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Once upon a time, there was a man who worked very hard just to keep food on the table for his family. This particular year a few days before Christmas, he punished his little five-year-old daughter after learning that she had used up the family’s only roll of expensive gold wrapping paper.
As money was tight, he became even more upset when on Christmas Eve he saw that the child had used all of the expensive gold paper to decorate one shoebox she had put under the Christmas tree. He also was concerned about where she had gotten money to buy what was in the shoebox.
Nevertheless, the next morning the little girl, filled with excitement, brought the gift box to her father and said, “This is for you, Daddy!”
As he opened the box, the father was embarrassed by his earlier overreaction, now regretting how he had punished her.
But when he opened the shoebox, he found it was empty and again his anger flared. “Don’t you know, young lady,” he said harshly, “when you give someone a present, there’s supposed to be something inside the package!”
The little girl looked up at him with sad tears rolling from her eyes and whispered: “Daddy, it’s not empty. I blew kisses into it until it was all full.”
The father was crushed. He fell on his knees and put his arms around his precious little girl. He begged her to forgive him for his unnecessary anger.
An accident took the life of the child only a short time later. It is told that the father kept this little gold box by his bed for all the years of his life. Whenever he was discouraged or faced difficult problems, he would open the box, take out an imaginary kiss, and remember the love of this beautiful child who had put it there.
Once, in the 1820’s, a little boy called Sam was playing in the yard behind his house. During his pretend fighting game, he knocked over the outhouse. Now Sam was upset and worried that he would get into trouble so he ran into the woods and didn’t come out until after got dark. When he arrived back home, his pappy was waiting for him. He asked suspiciously, “Son, did you knock over the outhouse this afternoon?”
“No, pappy,” Sam lied.
“Well, let me tell you a story,” said the father. “Once, not that long ago, Mr Washington received a shiny new axe from his father. Excited, he tried it out on a tree, swiftly cutting it down. But as he looked at the tree, with dismay he realized it was his mother’s favorite cherry tree,” his pappy paused.” just like you, he ran into the woods. When he returned, his pappy asked, ‘George, did you cut down the cherry tree?’ George answered with, ‘Father, I cannot tell a lie. I did indeed chop down the tree.’ Then his father said, ‘Well, since you were honest with me, you are spared from punishment. I hope you have learned your lesson, though.’ So,” the Sam’s father asked again,” did you knock down the outhouse?”
“Pappy, I cannot tell a lie any more.” said the little boy. “I did indeed knock down the outhouse.”
Then his pappy father spanked Sam boy red, white, and blue. The boy whimpered, “Pappy, I told you the truth! Why did you spank me?”
Pappy answered, “That’s because George Washington’s father wasn’t in the tree when he chopped it down!”
An unemployed man goes to apply for a job with Microsoft as a janitor. The manager there arranges for him to take an aptitude test (Section: Floors, sweeping and cleaning).
After the test, the manager says, “You will be employed at minimum wage, $7.25 an hour. Let me have your e-mail address, so that I can send you a form to complete and tell you where to report for work on your first day.”
Taken aback, the man protests that he has neither a computer nor an e-mail address. To this the Microsoft manager replies, “Well then, that means that you virtually don’t exist and can therefore hardly expect to be employed.”
Stunned, the man leaves. Not knowing where to turn and having only $10 in his wallet, he decides to buy a 25 LB flat of tomatoes at the supermarket.
Within less than 2 hours, he sells all the tomatoes individually at 100% profit. Repeating the process several times more that day,he ends up with almost $100 before going to sleep that night.
And thus it dawns on him that he could quite easily make a living selling tomatoes. Getting up early every day and going to bed late, he multiplies his profits quickly.
After a short time he acquires a cart to transport several dozen boxes of tomatoes, only to have to trade it in again so that he can buy a pickup truck to support his expanding business. By the end of the second year, he is the owner of a fleet of pickup trucks and manages a staff of a hundred former unemployed people, all selling tomatoes.
Planning for the future of his wife and children, he decides to buy some life insurance. Consulting with an insurance adviser, he picks an insurance plan to fit his new circumstances. At the end of the telephone conversation, the adviser asks him for his e-mail address in order to send the final documents electronically.
When the man replies that he has no e-mail, the adviser is stunned, “What! You don’t have e-mail? How on earth have you managed to amass such wealth without the Internet, e-mail and e-commerce? Just imagine where you would be now, if only you had been connected to the Internet from the very start!”
After a moment of thought, the tomato millionaire replied, “Why, of course! I would be a floor cleaner at Microsoft!”
The following is a true story. It amused the hell out of me while it was happening. I hope it isn’t one of those “had to be there” things.
On my way home from the second job I’ve taken for the extra holiday ca$h I need, I stopped at Taco Bell for a quick bite to eat. In my billfold is a $50 bill and a $2 bill. That is all of the cash I have on my person. I figure that with a $2 bill, I can get something to eat and not have to worry about people getting mad at me.
Me: “Hi, I’d like one seven layer burrito please, to go.”
Server: “Is that it?”
Me: “Yep.”
Server: “That’ll be $1.04, eat here?”
