The teacher had a curious issue with his class and asked the principal to weigh in. To demonstrate the problem, the teacher called on a student and asked him “Who killed Julius Caesar?”
The student was terrified, “I swear it wasn’t me! I never even met him!”
The teacher went around the room and asked the rest of the class, but they all gave the same answer. The teacher then turned to the principal and asked him, “Do you think such a response is normal?”
The shocked principal replied “Are you sure the killer is in this class?”
I had the toughest time of my life. First, I got angina pectoris and then arteriosclerosis. Just as I was recovering from these, I got tuberculosis, double pneumonia and phthisis. Then they gave me hypodermics. Appendicitis was followed by tonsillectomy. These gave way to aphasia and hypertrophic cirrhosis. I completely lost my memory for a while. I know I had diabetes and acute ingestion, besides gastritis, rheumatism, lumbago and neuritis… I don’t know how I pulled through it. It was the hardest spelling test I’ve ever had.
OK… I was originally going to rant about how good my dad’s home grown tomatoes are this year, but fuck it.
Hopefully the suffering won’t be in vain. Over the years I financially spent my way into a very deep hole trying to maintain a comfortable though rather modest standard of living. The idea was that I would receive steady raises and eventually make enough to pay it down and one day pay it off.
The employer that I served for 23 years castrated that plan by reducing benefits, imposing a pay freeze, and destroying multiple retirement plans, so I resolved to cut my losses. My original plan was to deliver Amazon packages while I cleared my head, but even though I actually landed that job, a different fate awaited me.
Instead, I had the good fortune to be approached by a head hunter which lead to a much higher paying position. I now have a very real chance at getting out of debt much sooner than I could have ever hoped. However, there is a downside. Being much older now, this opportunity is more of a challenge physically than I had anticipated. I was already pushing the red line at my last job, but my new job has seriously been rattling my bolts off.
So the possible outcomes are as follows:
1. The new job proves to be too much. Within weeks or months, I will fall back on Amazon, and short of bankruptcy, the old debt essentially never goes away. I struggle financially, but my standard of living won’t suffer. I will retire with only my meager social security benefits.
2. The new job takes a heavy toll, but in 2 years I will be completely out of credit card debt. In 4 years, completely debt free. It’s a new day and I’m a greeter at Walmart for my remaining years until I keel over dead.
3. My body adjusts to the new demands. I get out of debt. I start squirreling away every red cent until my passive income exceeds my wages. I retire to a cabin on a lake in the woods.
For now these are the three possible outcomes that are likely at this moment in time. My personal favorite is option three, but just “wanting it hard enough” is a load of bullshit. If fortunes change or my body cannot physically handle the position, it doesn’t matter how much I want it. Reality does not work that way.
And there is always an outcome that I could not possibly foresee, as my crystal ball is only for decoration. I just have to remind myself that Rome didn’t fall in a day and try to stick to the plan so long as it is practical. While I can’t let the doom and gloom news cycle psyche me out, I also have to pay attention to actual warning signs and take prudent steps when necessary.
The bottom line is, I still have to try. I am going to be worn out, cranky, and not in the mood for any of this shit, but option three is somehow feasible (though unlikely), and I have to try.
Kudos
Well, it looks like another week of reddit reposts. Honestly, I think these jokes are pretty solid. Don’t like these jokes? Submit jokes that you do like.
“Many that live deserve death. And some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them?” ― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring
A Soviet filmmaker made a film called “Lenin in Warsaw.” Everybody showed up for the premiere. The film opened—on Lenin’s wife, Krupskaya, naked, while having mad sex with another man.
And then another.
And another.
And so on.
The film continues in the same vein for ninety minutes. Finally, the lights come up and the director takes questions from the audience.
The first question asked was, “Very interesting movie, comrade, but—where was Lenin?
In the years before World War II, in a little Polish village, a learned rabbi used to teach his students, “Life is like the ocean.” And they would nod and respond, “Yes, life is like the ocean.”
One young student was particularly taken with this philosophy, and he carried it with him through the long years of the war, which he barely survived.
Later becoming a rabbi in his own right, he moved to Philadelphia, and taught all his eager young students, “Life is like the ocean.”
Year after year, “Life is like the ocean.” And they would nod and respond, “Yes, life is like the ocean.”
One year, though, a student asked, “But Rabbi, why is life like the ocean?” And the rabbi had no answer.
Why is life like the ocean? The question haunted him. It plagued him so much that eventually he returned to his home village, hoping against hope to find his teacher still alive.
Incredibly, the rabbi had survived the war, though now was quite old and in fact lay on his death bed when the young man arrived. He knelt by the old rabbi’s side and entreated, “Rabbi, Rabbi, why is life like the ocean?”
The old man looked at him through watery eyes and replied, “Okay, so life isn’t like the ocean.”
An elderly couple was having dinner one evening when the husband reached across the table, took his wife’s hand in his and said, “Martha, soon we will be married 50 years, and there’s something I have to know. In all of these 50 years, have you ever been unfaithful to me?”
