Fun Things to Do in an Elevator
- When there’s only one other person in the elevator, tap them on the shoulder and then pretend it wasn’t you.
- Push the buttons and pretend they give you a shock. Smile, and go back for more.
- Ask if you can push the button for other people, but push the wrong ones.
- Call the Psychic Hot-line from your cell phone and ask if they know what floor you’re on.
- Hold the doors open and say you’re waiting for your friend. After a while, let the doors close and say, “Hi Greg. How’s your day been?”
- Drop a pen and wait until someone reaches to help pick it up, then scream, “That’s mine!”
- Bring a camera and take pictures of everyone in the elevator.
- Move your desk into the elevator and whenever someone gets on, ask if they have an appointment.
- Lay down a Twister mat and ask people if they’d like to play.
- Pretend you are a flight attendant and review emergency procedures and exits with the passengers.
- Ask, “Did you feel that?”
- Stand really close to someone, sniffing them occasionally.
- When the doors close, announce to the others, “It’s okay. Don’t panic, they open up again.”
- Swat at flies that don’t exist.
- Tell people that you can see their aura.
- Call out, “Group hug!” then enforce it.
- Grimace painfully while smacking your forehead and muttering “Shut up, all of you, just shut up!”
- Crack open your briefcase or purse, and while peering inside, ask, “Got enough air in there?”
- Stand silently and motionless in the corner, facing the wall, without getting off.
- Stare at another passenger for a while, then announce in horror, “You’re one of THEM” and back away slowly.
- Wear a puppet on your hand and use it to talk to the other passengers.
- Listen to the elevator walls with your stethoscope.
- Make explosion noises when anyone presses a floor button.
- Stare, grinning at another passenger for a while, and then announce, “I have new socks on.”
- Draw a little square on the floor with chalk and announce to the other passengers, “This is my personal space.”
Quotes on Taxes
- The wisdom of man never yet contrived a system of taxation that operates with perfect equality.
Andrew Jackson - I don’t know of a single foreign product that enters this country untaxed, except the answer to prayer.
Mark Twain - The most damaging thing you can do to any businessman in America is to keep him in doubt, and to keep him guessing on what our tax policy is.
President Lyndon B. Johnson - We have allowed taxes and inflation to rob us of our earnings and savings.
President Ronald W. Reagan, in his second Inaugural Address, January 21, 1985 - The government deficit is the difference between the amount of money the government spends and the amount it has the nerve to collect.
Sam Ewing - The taxing power of government must be used to provide revenues for legitimate government purposes.
President Ronald W. Reagan - It seems that every time the Congress sets out to trim the budget, the knife slips and trims the taxpayer instead.
Unknown - It might be demonstrated that the most productive system of finance will always be the least burdensome.
Alexander Hamilton, under the nom de plume “Plublius,” in Federalist Paper No. 35 - Taxation is, in fact, the most difficult function of government and that against which their citizens are most apt to be refractory.
Thomas Jefferson - It took an IRS accountant to catch Al Capone.
IRS recruiting poster - Governments likely to confiscate wealth are unlikely to find much wealth to confiscate in the long run.
Thomas Sowell - Bachelors should be heavily taxed. It is not fair that some men should be happier than others.
Oscar Wilde - A fine is a tax for doing something wrong. A tax is a fine for doing something right.
Unknown - The best measure of a man’s honesty isn’t his income tax return. It’s the zero adjust on his bathroom scale.
Arthur C. Clarke - We must act now to protect future generations from government’s desire to spend its citizens’ money and tax them into servitude when the bills come due.
President Ronald W. Reagan - When there is an income tax, the just man will pay more and the unjust less on the same amount of income.
Plato - Income taxes are the most imaginative fiction written today.
Herman Wouk - The hardest thing in the world to understand is the income tax.
Albert Einstein - It is time to reawaken this industrial giant, to get government back within its means, and to lighten our punitive tax burden.
President Ronald W. Reagan - There is no worse tyranny than to force a man to pay for what he does not want merely because you think it would be good for him.
Robert Heinlein - If you want more of something, subsidize it; if you want less, tax it.
Economic Adage - These days it is hard to believe that America was founded to avoid high taxation.
Unknown - No man’s property is safe while Congress is in session.
Mark Twain - [The Federal income tax system is] a disgrace to the human race.
President Jimmy Carter - The power to tax the exercise of a privilege is the power to control or suppress its enjoyment.
William O. Douglas - And it came to pass in those days, that there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be taxed.
New Testament - If Patrick Henry thought taxation without representation was bad, he should see how bad it is with representation.
The Old Farmer’s Almanac
The Logic of George Carlin
- Don’t sweat the petty things and don’t pet the sweaty things.
- If man evolved from monkeys and apes, why do we still have monkeys and apes?
- I went to a bookstore and asked the saleswoman, “Where’s the self-help section?” She said if she told me, it would defeat the purpose.
