Life

phone by my hospital bedside was driving me crazy. Every hour or so it would ring. Because I was recovering from hip surgery, I couldn't reach it. Around midnight, it started ringing again.I noticed the light was on behind one curtain in my four-bed ward. "Excuse me," I called out. "Are you ambulatory?""No," the answer came back. "I'm Martinez."

took the family to one of those restaurants where the walls are plastered with movie memorabilia. I went off to see the hostess about reserving a table. When I returned, I found my 11-year-old daughter staring at a poster of Superman standing in a phone booth. She looked puzzled.''She doesn't know who Superman is?'' I whispered to my husband.''Worse, '' he replied. ''She doesn't know what a ph

waiting for her car, Mum saw a Magic 8 Ball on the mechanic's desk. She turned it upside down and read: ''Fan belt.'' She shook again. ''Water pump, '' it said.Her mechanic walked in. ''That, '' he said, ''is our chief diagnostic tool.''

daughter has little interest in local news but couldn't resist the sweet young girl selling subscriptions for the community newspaper. Sara asked that the paper be left inside her barbecue, to keep it dry. Months later the paper girl rapped on the door. ''Where shall I put the paper now?'' she inquired. ''The barbecue's full!''

at this!'' my husband fumed. He was holding up a pair of our teenage son's smelly sneakers. ''I found these on the kitchen table. Doesn't he know how disgusting that is?'' Dropping the shoes on the mat by the back door, he went outside to work on the car.A few hours later, I couldn't find a place to put my groceries. Sitting in the middle of the kitchen table was a carburettor.

friends like these . . .'' was the first thing that came to mind after reading the Carbon County Friends of Animals raffle ticket I'd just bought. I could win one of the following, it said: a five-kilo box of chicken legs, one smoked ham, four T-bone steaks, three kilos of fresh sausages or hot dogs, or a box of pork chops.

my sister, had been pestering her husband, a carpenter, for more than a decade to build a screen door for the kitchen. One day, to her delight, he built and installed one in less than two hours. It was both practical and pretty.She glanced towards the front door and wistfully remarked that a screen door would look good there, as well.''Are you kidding?'' he gasped. ''You can't just

daughter came home from kindergarten saying she needed to take a T-shirt to school the next day. Her teacher was going to iron an antidrug message onto it. Unable to find a blank one, my wife sent her off with a shirt that already had something lettered across the front. That afternoon, my daughter showed off her new T-shirt. On one side it read, ''Families Are Forever.'' And on the other si

that I am, I constantly log on to the Internet to self-diagnose my latest ailment. But even I knew it was time to lighten up the day I typed in the key words "liver disorders." That led me to a medical site. With growing alarm, I realised I had each of the first seven symptoms. Then I came to No. 8 and suddenly felt much better: "Feeling of lethargy. No longer enjoys romping and wagg

there's a competition for Worst Waiter of the Year, I've got a candidate. He was working at my aunt's favourite restaurant when we took her there for her birthday. This guy messed up every order. She asked for pork. He brought beef. We requested beans. We got corn. And so on. At the end of the meal, he asked, "Would anyone like dessert?"My aunt said, "What do I have to order to get a piece of c