-to-knit book. Her card read "Scarf, some assembly required."

Humorist Phil Proctor does a lot of radio voice-overs. But his favorite part of the job is reading the character descriptions in the script:

• "We're looking for the voice of God, but not a goofy God, a real God."

• "Sounds good-looking."

• (For a fast-food campaign) "This is not a bitter chicken, but he is having trouble coping with the modern world."

• "Female voice. American. Sultry, like drinking chocolate from the back of a moose."

Medical transcription requires a keen ear for technical jargon. But one applicant insisted she was singularly qualified for the position. After all, she wrote in her cover letter, "both of my sisters are nurses, and I watch the cable shows Dr. G: Medical Examiner and Trauma: Life in the E.R."

While we were working at a men's clothing store, a customer asked my coworker to help her pick out a tie that would make her husband's blue eyes stand out.

"Ma'am," he explained, "any tie will make blue eyes stand out if you tie it tight enough.

If you are truly serious about preparing your child for the future, don't teach him to subtract—teach him to deduct.

My wife took our three-year-old to church for the first time. Getting impatient while waiting for the Mass to start, he turned to her and asked, "What time does Jesus get here?"

My son Timothy was his brother's best man. To commemorate the event, Daniel bought him a silver mug, but the engraver made a slight mistake. The mug read "Best man once, a bother forever."

My father is allergic to cotton. He has pills that he can take, but he can't get them out of the bottle.

A gnome is in the garden busily destroying some bushes when a house cat appears. "What are you?" asks the cat.

"A gnome," comes the reply. "I steal food from humans, I kill their plants, I make annoying music at night to drive them crazy, and I love mischief. And what, may I ask, are you?"

The cat replies, "Um, I'm a gnome."

Thank you for calling the Weight Loss Hotline. If you'd like to lose a half pound right now, press "1" 18,000 times.

I opened the refrigerator at work to get my lunch. Instead of my dessert, I found this note: "IOU one banana cream. Sorry, it was an emergency. Sharon."

In honor of our armed forces, the University of South Carolina football team used the backs of players' jerseys to display a little patriotism. They placed words like Duty, Service, Courage, and Commitment where players' names would normally go. During the game against the University of Florida, a fight broke out, prompting the television commentator to announce, "It looked like Integrity threw the first punch."

A wife is scrambling eggs when her husband bursts into the kitchen.

"Careful," he cries. "Careful! You're cooking too many at once. Too many! Scramble them! Now! We need more butter. They're going to stick! Careful! Now scramble them again! Hurry up! Are you crazy? Don't forget to salt them. You know you always forget to salt them. Use the salt. Use the salt! The salt!"

The wife turns and asks, "What is wrong with you?"

Her husband calmly replies, "I wanted to show you what it feels like when I'm driving."

As my sister relaxed on the couch, her head comfortably leaning against the crook of her husband's arm, her cell phone beeped. It was a text message from her husband: "Move."

With fire alarms blaring at my mom's apartment complex, she grabbed her favorite bathing suit and ran out.

"A bathing suit?" I said later. "Of all the priceless things in that apartment, that's what you chose to save?"

"Material things come and go," she said. "But a one-piece suit that doesn't make you look fat is impossible to replace."

Q: What did the green grape say to the purple grape?

A: Breathe! Breathe!

I was attending a benefit, and before the show began, I walked up to a man wearing fatigues. "I just want to thank you for your service to our country," I told him. He looked thoroughly confused, but I walked away knowing I'd done the right thing. Later, when my soldier took the stage along with a police officer, a construction worker, and a Native American, it dawned on me why he'd had a puzzled expression—I had thanked a member of the Village People.

A devastated-looking man knocks on the door of a woman known for her charity.

"Please, ma'am," he says when she opens up, "can you help this poor, tragic family down the block? The father just lost his job, and his wife is too ill to work. They're about to be turned out into the cold streets unless someone can pay their rent."

"That's the worst thing I've ever heard in my life!" says the woman. "May I ask who you are?"

"Their landlord."

My wife and I were at my high school reunion. As I looked around, I noticed the other men in their expensive suits with their 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. "You're the only one here who has to."

My girlfriend likes to role-play. For the past five years, she's been playing my ex-girlfriend.

