Home  >> Stories  >> The Tale Spinner #2011-23

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IN THIS ISSUE

• From the first year of publication of the Spinner, an essay by Dick Monaghan
• Don Henderson´s article suggests a solution for stress
• Bruce Galway sends a short verse with a simple solution to problems
• Here are the rest of Catherine Nesbitt´s interesting but useless facts
• Catherine also sends a story of a really absent-minded professor
• Gerrit deLeeuw´s post proves that computers are not always a necessity
• For a definition of a dedicated golfer, see this story
• Sites are suggested by Bruce Galway, Catherine Nesbitt, and Pat Moore

Reprinted from the February 13, 1995 issue of the Spinner, this article by our sadly-missed Dick Monaghan is entitled:

LOVE ADVICE

I´ve been reading an article entitled "Love Talk", by Jeannie Ralston, in the November, 1994, issue of "McCall´s" magazine, and I don´t understand it. I should say "McCall´s" is not my usual fare, but I was stuck in a waiting room and there was nothing else to read.

Ms. Ralston addresses a problem which, expressed in railroad terms, amounts to "how to keep a full head of steam during a long journey." She wants to assist wives in retaining their husband´s interest, although the advice seems useful for long-term "significant others" and "main squeezes" as well.

The author´s erotic enthusiasm is of doubtless value to the younger set, but simply seems mysterious to someone who remembers the NRA Blue Eagle, jitterbugging, skate keys, "Wrong-Way" Corrigan, the Lincoln Brigade, and Fels Naptha soap.

Ms. Ralston offers suggestions, which, if followed, are rewarded by her with one to three "smooches." (I have no idea how you´re supposed to collect your prizes.) For instance, she advises:

"Share a sexy secret. At a party, a concert or in the kitchen after dinner, whisper something mischievously risque into your husband´s ear, like ´I´m not wearing any underwear.´" (Two smooches.)

If my wife said that to me, I would nod knowingly and tell her that my memory, too, has gone to hell.

Ms. Ralston: "Call him just to say playfully how much you´re thinking of him or what you´d like to do with him that night." (One smooch.)

First, I´d have to go somewhere where Miss Kate could call me, but we could figure out something. I can hear her voice, somewhere in the lower French-horn range, suggesting throatily:

"I like to, to, you know ... paint the cupboards together!" (Pant, pant.)

The author really rolls out the heavy artillery with this next one, however:

"Play a game of dare. Start well before you get into the bedroom by daring him to unsnap your bra at the dinner table at a restaurant. Then he gets to make a dare. When you reach the bedroom, dare him to strip slowly in front of you." (Three smooches.)

If memory serves, I couldn´t unsnap a bra with the help of an acetylene torch. If I were to attempt something like that in a restaurant, I´m sure someone would call the paramedics, assuming my wife was choking and I was trying to administer the Heimlich maneuver without knowing how. I mentioned the slow-strip part to Miss Kate, and she didn´t see anything novel about it. "You do that now," she said, "usually with one shoulder against the wall, so you won´t fall over trying to get your socks off."

Ms. Ralston is right about one thing, though. We´d have to start a long time before we got in the bedroom, because when we get there, we´re asleep.

Don Henderson sends this story about

STRESS MANAGEMENT

A young lady confidently walked around the room with a raised glass of water while explaining stress management to an audience, and everyone knew she was going to ask the ultimate question, "Half empty or half full?" She fooled them all. "How heavy is this glass of water?," she inquired with a smile.

Answers called out ranged from 8 oz. to 20 oz.

She replied, "The absolute weight doesn´t matter. It depends on how long I hold it. If I hold it for a minute, that´s not a problem. If I hold it for an hour, I´ll have an ache in my right arm. If I hold it for a day, you´ll have to call an ambulance. In each case it´s the same weight, but the longer I hold it, the heavier it becomes."

She continued, "And that´s the way it is with stress. If we carry our burdens all the time, sooner or later, as the burden becomes increasingly heavy, we won´t be able to carry on.

