Three weeks later the head of the physics department called the research assistant into his office and said, “We have a request from an encyclopedia company. One of their customers has asked for a report on the thermodynamic properties of wood. Please prepare the report for them.”
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Even though we were on a shoestring grad-student budget, my wife insisted we pay off the hospital bill when our son was born. Now we had to figure out how to meet our other financial obligations. We were discussing this one night when the baby began crying for a diaper change. As my wife picked him up, she sighed, “He’s the only thing in this house that’s paid for, and he leaks.”
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My co-worker and I were making a sales call to a rural Baptist church. We gave our presentation to the church committee, and then the group’s chairman walked to the altar and knelt down. After about a minute of silent prayer, he returned and announced in a solemn tone, “The Lord tells me we should wait.”

My colleague responded by walking to the altar and kneeling down himself. Then he returned to the group, looked at the chairman, and declared, “He wants to talk with you again.”
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Another man and I share a locker at work. Noticing that it needed a new combination lock, my partner said he would pick one up on his way to work the next day. It occurred to me later that I might not see him in the morning. How would I find out the combination? I needn’t have worried.

When I arrived at work I found that he had used the locker before me and had left a note reading: “To find the first number subtract 142 from your high score the last time we went bowling. The second number is 16 less than that. To find the third number subtract 1.87 from the amount you owe me.”
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A guy sees a beautiful woman at the other end of the bar. He walks up to her and says, “Where have you been all my life?”

“Well,” she says, “for the first half of it, I wasn’t even born.”
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My thick Southern accent is often a source of miscommunication. One night while driving through base housing, I saw four skunks crossing the road. The next day I told my supervisor what I saw.

“So did you get Tom Hanks’s autograph?” he asked.

“Excuse me?” I said, puzzled.

“Didn’t you say you saw Forrest Gump in base housing last night?”
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I’m bald–well, balding. I like to say “balding” because it sounds more productive. And I don’t like to say I’m losing my hair, because that makes it sound like had I been more responsible, this wouldn’t have happened. “Where’s your hair?” “I lost it. You know me. Where are my keys?”
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During reservists’ training, my commanding officer was briefing his colleagues on the battalion’s mission. While he was highlighting the key objectives of our task — serious business, aimed at motivating the troops — he was suddenly interrupted by a ringing cell phone. The tune? “Mission Impossible.”
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A sign outside a Bradenton, Florida, restaurant didn’t mince words: “Closed, Thanks to Our Customers.”
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When I went inside the station to pay for my tank of gas, I noticed a sign asking patrons to tell the cashier the number of their pump. Even though I was the only customer, I decided to be silly and tell him anyway. “I’m Number One,” I announced.

He smiled. “Well, now. Looks like those motivational tapes are really working for you.”
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I think the Discovery Channel should be on a different channel every day.
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Hard to believe, but many of our customers at the bank still don’t know how to swipe their card through the ATM card reader. Because of this, my fellow tellers and I often find ourselves having to explain how it’s done. One teller complained that she kept getting odd looks every time she explained it. I found out why when I overheard her tell one man, “Strip down facing me.”
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“For sale: Red storage building, slightly damaged. Will not last long.”
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Our high school has lots of spirit, but that didn’t help the football team, who had yet to win a game. So when our principal saw some cheerleaders sitting in the stands, he asked, “Don’t you think you girls should be down there cheering for your team?” “I think,” one of them said, “we should be down there playing for our team.”
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After booking my 90-year-old mother on a flight from Florida to Nevada, I called the airline to go over her needs. The woman representative listened patiently as I requested a wheelchair and an attendant for my mother because of her arthritis and impaired vision. I also asked for a special meal and assistance in changing planes. My apprehension lightened a bit when the woman assured me everything would be taken care of. I thanked her profusely. “Why, you’re welcome,” she replied. I was about to hang up when she cheerfully asked, “And will your mother be needing a rental car?”
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Even though it was warm outside, the heat was on full blast in my office at the hospital. So I asked our nursing unit secretary to get someone to fix it. This was a one-man job, so I could not figure out why two guys showed up — until I was handed the maintenance request form. It read “Head nurse is hot.”
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My father’s method of accounting for the hundreds of cattle on his ranch was very unique. Every spring, he would move the herd down a long ramp, through a wooden gate and into a holding pen for inspection. As each animal entered the pen, he marked the count on the gate. One summer, he went to the bank to apply for a loan, using his cattle for collateral. The bank officer asked to see his records. “No problem,” replied Dad. He went back to the ranch, took the gate off its hinges and brought it to the bank. Dad got the loan.
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I was writing a casual letter to a friend, using Microsoft Word, when I was called away to do something else. So I quickly saved the letter but neglected to name it. In Word, if you don’t type anything into the “Save as” field, it will use the first few words of your text as a title, with the suffix “.doc.” When I returned to my computer, the letter was stored as “What’s up.doc.”
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Having fought the battle of the bulge most of my life, I found the battle getting even harder as I approached middle age. One evening, after trying on slacks that were too tight, I said to my husband, “I’ll be so glad when we become grandparents. After all, who cares if grandmothers are fat?”

His prompt reply: “Grandfathers.”

Adapted from Readerdigest.com