- Could it be that all those trick-or-treaters wearing sheets aren’t going as ghosts but as mattresses?
- If a man is standing in the middle of the forest speaking and there is no woman around to hear him…is he still wrong?
- If someone with multiple personalities threatens to kill himself, is it considered a hostage situation?
- Is there another word for synonym?
- Isn’t it a bit unnerving that doctors call what they do “practice?”
- Where do forest rangers go to “get away from it all?”
- What do you do when you see an endangered animal eating an endangered plant?
- If a parsley farmer is sued, can they garnish his wages?
- Would a fly without wings be called a walk?
- Why do they lock gas station bathrooms? Are they afraid someone will clean them?
- If a turtle doesn’t have a shell, is he homeless or naked?
- Can vegetarians eat animal crackers?
- If the police arrest a mime, do they tell him he has the right to remain silent?
- Why do they put Braille on the drive-through bank machines?
- How do they get the deer to cross at that yellow road sign?
- What was the best thing before sliced bread?
- One nice thing about egotists: they don’t talk about other people.
- How is it possible to have a civil war?
- If one synchronized swimmer drowns, do the rest drown too?
- If you ate pasta and antipasto, would you still be hungry?
- If you try to fail, and succeed, which have you done?
- Why is the alphabet in that order? Is it because of that song?
It’s Great to be a Man
As Related to Us by a Woman
- The garage is all yours.
- Wedding plans take care of themselves.
- Chocolate is just another snack.
- Car mechanics tell you the truth.
- You never have to drive to another gas station because this one’s just too icky.
- Wrinkles add character.
- Wedding Dress $$$$$$$; Tux rental $.
- New shoes don’t cut, blister, or mangle your feet.
- Your pals can be trusted never to trap you with “So, notice anything different?”
- Phone conversations are over in 30 seconds flat.
- A five-day vacation requires only one suitcase.
- You can open all your own jars.
- You can go to a public toilet without a support group.
- You can leave the motel bed unmade.
- You get extra credit for the slightest act of thoughtfulness.
- If someone forgets to invite you to something, he or she can still be your friend.
- Your underwear is $10 for a three-pack.
- If you are 34 and single, nobody notices.
- You can quietly enjoy a car ride from the passenger’s seat.
- Three pairs of shoes are more than enough.
- You don’t have to clean your apartment if the meter reader is coming.
- You can quietly watch a game with your buddy for hours without ever thinking “He must be mad at me.”
- You can drop by to see a friend without having to bring a little gift.
- If another guy shows up at the party in the same outfit, you just might become lifelong friends.
- You are not expected to know the names of more than five colors.
- You are unable to see wrinkles in your clothes.
- The same hairstyle lasts for years, maybe decades.
- You can “do” your nails with a pocketknife.
- Christmas shopping can be accomplished for 25 relatives, on December 24th, in 45 minutes.
Efficiency Expert
An efficiency expert concluded his lecture with a note of caution. “You don’t want to try these techniques at home.”
“Why not?” asked somebody from the audience.
“I watched my wife’s routine at breakfast for years,” the expert explained. “She made lots of trips between the refrigerator, stove, table and cabinets, often carrying a single item at a time. One day I told her, ‘Hon, why don’t you try carrying several things at once?’
“Did it save time?” the person in the audience asked.
“Actually, yes,” replied the expert. “It used to take her 20 minutes to make breakfast. Now I do it in seven.”
Italian Family
Submitted to us by Vito Mazza of Leonia, NJ
You know you grew up in an Italian family when…
- Every Sunday afternoon of your childhood was spent visiting your grandparents and extended family.
- You’ve experienced the phenomena of 150 people fitting into 50 square feet of yard during a family cookout.
- You were surprised to discover the FDA recommends you eat three meals a day, not seven.
- You thought everyone’s last name ended in a vowel.
- You were as tall as your grandmother by the age of seven.
- You thought nylons were supposed to be worn rolled to the ankles.
- You ate your salad after the main course.
- You were beaten at least once with a wooden spoon.
- You have at least one relative who came over “on the boat.”
- You grew up calling the bathroom the baccausa. And you only had one.
- You grew up thinking no fruit or vegetable had a fixed price and that the price of everything was negotiable through haggling.
- You grew up in a house with a yard that didn’t have one patch of dirt that didn’t have a flower or a vegetable growing out of it.
- You thought everyone got pinched on the cheeks and money stuffed in their pockets by their relatives.
- You ate pasta for dinner at least three times a week, and every Sunday.
- You thought every meal had to be eaten with a hunk of bread in your left hand.
- You can understand Italian but you can’t speak it.
- You have at least six male relatives named Tony, Frankie or Louie.
- You have relatives who aren’t really your relatives.
- You thought that loud talking was normal.
- Your house was a home for all the children in the neighborhood.
- Your mother is overly protective of the males in the family no matter what their age.
- You couldn’t date a boy without getting approval from your father.
- You know what lemon ice is.