Martha replied, “Well Henry, I have to be honest with you. Yes, I’ve been unfaithful to you three times during these 50 years, but always for a good reason.
Henry was obviously hurt by his wife’s confession, but said, “I never suspected. Can you tell me what you mean by ‘good reasons?'”
Martha said, “The first time was shortly after we were married, and we were about to lose our little house because we couldn’t pay the mortgage.
Do you remember that one evening I went to see the banker and the next day he notified you that the loan would be extended?”
Henry recalled the visit to the banker and said, “I can forgive you for that. You saved our home, but what about the second time?”
Martha asked, “And do you remember when you were so sick, but we didn’t have the money to pay for the heart surgery you needed? Well, I went to see your doctor one night and, if you recall, he did the surgery at no charge.”
“I recall that,” said Henry. “And you did it to save my life, so of course I can forgive you for that. Now tell me about the third time.”
“Alright,” Martha said. “So do you remember when you ran for president of your golf club, and you needed 73 more votes?”
Joe and John were identical twins. Joe owned an old dilapidated boat and kept pretty much to himself. One day he rented out his boat to a group of out-of-staters who sank it.
Joe spent all day trying to salvage as much stuff as he could and was out of touch all that day and most of the evening. Unbeknownst to him, his brother John’s wife died suddenly. When he got back on shore he went into town to pick up a few things at the grocery.
A kind old woman there mistook him for John and said, “I’m so sorry for your loss, You must feel terrible”.
Joe, thinking she was talking about his boat said: “Hell no! Fact is I’m sort of glad to be rid of her. She was a rotten old thing from the beginning. Her bottom was all shriveled up and she smelled horrible. She was always
holding water. She had a bad crack in the back and a pretty big hole too.
“Every time I used her, her hole got bigger and she leaked like crazy. I guess what finally finished her off was
when I rented her to those four guys looking for a good time. I warned them that she wasn’t very good and smelled, but they wanted her anyway. The damn fools tried to get in her all at one time and she split right up the middle!”
This past week has been a whirlwind of mayhem, but even though I unexpectedly got the weekend off, I spent most of it trying to mitigate the wear and tear on my body and soul. I hope you’ll forgive me if I’m a little late in posting this weekends admittedly weak “Rant”. I really needed the rest.
Kudos
Of course a big thanks to Big D for tossing a couple of jokes onto the bonfire. It was rounded out with a few jokes off reddit, but I thought they seemed like pretty good jokes. My apologies the viewer who seemed to be hailing from the east coast (New Jersey perhaps?) We generally like to post a slightly longer format joke for the daily joke but no “shaggy dog stories” please. If you’re going to post one liners, group a few related ones together.
As always, the submission page is the best way to add jokes to the queue. I even use it myself when adding jokes from reddit!
Sorry so short this week. I’m really looking forward to the fall and cooler weather.
The owner of a restaurant sends his employee undercover to the vastly more successful restaurant across the road.
Before sending him, the owner says “That restaurant is ruining business here, all because of their famous chowder. I need their recipe ASAP!”
The employee manages to infiltrate the kitchen of the successful restaurant the next day and returns to his boss gleefully: “Boss, I think I have the recipe!”
The boss and the employee follow the recipe, however the result is rather runny.
“This can’t be right. It’s too watery for chowder.” says the boss. “Go back and try again!”
The employee infiltrates the kitchen a second time, and returns with a baffled look on his face.
“Boss, we had everything correct, except one. The secret ingredient!”
“Well? What is it?” responds the boss.
“It’s pages from a book.”
“What?” replies the boss. ” A book?”
“That’s right, the chef tears small bits off of the pages and mixes it into the chowder.”
A light bulb goes off in the bosses head, “I see! The plot thickens.”
I suppose I should start by telling you how it happened. It was an otherwise nondescript day back in February. I went to get out of my rocker-recliner and when I scooched forward to get up, the front armrests bottomed out on the floor as they always do. Unbeknownst to me, Alex just happened to be laying down there that fateful day, and his left arm managed to get pinched.
Of course he yowled the loudest I'd ever heard him yell in his entire life and shot off into the basement. I felt terrible about it, but then I had no way of knowing he was down there when I went to get up. After a short while, Alex came back upstairs, and I was able to check for injury.
Shockingly, there were no broken bones, no blood, and Alex was able to walk just fine. It almost seemed cartoonish at the time, but down the left side of his left arm was a ribbon of flattened fur. He seemed somewhat indifferent to this, and acted like he just wanted to put the whole thing behind him. Seeing as Alex didn't appear to be in immediate danger, I took a "wait and see" position.
Over the next month, the "ribbon" began to shrink inward towards his elbow. I took this as a good sign that his injury was healing naturally and everything would be fine... But things were not fine. After a month and a half, his elbow began to swell. By mid-April I had to take him in to the vet for an exam.
