Deep Thoughts.....
* DEEP THOUGHTS *
by Jack Handey
If they ever come up with a swashbuckling School, I think one of the courses
should be Laughing, Then Jumping Off Something.
When you're riding in a time machine way far into the future, don't stick your
elbow out the window, or it'll turn into a fossil.
It takes a big man to cry, but it takes a bigger man to laugh at that man.
At first I thought, if I were Superman, a perfect secret identity would be
"Clark Kent, Dentist," because you could save money on tooth X-rays. But then
I thought, if a patient said, "How's my back tooth?" and you just looked at it
with your X-ray vision and said, "Oh it's okay," then the patient would
probably say, "Aren't you going to take an X-ray, stupid?" and you'd say, "Aw
**** you, get outta here," and then he probably wouldn't even pay his bill.
One thing kids like is to be tricked. For instance, I was going to take my
little nephew to Disneyland, but instead I drove him to an old burned-out
warehouse. "Oh, no," I said. "Disneyland burned down."
He cried and cried, but I think that deep down, he thought it was a pretty
good joke.
I started to drive over to the real Disneyland, but it was getting pretty
late.
A good way to threaten somebody is to light a stick of dynamite. Then you call
the guy and hold the burning fuse up to the phone. "Hear that?" you say.
"That's dynamite, baby."
Why do people in ship mutinies always ask for "better treatment"? I'd ask for
a pinball machine, because with all that rocking back and forth you'd probably
be able to get a lot of free games.
I'd like to be buried Indian-style, where they put you up on a high rack,
above the ground. That way, you could get hit by meteorites and not even feel
it.
If I lived back in the wild west days, instead of carrying a six-gun in my
holster, I'd carry a soldering iron. That way, if some smart-aleck cowboy said
something like "Hey, look. He's carrying a soldering iron!" and started
laughing, and everybody else started laughing, I could just say, "That's
right, it's a soldering iron. The soldering iron of justice." Then
everybody would get real quiet and ashamed, because they had made fun of the
soldering iron of justice, and I could probably hit them up for a free drink.
I bet when the neanderthal kids would make a snowman, someone would always end
up saying, "Don't forget the thick, heavy brows." Then they would all get
embarrassed because they remembered they had the big hunky brows too, and
they'd get mad and eat the snowman.
Fear can sometimes be a useful emotion.
For instance, let's say you're an astronaut on the moon and you fear that
your partner has been turned into Dracula. The next time he goes out for the
moon pieces, wham!, you just slam the door behind him and blast off. He might
call you on the radio and say he's not Dracula, but you just say, "Think
again, bat man."
Too bad you can't buy a voodoo globe so that you could make the earth spin
real fast and freak everybody out.
The people in the village were real poor, so none of the children had any
toys. But this one little boy had gotten anold enema bag and filled it with
rocks, and he would go around and whap the other children across the face with
it. Man, I think my heart almost broke.
Later the boy came up and offered to give me the toy. This was too much! I
reached out my hand, but then he ran away. I chased him down and took the
enema bag. He cried a little, but that's the way of these people.
I wish I had a Kryptonite cross, because then you could keep both Dracula AND
Superman away.
I don't think I'm alone when I say I'd like to see more and more planets fall
under the ruthless domination of our solar system.
Dad always thought laughter was the best medicine, which I guess is why
several of us died of tuberculosis.
Maybe in order to understand mankind, we have to look at the word itself:
"Mankind". Basically, it's made up of two separate words - "mank" and "ind".
What do these words mean? It's a mystery, and that's why so is mankind.
I hope if dogs ever take over the world, and they chose a king, they don't
just go by size, because I bet there are some Chihuahuas with some good ideas.
I guess we were all guilty, in a way. We all shot him, we all skinned him, and
we all got a complimentary bumper sticker that said, "I helped skin Bob."
I bet the main reason the police keep people away from a plane crash is they
don't want anybody walking in and lying down in the crash stuff, then, when
somebody comes up, act like they just woke up and go, "What was THAT?!"
The face of a child can say it all, especially the mouth part of the face.
Ambition is like a frog sitting on a Venus Flytrap. The flytrap can bite and
bite, but it won't bother the frog because it only has little tiny plant
teeth. But some other stuff could happen and it could be like ambition.