Me: “No, it’s “TO-GO” [I hate effort duplication]
At this point I open my billfold and hand him the $2 bill. He looks at it kind of funny and . . .
Server: “Uh, hang on a sec, I’ll be right back.”
He goes to talk to his manager, who is still within earshot. The following conversation occurs between the two of them:
Server: “Hey, you ever see a $2 bill?”
Manager: “No. A what?”
Server: “A $2 bill. This guy just gave it to me.”
Manager: “Ask for something else, THERE’S NO SUCH THING AS A $2 BILL.”
Server: “Yeah, thought so.”
He comes back to me and says:
Server: “We don’t take these. Do you have anything else?”
Me: “Just this fifty. You don’t take $2 bills? Why?”
Server: “I don’t know.”
Me: “See here where it says legal tender?”
Server: “Yeah.”
Me: “So, shouldn’t you take it?”
Server: “Well, hang on a sec.”
He goes back to his manager who is watching me like I’m going to shoplift.
Server: “He says I have to take it.”
Manager: “Doesn’t he have anything else?”
Server: “Yeah, a fifty. I’ll get it and you can open the safe and get change.”
Manager: “I’M NOT OPENING THE SAFE WITH HIM IN HERE.” [My emphasis]
Server: “What should I do?”
Manager: “Tell him to come back later when he has REAL money.”
Server: “I can’t tell him that, you tell him.”
Manager: “Just tell him.”
Server: “No way, this is weird, I’m going in back.”
The manager approaches me and says:
Manager: “Sorry, we don’t take big bills this time of night.” [It was 8pm and this particular Taco Bell is in a well lighted indoor mall with 100 other stores.]
Me: “Well, here’s a two.”
Manager: “We don’t take those either.”
Me: “Why the hell not?”
Manager: “I think you know why.”
Me: “No really, tell me, why?”
Manager: “Please leave before I call mall security.”
Me: “Excuse me?”
Manager: “Please leave before I call mall security.”
Me: “What the hell for?”
Manager: “Please, sir.”
Me: “Uh, go ahead, call them.”
Manager: “Would you please just leave?”
Me: “No.”
Manager: “Fine, have it your way then.”
Me: “No, that’s Burger King, isn’t it?”
At this point he BACKS away from me and calls mall security on the phone around the corner. I have two people STARING at me from the dining area, and I begin laughing out loud, just for effect. A few minutes later this 45 year old-ish guy comes in and says [at the other end of counter, in a whisper]:
Security: “Yeah, Mike, what’s up?”
Manager: “This guy is trying to give me some [pause] funny money.”
Security: “Really? What?”
Manager: “Get this, a two dollar bill.”
Security: “Why would a guy fake a $2 bill?” [Incredulous]
Manager: “I don’t know? He’s kinda weird. Says the only other thing he has is a fifty.”
Security: “So, the fifty’s fake?”
Manager: “NO, the $2 is.”
Security: “Why would he fake a $2 bill?”
Manager: “I don’t know. Can you talk to him, and get him out of here?”
Security: “Yeah…”
Security guard walks over to me and says:
Security: “Mike here tells me you have some fake bills you’re trying to use.”
Me: “Uh, no.”
Security: “Lemme see ’em.”
Me: “Why?”
Security: “Do you want me to get the cops in here?”
At this point I was ready to say, “SURE, PLEASE,” but I wanted to eat, so I said:
Me: “I’m just trying to buy a burrito and pay for it with this $2 bill.”
I put the bill up near his face, and he flinches like I was taking a swing at him. He takes the bill, turns it over a few times in his hands, and says
Security: “Mike, what’s wrong with this bill?”
Manager: “It’s fake.”
Security: “It doesn’t look fake to me.”
Manager: “But it’s a $2 bill.”
Security: “Yeah?”
Manager: “Well, there’s no such thing, is there?”
The security guard and I both looked at him like he was an idiot, and it dawned on the guy that he had no clue. My burrito was free and he threw in a small drink and those cinnamon things, too. Makes me want to get a whole stack of $2 bills just to see what happens when I try to buy stuff. If I got the right group of people, I could probably end up in jail. At least you get free food.
She sadly did not have the creativity to name all of them unique names so she named each one a number from 1-100.
One of them was named “one”, the next was “two” and so on all the way to one hundred. But, in a tragic accident, 99 of the children died.
The only one who survived was the one named “Ninety”.
Ninety eventually grew up and lived a whole life and she even had a few children of her own.
One day, while Ninety’s children were playing outside, they stumbled upon a stray dog and the decided to keep it. Ninety did not want the children to have a dog so they hid it and named it “This” so that they could talk about it around their mom without her knowing. They would say “Lets go take This outside.” and things like that behind their mom’s back.
One day, while Ninety’s children were not paying attention, This walks out into the middle of the street and gets hit by a car. This eventually dies and Ninety’s kids don’t tell their mother even then. No one else ever hears about This ever again.
Once upon a time, there was a man who worked very hard just to keep food on the table for his family. This particular year a few days before Christmas, he punished his little five-year-old daughter after learning that she had used up the family’s only roll of expensive gold wrapping paper.