Walk into Jerry Stepani’s office and you’ll see vestiges of the practical jokes of yore. There’s a whoopee cushion on the couch, a dollar tied to a string on the floor, even fake vomit on his desk. But Stepani, president of Pranks Inc., a subsidiary of Bloomberg, isn’t looking back. The golden age of pranks is here. "There are big bucks in yucks," he says as he jolts me with a joy buzzer. [caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="300"] Never turn your
back on (from
left) John
Hargrave, Tom
Mabe, Streeter
Seidell, and
Charlie Todd.[/caption] Stepani and company are busy establishing the U.S. Prank Exchange, which lets investors buy and sell shares in hoaxes. According to an article in the Wall Street Journal, "blue-chip pranks, like those involving whoopee cushions, are expected to have moderate growth, whereas tech and online pranks are expected to be highly volatile but …" Okay, we’re lying. There is no Pranks Inc., no Prank Exchange, no Wall Street Journal article, not even a Jerry Stepani as far as we know. Too bad—we could make a mint, what with all the pranks being perpetrated on an unsuspecting public. Just last year, the world was introduced to bottled organic air (courtesy of Whole Foods Market), animal gyms (Virgin), and a new breed of sheep sporting tartan-patterned wool (the London Daily Mail), to name but a few. Bears may have decimated the stock and housing markets, but there’s still a lot of bull in the bull business. Here, four of the best pranksters tell us what makes them trick. Gag Reflex Forty-two-year-old comedian Tom Mabe was a prank prodigy, having executed his first when he was only eight. He had just made a snowman on the front lawn of his Louisville, Kentucky, home when he watched helplessly as teenagers in a car ran over it. He made another, with the same result. The third snowman he built was on a fire hydrant. "There I was with their wrecked car and water gushing out everywhere, and I acted like, Gee, I didn’t think anyone would hit it with his car," he says. "I had to do something. I was just a little guy. So I came up with this kind of cowardly way of getting revenge." Mabe grew up to be six feet four inches tall, but he never lost the little-guy attitude. His specialty is torturing telemarketers. He once checked into a Washington, D.C., hotel that was hosting a telemarketing convention, and spent the night making phony phone calls, trying to sell the sellers insomnia medicine at three o’clock in the morning. The front desk manager finally begged him to stop because one of the guests was so outraged. Mabe promised to fix the situation. He phoned the guest and identified himself as the manager. "Sir, I’m sorry about your losing sleep," he said. "I believe we can make it up to you." "Thank God," the man said. "Here it is … Rock-a-bye, baby, in the treetop …" Why do you pull pranks? "Revenge and fun. If some salesman is going to call my house, it’s game on." Best gag you’ve pulled off: "One time there were a couple of homeless guys in front of a McDonald’s. I called the restaurant impersonating a policeman and pretended that the men were actually undercover cops. I persuaded the manager to bring them burgers and coffee." Best gag someone else pulled off: "My buddy Jim Clark took his family to the zoo, and upon exiting, he and his family ran past the people entering screaming, ‘Run, run! It’s right behind us!’ People were taking cover, jumping up on picnic tables!" Any pranks you regret pulling? "I once saw a dead deer by the side of the road. I ran back to my house, put on a Santa suit, and then I lay down beside the deer—just in time for a school bus to drive by. Freaked the kids right out." Pearls of wisdom: "If you’re a revenge prankster like me, remember: Not everyone is evil, not even telemarketers. Every year around Christmas, when one of them calls, I’ll always say something like, ‘Hmmm, that transmission insurance policy sounds like something I could really use, but it’s kind of expensive, and it is Christmas. Hmmm … Do you think—do you think that if I put my kid on the phone, you could pretend to be Santa Claus and tell him you’re not coming this year?’ So far, no one has taken me up on this. Score one for humanity." Sir Pranksalot Sir John Hargrave got into the pranks business honestly: He was born on April 1. With that head start, he founded one of the premier prankster sites on the Web, zug.com, which stands for "zug is utterly great." The 41-year-old embarked on world hoax domination some years ago when, posing as a ten-year-old, he wrote to every U.S. senator asking them to send him a joke as part of a homework assignment. Many senators responded, including Maryland’s Barbara Mikulski, who contributed this: "Why didn’t the skeleton cross the road? Because he didn’t have any guts!" By the way, don’t let Hargrave’s lofty title fool you. He’s from Boston. He added "sir" to his legal name when Buckingham Palace refused to knight him for "honourable pranking." Why do you pull pranks? "It’s a sport for thrill seekers. The moment before you pull off something, it’s pure adrenaline." Best gag you’ve pulled off: "I once filled out my tax forms using Roman numerals. The IRS was not amused." Best gag someone else pulled off: "Mat Benote, a graffiti artist, hung one of his paintings at the Brooklyn Museum in New York. It took two days before they realized it didn’t belong." Any pranks you regret pulling? "No, but I do regret having been punked myself. Before my book Mischief Maker’s Manual was published, I solicited celebrity blurbs on my website. I got an e-mail from a kid who said Eric Idle of Monty Python was his uncle. So the next thing I know, I was e-mailing with Eric Idle, and having conversations with his assistant. A year later, I saw this article, ‘How I Pranked John Hargrave.’ It was the kid—he played all the parts in the prank: Eric Idle, the assistant, everyone." A gag anyone can pull off: "Stick someone’s toothbrush in a Dixie cup of water, and put it in the freezer overnight. Put it back in its normal place in the morning." Pearls of wisdom: "Pranks and practical jokes should never be confused. A practical joke is something you pull on coworkers, like the guys in Utah who transformed their vacationing colleague’s cubicle into a small cottage, complete with a working doorbell, mailbox, and ceiling fan. A prank goes after the man. For example, there’s a video where Tom Cruise is being interviewed. The interviewer is holding a trick microphone and squirts water in Cruise’s face. Cruise starts chewing him out, and we crack up because, well, Tom Cruise is the man." Getting Schooled Tension fills the halls of collegehumor.com. Two of the humor site’s writers are at war, a prank war to be precise. The small-scale gags that Streeter Seidell and Amir Blumenfeld first pulled on each other have ballooned into elaborate productions. In one, Blumenfeld arranged for Seidell and his girlfriend to go to a Yankees game. Unbeknownst to Seidell, Blumenfeld also arranged for the scoreboard to display a bogus wedding proposal. A hidden camera recorded the couple’s reaction. It’s painful to watch. Seidell’s girlfriend is understandably startled. Seidell is even more startled when she accepts. "I did not put that up!" he exclaims. "I don’t want to marry you." She slaps him and leaves. For good. Seidell, 27, says his friendly war with Amir has only escalated since then. Why do you pull pranks? "It began as a fun way to kill boredom. Now I’m just trying to top the one before." Best gag you’ve pulled off: "I arranged for Amir to be selected to take a halftime half-court shot for a half-million dollars at a college basketball game. While Amir was led to a secluded office ‘to sign forms,’ I let the crowd in on the gag and requested their help. When Amir came back, we blindfolded him, and he took his shot … missing by at least 20 feet. But on cue, the crowd went crazy, as if he sank the shot. Amir did a victory lap around the court, yelling and punching the air. It lasted right up to the presentation of the fake check … which was presented by me. That’s when he realized he’d been had." Best gag someone else pulled off: "The lottery ticket prank. Videotape a lottery drawing. The next day, buy a ticket, asking for the same numbers that won the day before. Give that ticket to a friend and watch the ‘live’ drawing together. When he ‘wins,’ he will leap for joy like Amir did … until you turn off the tape." A gag anyone can pull off: "Bet someone that you can make it so they cannot lift a glass of beer off the table with their thumbs. When they’ve agreed to the bet, have them place their thumbs on the table next to each other. Now balance the full glass of beer on their thumbs. Unless they want to take a beer bath, they’re stuck." Pearls of wisdom: "You need a bit of meanness to be funny, but too much and you make people uncomfortable." Like what Amir did to your ex-girlfriend? "Yeah." Prank You Very Much On a freezing January morning, New York City commuters boarded subways from various lines and braced themselves for the day. They could not have expected this: Fellow passengers—businesspeople and college kids alike—removed their pants and skirts and nonchalantly rode to their destination, Union Square, in their underwear. Riders gawked, leered, and laughed their heads off. The ninth annual No Pants Subway Ride was another successful gag perpetrated by Charlie Todd and his New York Prank Collective, Improv Everywhere. Todd has a curiously upbeat mission for a guy trying to pull a fast one on the populace: "Cause scenes of chaos and joy in public places." They stage such scenes about ten times a year. There was the impromptu wedding reception for an unsuspecting couple getting married at City Hall, and Frozen Grand Central, in which 200 "agents" (the preferred term for participants) milled about Grand Central Terminal’s Main Concourse before unexpectedly freezing in place during rush hour. Todd, 31, grew up in Columbia, South Carolina, and moved to New York City in 2001. It was there, in an East Village bar, that something changed his life for good—he pretended to be the alternative rock singer Ben Folds. "People were posing for photographs with me, the bartender gave me free drinks, a girl gave me her number," he says. "But what I liked about it was that it was a positive experience for everybody, even though they were being fooled. When it was over, I didn’t smirk, Ha-ha, you’ve been pranked. I just thanked everyone and left. It gave them something they could tell their friends. Even if they Googled Ben Folds and found out he’s, like, ten years older than me, they’d still have a wonderful story: ‘This guy, for some reason, pretended to be Ben Folds!’ " Why do you pull pranks? "I get excited about pulling pranks that make people smile." Best gag you’ve pulled off: "The fake U2 concert in 2005. We assembled a group of musicians—with me dressed as Bono—and played a rooftop concert in New York. It was a crazy 20 minutes for the crowd watching … especially when the police arrested us for unreasonable noise." Best gag someone else pulled off: "Rob Cockerham posted a fake T.G.I. Friday’s menu page on his website cockeyed.com and encouraged people to insert it inside a real T.G.I. Friday menu. It parodied the Atkins Diet and had really disgusting stuff, like Bacon Churner with Faux-tatoes: two whole sticks of fresh Dutch dairy butter on a bed of crisp bacon." A gag anyone can pull off: "Here’s one my college roommates pulled on me: They covered every object and surface in my bedroom with tin foil. All the windows and lightbulbs were blacked out. I needed a flashlight to even figure out what was going on." Pearls of wisdom: "Anyone can pull pranks. Look at Frozen Grand Central. All you have to do is freeze in place." Revenge of the Nerds A self-described nerd’s paradise, MIT has a long tradition of hoaxes. The students’ favorite target is the school’s Great Dome, home to the engineering library. Over the years, the dome has been dressed up like R2D2, accessorized with a solar-powered subway car that moved along a track, and crowned with a beanie. But in 1994, the ante was upped when students awoke to find a police car, with blinking lights, parked 150 feet high. Closer investigation revealed a parking ticket tucked under the windshield wipers and a dummy dressed as a campus policeman, a box of doughnuts at his side.