The vet did a fair bit of Hmmm'ing and scrunched her face a lot. She didn't want to poke it with anything for fear it might introduce something. She took some measurements and expressed a "wait and see" attitude. I then scheduled a follow up appointment two months out.
Only a month later in mid-May, the swelling on his elbow had increased to the point that it started to ulcer. I called the vet and got him in immediately. This time they tried to drain it, but it went horribly. After the first stick, Alex started squirting blood all over the place, and the vet and technician freaked out and were running around looking for towels while I had to hold my cat down in a growing pool of his own blood.
After they got things back under control, she tried again with a larger needle, and went in from a different direction. After plunging to the center of the mass, she remarked that it was solid and that the fluid had probably dispersed into the surrounding tissue. She then went on to suggest that it might even be "malignant" and recommended a biopsy. They gave me an estimate for the procedure that ran from $500 to $800. I immediately left and made an appointment with another vet that I had gone to in the past.
The next day, my alternate vet didn't have any good news. By now, Alex's arm was very infected. At first he suggested that the arm would have to come off, but after noting Alex's age, he pulled back and recommended palliative care. I pushed for a quote on the cost of an amputation, and he informed me it would be around $3500 at the lowest, and that at his age, Alex would only live another 6 months after the surgery, and to just stick with palliative care.
They gave Alex a shot of antibiotics, a shot for long term pain management, prednisolone tablets and a liquid antibiotic, along with an appointment to come back about a month later.
Over the memorial day weekend, I cleaned Alex's wound and administered his meds. Alex was still Alex though. He obviously wanted to live, so I began making phone calls. Eventually I got in touch with the Humane Society. It took week and a half to finally get in, but after looking at Alex's arm, their surgeon said that the arm was "not compatible with long term survival" and agreed to amputate it... in two weeks.
That was the longest two weeks of my life.
Every day that thing on his elbow grew bigger and bigger. In the final week, it started to split open. It looked like something out of a horror movie. The outer layer of skin died off and eventually I had to cut the hard chunk of dried flesh off with scissors. Fortunately the antibiotics prescribed by the second vet kept the wound site free from infection.
And through all of this, Alex was still Alex. He just kept on living his life like nothing was wrong. Even with that thing on his arm, he still walked normal, climbed up and down the stairs, jumped on the bed, table, dresser, et cetera. Part of me knew this cat was gonna make it, but part of me was scared that his arm was going to go septic and Alex would die.
I felt relieved on the day of the surgery. We made it through to this day! Alex would be a tripod, but he was going to live! I dropped Alex off at the Human Society and went to work expecting to pick him up between 4:00 pm and 5:00 pm.
My phone rang a little before noon. The voice on the other end informed me that the surgery had gone fine, and they didn't notice anything wrong during the procedure, but in the recovery room, Alex's heart rate began to drop, he went non-responsive, and his pupils dilated. The surgeon explained that sometimes a blood clot will break free during the surgery and make its way into the brain. Alex had had a stroke. There was nothing more they could do.
Moments later, Alex died.
Usually I show off pictures of Gail here, (she's doing find by the way). Gail is a fun dog who loves to constantly run and play, but Alex was the one that I could really count on for affection. He would hop up on my chest when I was resting in my recliner and purr. He would be there at the door to greet me when I came home. He would keep me company when I pooped. He would wake me in the morning, and insist I gave him a thorough petting before I went to sleep at night. He talked to me with his incessant meows, and made sure I never left the house without filling the food and water bowls. Alex loved to get his "full kitty massage" complete with belly rubs, and he was the kind of cat that would walk up and headbutt me to let me know I was his as much as he was mine.
Flush Twice has been around since May of 2003. It started out as a JOTD (Joke of the Day) website. New jokes were published every weekday. Over the years, good jokes were increasingly hard to come by, and eventually they got so rare that I just stopped trying to publish them.
Since 2004 there has also been an eponymous comic. I still occasionally publish a new one on Saturdays. It’s also rare anymore, but sometimes it happens.
Here lately I’ve been posting a “Link of the Day”. For the time being, I will be featuring a new website from my enormous collection of bookmarked websites every weekday. None of it is solicited promotions, and no one is paying me to feature their site. These are just websites that at one time I thought were interesting enough to add to my bookmarks folder.
I highly encourage using some kind of ad blocking extension before clicking on any of these links. You’ll also hear me say this phrase a lot about these posts: “They can’t all be winners.” But it’s better than just leaving the site abandoned.
The jokes were generously provided by friends and visitors such as yourself. I want to express my eternal thanks to everyone over the years who helped contribute to the collection.
So what is it that makes a joke funny?
It all boils down to a sudden shift in perception. The story starts you thinking one way, then the punchline turns that thinking on its ear. The art of the joke is to craft a short story that isn’t overly contrived, then deliver a punchline that suddenly shifts your perception about the story you were being told.
Many of the jokes on this site are offensive, and I make no apologies for it. Offensive jokes work by making the reader uncomfortable through the use of a taboo subject thus enhancing the underlying humor. Without the offensive element, the joke would simply not be as funny.