I'd rather be rich than stupid.
If you were a poor Indian with no weapons, and a bunch of conquistadors came
up to you and asked where the gold was, I don't think it would be a good idea
to say, "I swallowed it. So sue me."
If you define cowardice as running away at the first sign of danger, screaming
and tripping and begging for mercy, then yes, Mr. Brave man, I guess I'm a
coward.
I bet one legend that keeps recurring throughout history, in every culture, is
the story of Popeye.
When you go in for a job interview, I think a good thing to ask is if they
ever press charges.
To me, boxing is like a ballet, except there's no music, no choreography, and
the dancers hit each other.
What is it that makes a complete stranger dive into an icy river to save a
solid gold baby? Maybe we'll never know.
We tend to scoff at the beliefs of the ancients. But we can't scoff at them
personally, to their faces, and this is what annoys me.
Probably the earliest flyswatters were nothing more than some sort of striking
surface attached to the end of a long stick.
I think someone should have had the decency to tell me the luncheon was free.
To make someone run out with potato salad in his hand, pretending he's
throwing up, is not what I call hospitality.
To me, clowns aren't funny. In fact, they're kind of scary. I've wondered
where this started and I think it goes back to the time I went to the circus,
and a clown killed my dad.
As I bit into the nectarine, it had a crisp juiciness about it that was very
pleasurable - until I realized it wasn't a nectarine at all, but A HUMAN
HEAD!!
Most people don't realize that large pieces of coral, which have been painted
brown and attached to the skull by common wood screws, can make a child look
like a deer.
If trees could scream, would we be so cavalier about cutting them down?
We might, if they screamed all the time, for no good reason.
Better not take a dog on the space shuttle, because if he sticks his head out
when you're coming home his face might burn up.
You know what would make a good story? Something about a clown who make people
happy, but inside he's real sad. Also, he has severe diarrhea.
Sometimes when I feel like killing someone, I do a little trick to calm myself
down. I'll go over to the persons house and ring the doorbell. When the person
comes to the door, I'm gone, but you know what I've left on the porch? A
jack-o-lantern with a knife stuck in the side of it's head with a note that
says "You." After that I usually feel a lot better, and no harm done.
If you're a horse, and someone gets on you, and falls off, and then gets right
back on you, I think you should buck him off right away.
If you ever teach a yodeling class, probably the hardest thing is to keep the
students from just trying to yodel right off. You see, we build to that.
If you ever fall off the Sears Tower, just go real limp, because maybe you'll
look like a dummy and people will try to catch you because, hey, free dummy.
I'd like to see a nude opera, because when they hit those high notes, I bet
you can really see it in those genitals.
Anytime I see something screech across a room and latch onto someone's neck,
and the guy screams and tries to get it off, I have to laugh, because what is
that thing?
He was a cowboy, mister, and he loved the land. He loved it so much he made a
woman out of dirt and married her. But when he kissed her, she disintegrated.
Later, at the funeral, when the preacher said, "Dust to dust," some people
laughed, and the cowboy shot them. At his hanging, he told the others, "I'll
be waiting for you in heaven--with a gun."
The memories of my family outings are still a source of strength to me. I
remember we'd all pile into the car - I forget what kind it was - and drive
and drive. I'm not sure where we'd go, but I think there were some trees
there. The smell of something was strong in the air as we played whatever
sport we played. I remember a bigger, older guy we called "Dad." We'd eat some
stuff, or not, and then I think we went home. I guess some things never leave
you.
If a kid asks where rain comes from, I think a cute thing to tell him is "God
is crying." And if he asks why God is crying, another cute thing to tell him
is "Probably because of something you did."
Contrary to what most people say, the most dangerous animal in the world is
not the lion or the tiger or even the elephant. It's a shark riding on an
elephant's back, just trampling and eating everything they see.
As we were driving, we saw a sign that said "Watch for Rocks." Marta said it
should read "Watch for Pretty Rocks." I told her she should write in her
suggestion to the highway department, but she started saying it was a joke -
just to get out of writing a simple letter! And I thought I was lazy!