It took me forever to wake up one of my nursing home patients. But after much poking, prodding, and wrangling, he finally sat up and fixed his twinkling blue eyes on my face. "My, you're pretty!" he said. "Have I asked you to marry me yet?"

"No, you haven't," I gushed.

"Good. Because I couldn't put up with this every morning."

Before my daughter went on her first date, I gave her "the talk."

"Sometimes, it's easy to get carried away when you're with a boy," I said. "Remember, a short moment of indiscretion could ruin your life."

"Don't worry," she said. "I don't plan on ruining my life until I get married."

When my boss returned to the office, he was told that everyone had been looking for him. That set him off on a speech about how indispensable he was to the company.

"Actually," interrupted his assistant, "you left with the key to the stationery closet."

Driving back from Vermont, I stopped at a vegetable stand. It was deserted except for a sleeping German shepherd. I stepped over the dog, helped myself to some corn, then opened the cashbox to pay. Taped to the inside of the lid was this note: "The dog can count."

A Dubliner proposes to his girlfriend on Saint Patrick’s Day and gives her a ring with a synthetic diamond.

"You cheap bum!" she yells. "This isn’t even real."

"I know," he says. "But in honor of Saint Patrick, I thought I’d buy you a sham-rock."

After finishing his meal, my grandfather, a retired Marine captain, asked the waitress for the 15 percent discount the restaurant offered veterans.

"Do you need to see my military ID?" he asked.

"That's all right," she said. "I know you were in the military. I can tell by your T-shirt."

Grandpa's shirt read "Welcome to Gettysburg National Military Park."

