Category: mostly true stories

A prospective juror in a Dallas District Court was surprised by the definition of voluntary manslaughter given the panel:

“An intentional killing that occurs while the defendant is under the immediate influence of sudden passion arising from an adequate cause, such as when a spouse’s mate is found in a ‘compromising position.'”

“See, I have a problem with that passion business,” responded one jury candidate. “During my first marriage, I came in and found my husband in bed with my neighbor. All I did was
divorce him. I had no idea that I could have shot him.”

She wasn’t selected for the jury.

Talk about bad luck – this lot takes the cake!

A fierce gust of wind blew 45-year-old Vittorio Luise’s car into a river near Naples, Italy, in 1983. He managed to break a window, climb out and swim to shore – where a tree blew over and killed him.

Mike Stewart, 31, of Dallas, was filming a movie in 1983 on the dangers of low-level bridges when the truck he was standing on passed under a low-level bridge – and killed him.

Walter Hallas, a 26-year-old store clerk in Leeds, England, was so afraid of dentists that in 1979 he asked a fellow worker to try to cure his toothache by punching him in the jaw. The punch caused Hallas to fall down, hitting his head and he died of a fractured skull.

George Schwartz, owner of a factory in Providence, Rhode Island, narrowly escaped death when a 1983 blast flattened his factory except for one wall. After treatment for minor injuries, he returned to the scene to search for files. The remaining wall then collapsed, killing him.

Depressed that he could not find a job, 42-year-old Romolo Ribolla sat in his kitchen near Pisa, Italy, with a gun in his hand threatening to kill himself. His wife pleaded with him not to do it, and after about half an hour he burst into tears and threw the gun to the floor. It went off and killed his wife.

In 1976, a 22-year-old Irishman, Bob Finnegan, was crossing the busy Falls Road in Belfast when he was struck by a taxi and flung over its roof. The taxi drove away and, as Finnegan lay stunned in the road, another car ran into him, rolling him into the gutter. It too drove on. As a lot of gawkers gathered to examine the magnetic Irishman, a delivery van ploughed through the crowd, leaving in its wake three injured bystanders and an even more battered Bob Finnegan. When a fourth vehicle came along, the crowd wisely scattered and only one person was hit – Bob Finnegan. In the space of two minutes, Finnegan suffered a fractured skull, broken pelvis, broken leg, and other assorted injuries, but hospital officials said he would recover.

Hitting on a novel idea that he could end his wife’s incessant nagging by giving her a good scare, Hungarian Jake Fen built an elaborate harness to make it look as if he had hanged himself. When his wife came home and saw him she fainted. Hearing a disturbance a neighbor came over and, finding what she thought were two corpses, seized the opportunity to loot the place. As she was leaving the room, her arms laden, the outraged and suspended Mr Fen kicked her stoutly in the backside. This so surprised the lady that she dropped dead of a heart attack. Happily, Mr Fen was acquitted of manslaughter and he and his wife were reconciled.

THE FACTS OF LIFE

The 2 most common elements in the universe are hydrogen and stupidity. If at first you don’t succeed, skydiving is not for you. Money can’t buy happiness…But it sure makes misery easier to live with. Nothing in the known universe travels faster than a bad check. A truly wise man never plays leapfrog with a unicorn. It has recently been discovered that research causes cancer in rats. Always remember to pillage BEFORE you burn. If you are given an open-book exam, you will forget your book.

The trouble with doing something right the first time is that nobody appreciates how difficult it was.

It may be that your sole purpose in life is simply to serve as a warning to others.

Dave’s Law: You can’t fall off the floor.

The average woman would rather have beauty than brains, because the average man can see better than he can think.

Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence on society.

Vital papers will demonstrate their vitality by moving from where you left them to where you can’t find them.

Law of Probability Dispersal: Whatever it is that hits the fan will not be evenly distributed.

Well, butter my butt and call me a biscuit. It’s been hotter’n a goat’s butt in a pepper patch. He fell out of the ugly tree and hit every branch on the way down. Have a cup of coffee, it’s already been ‘saucered and blowed. She’s so stuck up, she’d drown in a rainstorm. It’s so dry, the trees are bribing the dogs. My cow died last night so I don’t need your bull. Don’t pee down my back and tell me it’s raining. He’s as country as cornflakes. This is gooder’n grits. Busier than a cat covering crap on a marble floor. If things get any better, I may have to hire someone to help me enjoy it. Growing old is mandatory; growing up is optional. Insanity is my only means of relaxation. Forget the health food. I need all the preservatives I can get. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst, for they are sticking to their diets.

You’re getting old when you get the same sensation from a rocking chair that you once got from a roller coaster.

My mind not only wanders, sometimes it leaves completely. Every time I think about exercise, I lie down till the thought goes away.