If you saw two guys named Hambone and Flipper, which one would you think liked
dolphins the most? I'd say Flipper, wouldn't you? You'd be wrong, though. It's
Hambone.
Laurie got offended that I used the word "puke." But to me, that's what her
dinner tasted like.
We used to laugh at Grandpa when he'd head off and go fishing. But we wouldn't
be laughing that evening when he'd come back with some whore he picked up in
town.
I wish a robot would get elected president. That way, when he came to town, we
could all take a shot at him and not feel too bad.
As the evening sky faded from a salmon color to a sort of flint gray, I
thought back to the salmon I caught that morning, and how gray he was, and how
I named him Flint.
If you're a young Mafia gangster out on your first date, I bet it's real
embarrassing if someone tries to kill you.
Whenever I see an old lady slip and fall on a wet sidewalk, my first instinct
is to laugh. But then I think, what if I was an ant, and she fell on me. Then
it wouldn't seem quite so funny.
If you go parachuting, and your parachute doesn't open, and you friends are
all watching you fall, I think a funny gag would be to pretend you were
swimming.
When I was a kid my favorite relative was Uncle Caveman. After school we'd all
go play in his cave, and every once in a while he would eat one of us. It
wasn't until later that I found out that Uncle Caveman was a bear.
I wonder if Dracula ever has ticks.
When this girl at the art museum asked me whom I liked better, Monet or Manet,
I said, "I like mayonnaise." She just stared at me, so I said it again,
louder. Then she left. I guess she went to try to find some mayonnaise for me.
He was a spy, all right, and he knew it. He would walk into a room and people
would go, "Who the **** is that guy, a spy?" He'd laugh to himself, maybe pull
out his gun and show it to the person, to kind of impress him (but not to show
off).
Sometimes spying was dirty work. Sometimes he'd kill a guy, then paint a
clown face on his face. Nobody said he had to do that, but he did it anyway.
So, dirty work.
I bet it's hard to break farmers of the old superstitions like "Tornado got
Old Yeller, stay in the cellar."
Blow ye winds,
Like the trumpet blows;
But without that noise.
I don't guess I've ever been as scared as when I was waiting in the
principal's office. Finally he came in and sat down. He didn't say anything,
he just looked at me. Then he pulled a copy of Playboy out. "Is this yours?"
he said.
"No," I said, "is this yours?" And I pulled out my penis.
I guess I wasn't as scared as I thought.
If Alien was my friend, I'd like to be with him when he went to the dentist.
When they started drilling, he'd probably go nuts and start eating everybody.
That Alien!
Why do there have to be rules for everything? It's gotten to the point that
rules dominate just about every aspect of our lives. In fact, it might be said
that rules have become the foot-long sticks of mankind.
I hate it when people say somebody has a "speech impediment", even if he does,
because it could hurt his feelings. So instead, I call it a "speech
improvement", and I go up to the guy and say, "Hey, Bob, I like your speech
improvement." I think this makes him feel better.
Many people think that history is a dull subject. Dull? Is it "dull" that
Jesse James once got bitten on the forehead by an ant, and at first it didn't
seem like anything, but then the bite got worse and worse, so he went to a
doctor in town, and the secretary told him to wait, so he sat down and waited,
and waited, and waited, and waited, and then finally he got to see the doctor,
and the doctor put some salve on it? You call that dull?
Some folks say it was a miracle. St. Francis suddenly appeared and knocked the
next pitch clean over the fence. Other folks say it was just a lucky swing.
I think one reason I could be a good playboy is I would be willing to spend
the time required to really fix up my "pad".
To me, it's always a good idea to always carry two sacks of something when you
walk around. That way, if anybody says, "Hey, can you give me a hand?," you
can say, "Sorry, got these sacks."
I think a good gift for the president would be a chocolate revolver. And since
he's so busy, you'd probably have to run up to him and hand it to him.
Of all the tall tales, I think my favorite is the one about Eli Whitney and
the interchangeable parts.
If there was a terrible storm outside, but somehow this dog lived through the
storm, and he showed up at your door when the storm was finally over, I think
a good name for him would be Carl.
If I had a mine shaft, I don't think I would just abandon it. There's got to
be a better way.
I think man invented the car by instinct.
