I didn't make these up, I received them in an email. Some of them are cute! Feel free to reply if you know the answer.

1. If you throw a cat out of the car window, does it become kitty litter?
2. If you choke a Smurf, what color does it turn?
3. Is it OK to use the AM radio after noon?
4. What do chickens think we taste like?
5. What do people in China call their good plates?
6. What do you call a male ladybug?
7. What hair color do they put on the driver's license of a bald man?
8. When dog food is new and improved tasting, who tests it?
9. Why didn't Noah swat those two mosquitoes?
10. Why doesn't glue stick to the inside of the bottle?
11. Why isn't phonetic spelled the way it sounds?
12. Why are there Interstates in Hawaii?
13. Why are there flotation devices in the seats of planes instead of parachutes?
14. Why are cigarettes sold at gas stations where smoking is prohibited?
15. Have you ever imagined a world without hypothetical situations?
16. How does the guy who drives the snowplow get to work?
17. If the 7-11 is open 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, why does it have locks on the door?
18. Why is a bra singular and panties plural?
19. If a firefighter fights fire and a crime fighter fights crime, what does a freedom fighter fight?
20. If a cow laughs, does milk come out of her nose?
21. If you are driving at the speed of light and you turn your headlights on, what happens?
22. Why do they put Braille dots on the keypad of a drive-up ATM?
23. Why is it that when you transport something by car it is called shipment, but when you transport something by ship it's called cargo?
24. What would Geronimo say if he jumped out of an airplane?
25. Why are they called apartments when they are all stuck together?
26. If flying is so safe, why do they call the airport the terminal?


-- Gayla (privacy@please.com), September 18, 2000

Answers

3. AM as in the time is Ante Meridian, or before noon. AM on the radio is Aplitude Modulation.

6. Poor guy. You call him a ladybug.

7. They put bald.

8. Dogs.

19. This is a semantic game. A crime fighter is one who fights against crime. A freedom fighter fights for freedom.

22. Because the drive thru and walk up atms are the same model. it's simply cheaper to make them all the same rather than differentiate the two.

23. Cargo is a descendent of the Latin carricare. Cargo, according to American Heritage Dictionary, is "The freight carried by a ship, an aircraft, or another vehicle." Note the presence of another vehicle. Although cargo is generally used in the sense of freight on a ship or plane, it can technically be any freight. Perhaps this word is undergoing specialization. Perhaps sometime in the future it will only apply to ships. To complete the picture, a shipment is "A quantity of goods or cargo that are shipped together." Not only does it not specify a means of shipping, it calls the goods cargo! In my defense, I scoured every dictionary within reach for this one. The American Heritage and Merriam-Webster dictionaries had variations on the same theme, neither including a means of transport.

25. If I knew the answer to this one, my paper would be done. Alas, it is a question everyone asks but no one can answer.

-- chris douglas (whatspider@excite.com), December 02, 2001.

Ah...but which noon?

What if your where in the Land of Oz and Aussies, where the AC current flows backwards half the time. Would the AM channel bcome MA after lunch .... which isn't lunch because it's tea.

But then, if it's tea time, what happens to "klmnopqs"? Do they get "po'ed?

-- Robert A. Cook, PE (Marietta, GA) (cook.r@csaatl.com), December 04, 2001.

Robert:

r is definitely po'd. PO'd at you.

-- Peter Errington (petere7@starpower.net), December 04, 2001.

I have a technical question for the members-at-large of the assembled (and disassembled (if DiETeR is listening)) audiance.

Given a paintbrush is used, it will have wet paint near the very of its bristles.

Even after rigorous cleaning, some (minor) amount of paint remains, and the brush must be soaked for a longish period of time in clean solvent (water in the case of latex) to get the last of the paint out, lest the paint become dry and the bristles stiff and useless.

Problem statement: I cleaned a trim bush, rinsing it out in the kitchen sink, then placed the brush (which is distinctive in having very long and thin handle and brush) in a tea glass (to conserve water and immerse the bristles in as deep and narrow a container as possible). To further clean the brush, I then left it soaking near the sink .... for a period of what turned into several days.

Accidently of course .... other things were going on.

Anyway, "she-who-must-be-obeyed" got (quire correctly) upset with me in this matter.

The question is: Why was she upset?

A. She realized that leaving a brush soak too long would ruin the wooden handle, and I should have taken it out of the glass earlier.

B. Our daughter ran out of room to put dirty dishes on the counter, and so didn't clean off the table after breakfast.

C. The water got discolored and should ahve been replaced with clean, hot water.

D. Although the tea glass was relatively narrow when compared the brush, the bristles did contact the bottom of the glass, and so would bend and distort the bristles when left for several days.

I have, by the way, rejected several alternative answers for the following reasons: She thought that the paint might discolor or stain the sink (Not valid, as we have a stainless steel sink and so there was no chance of paint remaining in the sink.)

Cleaning the paint in the kitchen might inadvertantly "paint" other areas not intended to be paint with that color ... Although apparently a valid comment, this is, in fact, not a really valid compalint, because I was very, very careful. And have never spilled paint or sprayed droplets anywhere else.

Ever.

Anyway, why might she get upset about this glass being filled with dirty paintbrush by her sink for just a couple of days?

The matter is puzzling.....

-- Robert A. Cook, PE (Marietta, GA) (cook.r@csaatl.com), December 05, 2001.

Robert...

E) She likes to keep the house clean and neat, even beside the kitchen sink.

I only know about this one by hearsay, but I understand there are some people out there who believe that housekeeping includes house cleaning... ;-)

-- Tricia the Canuck (jayles@telusplanet.net), December 05, 2001.

Robert: That's easy!

1. You used a tea glass instead of a paint glass. (Next time, please consult one of Martha Stewart's wonderful books on the proper use of crystal.)
2. It's her kitchen so she doesn't have to have a reason!

-- LindaMc (jmcintyre1@mmcable.com), December 06, 2001.

"for a period of what turned into several days"

THAT is the problem, Robert. :-)

-- Gayla (privacy@please.com), December 06, 2001.

The obvious answer is that she thinks you intended for her to clean it up.

-- helen (been@there.etc), December 06, 2001.

But, but, but, but ......

I'm innocent. I'm sure it's something else ...... Some other lesson she wanted me to learn from this.

-- Robert A. Cook, PE (Marietta, GA) (cook.r@csaatl.com), December 06, 2001.