While working as a volunteer at our local Boy Scout Council office, one of the professional staff -- who was wearing street clothes instead of her usual uniform -- was talking about the NATO phonetic alphabet.

She said that she had learned it some years ago and proceeded to recite it. "Alpha, Bravo, Charlie, Delta..."

But, when she got to the letter "U," she stumbled and asked for help.

I offered a hint: "What AREN'T you wearing today?"

"Underwear?" she replied.

My kindergarten-aged daughter suddenly announced just before school that she needed to take a clean tee shirt to class. She told us the teacher was going to iron an anti-drug message on it.

My wife frantically swept through my daughter's room, finding nothing usable but one tee shirt that already had something printed on one side. She sent it off to school with my daughter. That afternoon, my daughter returned and happily showed off her shirt.

On one side it said, "Families are Forever."

And on the other, "Be Smart, Don't Start."

A grocer put up a sign that read "Eggplants, 25¢ each -- three for a dollar."

All day long, customers came in exclaiming:
"Don't be ridiculous! I should get four for a dollar!"

Meekly the grocer capitulated and packaged four eggplants. The tailor next door had been watching these antics and finally asked the grocer, "Aren't you going to fix the mistake on your sign?"

"What mistake?" the grocer asked. "Before I put up that sign no one ever bought more than one eggplant."

In an ancient monastery in a faraway place, a new monk arrived to join his brothers in copying books and scrolls in the monastery's scriptorium. He was assigned as a rubricator on copies of books that had already been copied by hand.

One day he, asked Father Florian, "Does not the copying by hand of other copies allow for chances of error? How do we know we are not copying the mistakes of someone else? Are they ever checked against the original?"

It's the Spring of 1957 and Bobby goes to pick up his date.
He's a pretty hip guy with his own car. When he goes to the
front door, the girl's father answers and invites him in.

"Carrie's not ready yet, so why don't you have a seat?," he
says. "That's cool," says Bobby. Carrie's father asks Bobby
what they're planning to do. Bobby replies politely that they
will probably just go to the soda shop or a movie. Carrie's
father responds "Why don't you two go out and screw? I hear
all the kids are doing it."

Naturally, this comes as a quite a surprise to Bobby, so he

A photographer for a national magazine was assigned to take pictures of a
great forest fire. He was advised that a small plane would be waiting to
fly him over the fire.

The photographer arrived at the airstrip an hour before sundown. Sure enough,
a small Cessna airplane was waiting. He jumped in with his equipment and
shouted, "Let's go!" The tense man sitting in the pilot's seat swung the
plane into the wind and soon they were in the air, though flying erratically.

"Fly over the north side of the fire," said the photographer, and make several

One Saturday, as Mom was finishing the dinner dishes, my father
stepped up behind her. "Would you like to go out, girl?" he asked.

Not even turning around, my mother quickly replied, "Oh, yes,
I'd love to!"

They had a wonderful evening, and it wasn't until the end of
the evening that Dad finally confessed that his question had
actually been directed to the family dog, laying near Mom's
feet on the kitchen floor.

The following is an ad from a real-life newspaper which appeared
four days in a row - the last three hopelessly trying to correct
the first day's mistake.

-----------------------------------------------------------------

MONDAY: For sale: R.D. Jones has one sewing machine for sale.
Pbone 948-0707 after 7 P.M.. and ask for Mrs. Kelly who lives
with him cheap.

TUESDAY Notice: We regret having erred In R.D. Jones' ad yesterday.
It should have read "One sewing machine for sale cheap. Phone 948-0707
and ask for Mrs. Kelly, who lives with him after 7 P.M."

Customer at a counter of a lawn ornament shop: "Give me four of
those pinwheels, two of those pink flamingos, two of the sunflowers,
and one of those bent-over grandma in bloomers."

Cashier reply's: "That'll be eight dollars for the pinwheels, ten
dollars for the flamingos, six dollars for the sunflowers, and an
apology to my wife!"