I guess I kinda lost control, because in the middle of the play I ran up and
lit the evil puppet villain on fire.
No, I didn't. Just kidding. I just said that to help illustrate one of the
human emotions, which is freaking out. Another emotion is greed, as when you
kill someone for money, or something like that. Another emotion is generosity,
as when you pay someone double what he paid for his stupid puppet.
I think there should be something in science called the "reindeer effect." I
don't know what it would be, but I think it'd be good to hear someone say,
"Gentlemen, what we have here is a terrifying example of the reindeer effect."
I saw on this nature show how the male elk douses himself with urine to smell
sweeter to the opposite sex. What a coincidence!
It makes me mad when I go to all the trouble of having Marta cook up about a
hundred drumsticks, then the guy at Marineland says, "You can't throw that
chicken to the dolphins. They eat fish."
Sure they eat fish, if that's all you give them! Man, wise up.
I think it's high time we started questioning the old cliches like "Grunt big
for Daddy."
Anybody who has an identity problem had better wise up and get with the
program!
I think a good way to get into a movie is to show up where they're making the
movie, then stick a big cactus plant onto your buttocks and start yowling and
running around. Everyone would think it was funny, and the head movie guy
would say, :Hey, let's put him in the movie."
Tonight, when we were eating dinner, Marta said something that really knocked
me for a loop. She said, "I love carrots."
"Good," I said as I gritted my teeth real hard. "Then maybe you and carrots
would like to go into the bedroom and have sex!"
They didn't, but maybe they will sometime, and I can watch.
I can still recall old Mr. Barnslow getting out every morning and nailing a
fresh load of tadpoles to that old board of his. Then he'd spin it round and
round, like a wheel of fortune, and no matter where it stopped he'd yell out,
"Tadpoles! Tadpoles is a winner!"
We all thought he was crazy. But then, we had some growing up to do.
I think they should continue the policy of not giving a Nobel Prize for
paneling.
Here's a good joke to do during an earthquake: Straddle a big crack in the
earth, and if it opens wider, go, "Whoa! Whoa!" and flail your arms around, as
if you're going to fall in.
One question that's never been answered to my satisfaction by the "Playboy
Advisor" is "What kind of stereo system works best in hell?"
A funny thing to do is, if you're out hiking and your friend gets bitten by a
poisonous snake, tell him you're going to go for help, then go about ten feet
and pretend that *you* got bit by a snake. Then start an argument with him
about who's going to go get help. A lot of guys will start crying. That's why
it makes you feel good when you tell them it was just a joke.
Folks still remember the day ole Bob Riley came bouncing down that dirt road
in his pickup. Pretty soon, it was bouncing higher and higher. The tires
popped, and the shocks broke, but that truck kept bouncing. Some say it
bounced clean over the moon, but whoever says that is a goddamn liar.
Just as irrigation is the lifeblood of the Southwest, lifeblood is the soup of
cannibals.
In some places it's known as a tornado. In others, a cyclone. And in still
others, the Idiot's Merry-go-round. But around here they'll always be known as
screw-boys.
I wish I lived back in the old west days, because I'd save up my money for
about twenty years so I could buy a solid-gold pick. Then I'd go out West and
start digging for gold. When someone came up and asked what I was doing, I'd
say, "Looking for gold, ya durn fool." He'd say, "Your pick is gold," and I'd
say, "Well, that was easy."
Good joke, huh.
I think somebody should come up with a way to breed a very large shrimp. That
way, you could ride him, then, after you camped at night, you could eat him.
How about it, science?
I think a good product would be "Baby Duck Hat". It's a fake baby duck, which
you strap on top of your head. Then you go swimming underwater until you find
a mommy duck and her babies, and you join them. Then, all of a sudden, you
stand up out of the water and roar like Godzilla. Man, those ducks really take
off!
Also, Baby Duck Hat is good for parties.
Laugh, clown, laugh. This is what I tell myself whenever I dress up like Bozo.
Any man, in the right situation, is capable of murder. But not any man is
capable of being a good camper. So, murder and camping are not as similar as
you might think.
The prince decided he would learn anger. So he gathered his subjects together
outside his balcony. :Who would teach me anger?" he said.