God put me on earth to accomplish a certain number of things. Right now I am so far behind, I will live forever.

It’s frustrating when you know all the answers, but nobody bothers to ask you the questions.

If you can remain calm, you just don’t have all the facts. I finally got my head together, and my body fell apart. There cannot be a crisis this week; my schedule is already full.

The real art of conversation is not only to say the right thing in the right place, but also to leave unsaid the wrong thing at the tempting moment.

Brain cells come and brain cells go, but fat cells live forever.

The older you get, the tougher it is to lose weight, because by then your body and your fat are really good friends.

Age doesn’t always bring wisdom. Sometimes age comes alone. Life not only begins at forty, it begins to show. Just when I was getting used to yesterday, along came today. Sometimes I think I understand everything, then I regain consciousness. If at first you don’t succeed, see if the loser gets anything. You don’t stop laughing because you grow old; you grow old because you stop laughing. I don’t mind the rat race, but I could do with a little more cheese.

Darwin Award Winner for 1997 Announced

You all know about the Darwin Awards – It’s an annual honor given to
the person who did the gene pool the biggest service by killing
themselves in the most extraordinarily stupid way.

The 1995 winner was the fellow who was killed by a Coke machine which
toppled over on top of him as he was attempting to tip a free soda out
of it.

In 1996 the winner was an air force sergeant who attached a JATO unit
to his car and crashed into a cliff several hundred feet above the
roadbed.

And now, the 1997 winner: Larry Waters of Los Angeles — one of the few
Darwin winners to survive his award-winning accomplishment. Larry’s
boyhood dream was to fly. When he graduated from high school, he
joined the Air Force in hopes of becoming a pilot. Unfortunately, poor
eyesight disqualified him. When he was finally discharged, he had to
satisfy himself with watching jets fly over his backyard.

One day, Larry, had a bright idea. He decided to fly. He went to the
local Army-Navy surplus store and purchased 45 weather balloons and
several tanks of helium. The weather balloons, when fully inflated,
would measure more than four feet across.

Back home, Larry securely strapped the balloons to his sturdy lawn
chair. He anchored the chair to the bumper of his jeep and inflated the
balloons with the helium. He climbed on for a test while it was still
only a few feet above the ground.

Satisfied it would work, Larry packed several sandwiches and a six-pack
of Miller Lite, loaded his pellet gun– figuring he could pop a few
balloons when it was time to descend– and went back to the floating
lawn chair.

He tied himself in along with his pellet gun and provisions. Larry’s
plan was to lazily float up to a height of about 30 feet above his back
yard after severing the anchor and in a few hours come back down.

Things didn’t quite work out that way.

When he cut the cord anchoring the lawn chair to his jeep, he didn’t
float lazily up to 30 or so feet. Instead he streaked into the LA sky
as if shot from a cannon. He didn’t level off at 30 feet, nor did he
level off at 100 feet. After climbing and climbing, he leveled off at
11,000 feet. At that height he couldn’t risk shooting any of the
balloons, lest he unbalance the load and really find himself in
trouble. So he stayed there, drifting, cold and frightened, for more
than 14 hours.

Then he really got in trouble. He found himself drifting into the the
primary approach corridor of Los Angeles International Airport. A
United pilot first spotted Larry. He radioed the tower and described
passing a guy in a lawn chair with a gun. Radar confirmed the
existence of an object floating 11,000 feet above the airport. LAX
emergency procedures swung into full alert and a helicopter was
dispatched to investigate. LAX is right on the ocean. Night was
falling and the offshore breeze began to flow. It carried Larry out to
sea with the helicopter in hot pursuit. Several miles out, the
helicopter caught up with Larry. Once the crew determined that Larry
was not dangerous, they attempted to close in for a rescue but the
draft from the blades would push Larry away whenever they neared.

Finally, the helicopter ascended to a position several hundred feet
above Larry and lowered a rescue line. Larry snagged the line and was
hauled back to shore. The difficult maneuver was flawlessly executed by
the helicopter crew. As soon as Larry was hauled to earth, he was
arrested by waiting members of the LAPD for violating LAX airspace. As
he was led away in handcuffs, a reporter dispatched to cover the daring
rescue asked why he had done it. Larry stopped,turned and replied
nonchalantly, “A man can’t just sit around.”

Let’s hear it for Larry Waters, the 1997 Darwin Award Winner.

According to the Washington Times (7/2/97) when a Virginia High School
student exposed mice to hard rock music 10 hours a day for three weeks,
their ability to navigate a maze they already knew decreased
significantly. A control group, exposed to classical music, actually
improved their maze time. The experiment was cut short because the hard
rock mice ate each other.