One read through this man's résumé and it was no wonder he was looking for a new line of work: Under "Previous Job," he'd written, "Stalker at Walmart."

When my petite mother found her seat on the airplane, she was crushed between my 200-plus-pound father and another large man.

"I bet you wish you'd married a smaller man," my father said.

My mother mumbled, "I did."

"Wedding band—Ladies' size 5, gold, 5 diamonds, $250. Worn only 32 days by an old, narcissistic witch."

Simon Cowell: This entire trip has been simply ghastly. You missed two turns, and your side-view mirrors weren't adjusted properly. And the worst part was the singing to the radio. Just awful. You're no longer in the driver's seat. In fact, I'd be surprised if you returned next week—because you'd probably get lost again.

Jack Bauer: I don't have a lot of time. You're going to have to trust me. The country's fate is in my hands. So please, listen to me. The Walmart is on the left, 2.6 miles up the road. Today's the last day for the rollback prices on that wicker hamper you want, so grab it and go. Then we have some business to take care of.

The Biggest Loser trainers: Come on! So you're lost. Are you gonna cry? Don't you dare reach for that glove compartment. I know that's where you hide your Twix bars. Just take a breath. Pull over. Do some stretching. Get back in. And let's turn around and get back on track! There's a weigh station on the right.

Discovered: why our nation's education system is in trouble. When a friend delivered 20 new math books to a teacher's classroom, the teacher exclaimed, "Oh, shoot! I was hoping it was something I could use."

After I prosecuted a man for killing a bird out of season with his slingshot, the court clerk suggested setting up a date for him to return with both the money for the fine and proof of community service. "That way," she said innocently, "you can kill two birds with one stone."

A job application made me do a double take. After the entry "Sex," the applicant had written, "Once in Florida."

"For sale—Blue sofa with two attached lazy boys."

Clearly, my husband and I need to brush up on our flirting. The other night, after I crawled into bed next to him, he wrapped his large arms around me, drew a deep breath, and whispered, "Mmm … that Vicks smells good."

When my insurance company refused to pay for my newborn son's circumcision, I got a letter explaining its logic. Under the procedure "Circumcision" was written "Unable to locate member."

At our supermarket, I noticed a woman with four boys and a baby. Her patience was wearing thin as the boys called out, "Mommy! Mommy!" while she tried to shop.

Finally, she blurted out, "I don't want to hear the word mommy for at least ten minutes!"

The boys fell silent for a few seconds. Then one tugged on his mother's dress and said softly, "Excuse me, miss."

My son, a high school senior, went to take a national literacy test recently. A sign on the classroom door read "Literacy Testing in Progress: Do Not Distrub!"

"Nice 2-bedroom home. The owner has noted that there are termites that have done some damage. Selling house 'as is.' Don't Wait. This Wonderful Property Will Not Last Long."

I'd just come home from my sixth medical appointment of the week with one more to go, so I was in a lousy mood when my daughter called. After I recited my woes, my daughter said, "Well, seven doctors is better than one coroner."

A millionaire, a hard hat, and a drunk are at a bar. When they get their beers, they notice a fly in each mug. The millionaire politely asks the bartender for another beer, then proceeds to sip it. The hard hat spills out just enough to get rid of the fly and quaffs the rest. It's now the drunk's turn. He sticks his hand into the beer, grabs the fly by the wings, and shouts, "Spit it out! Spit it out!"

Once I'd finished reviewing my daughter's homework, I gave her an impromptu quiz. "What is a group of whales called?" I asked. "I'll give you a hint—it sounds like something you use to listen to music." "An iPod?" she guessed. "Close," I said. "But what I'm thinking of is a little smaller." "A Shuffle!"

I won't be hiring this assistant soon, even if her résumé boasts, "I'm a team player with 16 years of assassinating experience."

I think the Discovery Channel should be on a different channel every day.

One of our hotel guests complained to me about a spraying showerhead: "I can't get in the shower without getting wet!"

En route to Hawaii, I noticed one of my passengers in the coach section of the airplane dialing her cell phone. "Excuse me. That can't be on during the flight," I reminded her. "Besides, we're over the ocean—you won't get a signal out here."

"That's okay," she said. "I'm just calling my daughter. She's sitting up in first class."