"**** you!" somebody yelled.
"Okay, how about algebra?" said the prince.
If you go to a party, and you want to be the popular one at the party, do
this: Wait until no one is looking, then kick a burning log out of the
fireplace onto the carpet. Then jump on top of it with your body and yell,
"Log o' fire! Log o' fire!"
I've never done this, but I think it'd work.
As the snow started to fall, he tugged his coat tighter around himself. Too
tight, as it turned out.
"This is the fourth coat crushing this year", said the sergeant as he
outlined the body with a special pencil that writes on snow.
I read that when the archaeologists dug down into the ancient cemetary, they
found fragments of *human bones*! What kind of barbarians were these people,
anyway?
I'll be the first to admit that my idea of God is pretty different. I believe
in a God with a long white beard, a gold crown, and a long robe with lots of
shiny jewels on it. He sits on a big throne in the clouds, and He's about five
hundred feet tall. He talks in a real deep voice like "I...AM...GOD!" He can
blow up stuff just by looking at it.
This is my own, personal idea of God.
Marta says the interesting thing about fly-fishing is that it's two lives
connected by a thin strand.
Come on, Marta. Grow up.
Here's a good trick: Get a job as a judge at the Olympics. Then, if some guy
sets a world record, pretend that you didn't see it and go, "Okay, is
everybody ready to start now?"
Too bad when I was a kid there wasn't a guy in our class that everybody called
the "Cricket Boy", because I would have liked to stand up in class and tell
everybody, "You can make fun of the Cricket Boy if you want to, but to me he's
just like everybody else." Then everybody would leave the Cricket Boy alone,
and I'd invite him over to spend the night at my house, but after about five
minutes of that loud chirping I'd have to kick him out.
Maybe later we could get up a petition to get the Cricket Family run out of
town. Bye, Cricket Boy.
The whole town laughed at my great-grandfather, just because he worked hard
and saved his money. True, working at the hardware store didn't pay much, but
he felt it was better than what everybody else did, which was go up to the
volcano and collect the gold nuggets it shot out every day.
It turned out he was right. After forty years, the volcano petered out.
Everybody left town, and the hardware store went broke. Finally he decided to
collect gold nuggets too, but there weren't many left by then. Plus, he broke
his leg and the doctor's bills were real high.
If I had a nickname, I think I would want it to be "Prince of Weasels",
because then I could go up and bite people and they would turn around and go,
"What the-?" And then they would recognize me, and go, "Oh, it's you, the
Prince of Weasels."
As the sleek new sports car wound its way up the tortuous road, Henri tought
back to the torture he had received ten minutes ago. "Ah, air conditioning",
he thought as he aimed the vents toward the numerous whip marks on his legs,
chest, and groinal area.
I hope, when they die, cartoon characters have to answer for their sins.
Marta was watching the football game with me when she said, "You know, most of
these sports are based on the idea of one group protecting its territory from
invasion by another group."
"Yeah," I said, trying not to laugh.
Girls are funny.
Whether they ever find life there or not, I think Jupiter should be considered
an enemy planet.
When the chairman introduced the guest speaker as a former illegal alien, I
got up from my chair and yelled, "What's the matter, no jobs on Mars?" When no
one laughed, I was real embarrassed. I don't think people should make you feel
that way.
It's amazing to me that one of the world's most feared diseases would be
carried by one of the world's smallest animals: the real tiny dog.
One thing that makes me believe in UFOs is, sometimes I lose stuff.
I guess more bad things have been done in the name of progress than any other.
I myself have been guilty of this. When I was a teen-ager, I stole a car and
drove it out into the desert and set it on fire. When the police showed up, I
just shrugged and said, "Hey, progress."
Boy, did I have a lot to learn.
Sometimes, when I drive across the desert in the middle of the night, with no
other cars around, I start imagining: What if there were no civilization out
there? No cities, no factories, no people? And then I think: No people or
factories? Then who made this car? And this highway? And I get so confused I
have to stick my head out the window into the driving rain - unless there's
lightning, because I could get struck on the head by a bolt.
The difference between a man and a boy is, a boy wants to grow up to be a
fireman, but a man wants to grow up to be a giant monster fireman.