When asked for her occupation, a woman charged with a
traffic violation said she was a schoolteacher. The judge
rose from the bench. “Madam, I have
waited years for a schoolteacher to appear before this
court,” he smiled with
delight. “Now sit down at that table and write ‘I will not
pass through a red light’ five hundred times.”

A – Adult: A person who has stopped growing at both ends and is now growing in the middle.

B – BATHROOM: A room used by the entire family, believed by all except Mom to be self-cleaning.

C – COMMITTEE: A body that keeps minutes and wastes hours.

D – DATE: Infrequent outings with Dad where Mom can enjoy worrying about the kids in a different setting.

E – EMPTY NEST: See “WISHFUL THINKING.”

F – FABLE: A story told by a teenager arriving home after curfew.

G – GUM: Adhesive for the hair.

H – HINDSIGHT: What Mom experiences from changing too many diapers.

I – INFLATION: Cutting money in half without damaging the paper.

J – JUNK: Dad’s stuff.

K – KISS: Mom’s medicine.

L – LEMONADE STAND: Complicated business venture where Mom buys powdered mix, sugar, lemons, and paper cups, and sets up a table, chairs, pitchers and ice for kids who sit there for three to six minutes and next a profit of 15 cents.

M – MAYBE: No.

N – Nail Polish: part of an assortment of make-up items such as lipstick, eyeliner, blush etc. which ironically make Mom look better while making her young daughter look “like a tramp.”

O – OVERSTUFFED RECLINER: Mom’s nickname for Dad.

P – PANIC: What a mother goes through when the darn wind-up swing stops.

Q – QUIET: A state of household serenity which occurs before the birth of the first child and occurs again after the last child has left for college.

R – REFRIGERATOR: Combination art gallery and air-conditioner for the kitchen.

S – SPOILED ROTTEN: What the kids become after as little as 15 minutes with Grandma.

T – TOWELS: See “FLOOR COVERINGS”.

U – UNDERWEAR: An article of clothing, the cleanliness of which ensures the wearer will never have an accident.

V – VACATION: Where you take the family to get away from it all, only to find it there, too.

W – WALLS: Complete set of drawing paper for kids that comes with every room.

X – XOXOXOXOXO: Mom salutation guaranteed to make the already embarrassing note in a kid’s lunch box even more mortifying.

Y – “YIPPEE!”: What mother’s shout the first day of school.

Z – ZUCCHINI: Vegetable which can be baked, boiled, fried or steamed before kids refuse to eat it.

Mary Poppins has retired from her days as a nanny and currently resides in
Venice Beach, CA, where she predicts cases of bad breath for her clients.
Her sign outside her office reads: “Super California Mystic, Expert:
Halitotsis”

a blond a brunette and a ginger girl were all sittin on an island 30 miles away from turkey and they all decided to try and get to turkey so the ginger girl swam 5 miles and drowned the brunette swam 10 miles and drowned the blond swam 15 miles decided she couldnt swim any more so swam back

One afternoon, a woman was in her back yard hanging the laundry when an old, tired-looking dog wandered into the yard.

The woman could tell from the dog’s collar and well-fed belly that he had a home. But when she walked into the house, the dog followed her, sauntered down the hall and fell asleep in a corner.

An hour later, he went to the door, and the woman let him out.

The next day the dog was back. He resumed his position in the hallway and slept for an hour. This continued for several weeks.

Curious, the woman pinned a note to his collar: “Every afternoon, your dog comes to my house for a nap.”

The next day he arrived with a different note pinned to his collar:

“We have ten children. He’s trying to catch up on his sleep.”

Nobody will ever win the battle of the sexes.
There’s too much fraternizing with the enemy.

There’s a fine line between fishing and standing on the shore like an idiot.

Did you ever walk into a room and forget why you walked in?
I think that’s how dogs spend their lives.

Don’t worry about the world ending today…
It’s already tomorrow in Australia. (unless you’re in Australia -then start worrying)

Outside of a dog, a book is man’s best friend.
Inside of a dog, it’s too dark to read.

Character is what you are.
Reputation is what people think you are.

Drive carefully, It’s not only cars that can be recalled by their maker.

A loser is a window washer on the 44th floor who steps back to admire his work.

A man usually feels better after a few winks, especially if she winks back.

Friends may come and go, but enemies accumulate.

The facts, although interesting, are irrelevant.

There is always one more imbecile than you counted on.

A man who says marriage is a 50-50 proposition doesn’t understand two things:
1 – Women, 2 – Fractions.

A man comes into the ER and yells, “My wife’s going to have her baby in the cab!”

I grabbed my stuff, rushed out to the cab, lifted the lady’s dress, and began to take off her underwear. Suddenly I noticed that there were several cabs, I was in the wrong one.

Dr. Mark MacDonald, San Antonio, TX

Submitted by Curtis
Edited by calamjo