I think the monkeys at the zoo should have to wear sunglasses so they can't
hypnotize you.
Sometimes life seems like a dream, especially when I look down and see that I
forgot to put on my pants.
Love can sweep you off your feet and carry you along in a way you've never
known before. But the ride always ends, and you end up feeling lonely and
bitter.
Wait. It's not love I'm describing. I'm thinking of a monorail.
I wouldn't be surprised if someday some fisherman caught a big shark and cut
it open, and there inside was a whole person. Then they cut the person open,
and in him is a little baby shark. And in the baby shark there isn't a person,
because it would be too small. But there's a little doll or something, like a
Johnny Combat little toy guy - something like that.
I bet it was pretty hard to pick up girls if you had the Black Death.
Sometimes I wish Marta were more loyal to me. Like the other day. The car
parked next to ours had a real dirty windshield; so I wrote THIS CAR LOOKS
LIKE A FART in the dirt. Later I asked Marta if she thought it was a childish
thing to do. She said, "Well, maybe," Man, whose side is she on, anyway?
Sometimes I wonder if I'm sexy enough. When I walk into a singles bar with my
"fashionable" shirt, "fashionable" slacks, and a big new rubber manta-ray
helmet. I can't help wondering: Do women want to talk to me for myself, or do
they just want to get a feel of that nice rubber manta skin?
It's too bad that whole families have to be torn apart by something as simple
as wild dogs.
The land that had nourished him and had borne him fruit now turned against him
and called him a fruit.
Man, I hate land like that.
Life, to me, is like a quiet forest pool, one that needs a direct hit from a
big rock half-buried in the ground. You pull and you pull, but you can't get
the rock out of the ground. So you give it a good kick, but you lose your
balance and go skidding down the hill toward the pool. Then out comes a big
Hawaiian man who was screwing his wife beside the pool because they thought it
was real pretty. He tells you to get out of there, but you start faking it,
like you're talking Hawaiian, and then he gets mad and chases you . . .
It's fascinating to think that all around us there's an invisible world we
can't even see. I'm speaking, of course, of the World of the Invisible Scary
Skeletons.
Whenever I hear the sparrow chirping, watch the woodpecker chirp, catch a
chirping trout, or listen to the sad howl of the chirp rat, I think: Oh boy!
I'm going insane again.
If they have moving sidewalks in the future, when you get on them, I think you
should have to assume sort of a walking shape so as not to frighten the dogs.
He was the kind of man who was not ashamed to show affection. I guess that's
what I hated about him.
I think college administrators should encourage students to urinate on walls
and bushes, because then when students from another college come sniffing
around, they'll know this is someone else's territory.
The next time I have meat and mashed potatoes, I think I'll put a very large
blob of potatoes on my plate with just a little piece of meat. And if someone
asks me why I didn't get more meat, I'll just say, "Oh, you mean this?" and
pull out a big piece of meat from inside the blob of potatoes, where I've
hidden it.
Good magic trick, huh?
I think my new thing will be to try to be a real happy guy. I'll just walk
around being real happy until some jerk says something stupid to me.
If you work on a lobster boat, sneaking up behind people and pinching them is
probably a joke that gets old real fast.
If you want to be the most popular person in your class, whenever the
professor pauses in his lecture, just let out a big snort and say "How do you
figger that!" real loud. Then lean back and sort of smirk.
Too bad Lassie didn't know how to ice skate, because then if she was in
Holland on vacation in winter and someone said "Lassie, go skate for help,"
she could do it.
When you're going up the stairs and you take a step, kick the other leg up
high behind you to keep people from following too close.
If you're ever shipwrecked on a tropical island and you don't know how to
speak the natives' language, just say "Poppy-oomy." I bet it means something.
I wish scientists would come up with an ear of corn that was big and round,
because then when you were eating it, it'd be fun to make chew marks in the
shape of continents.
I wonder if angels believe in ghosts.
I have to laugh when I think of the first cigar, because it was probably just
a bunch of rolled-up tobacco leaves.
I don't understand people who say life is a mystery, because what is it they
want to know?
Instead of studying for finals, what about just going to the Bahamas and
catching some rays? Maybe you'll flunk, but you might have flunked anyway;
that's my point.
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