"As with the glass of water, you have to put it down for a while and rest before holding it again. When we´re refreshed, we can carry on with the burden - holding stress longer and better each time practised.

"So, as early in the evening as you can, put all your burdens down. Don´t carry them through the evening and into the night - pick them up tomorrow. Whatever burdens you´re carrying now, let them down for a moment. Relax, pick them up later after you´ve rested. Life is short. Enjoy it and the now ´supposed´ stress that you´ve conquered!"

Bruce Galway sends this short verse:

SOLUTION

My face in the mirror isn´t wrinkled or drawn;
My house isn´t dirty;
The cobwebs are gone;
My garden looks lovely,
And so does my lawn.
I think I might never
Put my glasses back on.

Here is the last of the post sent by Catherine Nesbitt containing

USELESS BUT INTERESTING FACTS

Peanut oil is used for cooking in submarines because it doesn´t smoke unless it´s heated above 450F.

The roar that we hear when we place a seashell next to our ear is not the ocean, but rather the sound of blood surging through the veins in the ear.

Nine out of every 10 living things live in the ocean.

The domesticated banana cannot reproduce itself. It can be propagated only by the hand of man.

Airports at higher altitudes require a longer airstrip due to lower air density.

The University of Alaska spans four time zones.

The tooth is the only part of the human body that cannot heal itself.

In ancient Greece, tossing an apple to a girl was a traditional proposal of marriage. Catching it meant she accepted.

Warner Communications paid $28 million for the copyright to the song Happy Birthday.

Intelligent people have more zinc and copper in their hair.

A comet´s tail always points away from the sun

The swine flu vaccine in 1976 caused more death and illness than the disease it was intended to prevent.

Caffeine increases the power of aspirin and other painkillers; that is why it is found in some medicines.

The military salute is a motion that evolved from medieval times, when knights in armour raised their visors to reveal their identity.

If you get into the bottom of a well or a tall chimney and look up, you can see stars, even in the middle of the day.

When a person dies, hearing is the last sense to go. The first sense lost is sight.

In ancient times strangers shook hands to show that they were unarmed.

Strawberries are the only fruits whose seeds grow on the outside.

Avocados have the highest calories of any fruit at 167 calories per hundred grams.

The moon moves about two inches away from the Earth each year.

The Earth gets 100 tons heavier every day due to falling space dust.

Due to earth´s gravity it is impossible for mountains to be higher than 15,000 meters.

Mickey Mouse is known as "Topolino" in Italy.

Soldiers do not march in step when going across bridges because they could set up a vibration which could be sufficient to knock the bridge down.

Everything weighs one percent less at the equator.

For every extra kilogram carried on a space flight, 530 kg of excess fuel are needed at lift-off.

The letter J does not appear anywhere on the periodic table of the elements.

And last but not least: In 2011, July has five Fridays, five Saturdays, and five Sundays. This apparently happens once every 823 years!

ED. NOTE: Again, there are no guarantees of the accuracy of any of the "facts".

Catherine also sends this story of

THE ABSENT-MINDED PROFESSOR

One morning as Professor Thompson was leaving for the college, his wife told her absent-minded husband, "Don´t forget we are moving today. If you come to this house this afternoon it will be empty."

Predictably, he didn´t remember until he found the house vacated that afternoon. He mumbled to himself, "And where was it we were moving to?"

He went out in front of the house and asked a little girl, "Did you see a moving van here today, little girl?"

"Yes," she replied.

"Can you tell me which way it went?"

She looked up at him and said, "Yes, Daddy, I´ll show you."

Gerrit de Leeuw forwards a story that proves that

COMPUTERS AREN´T EVERYTHING

An unemployed man is desperate to support his family of a wife and three kids.

He applies for a janitor´s job at a large firm and easily passes an aptitude test.

The human resources manager tells him, "You will be hired at minimum wage of $5.35 an hour. Let me have your e-mail address so that we can get you in the loop. Our system will automatically e-mail you all the forms and advise you when to start and where to report on your first day."

Taken aback, the man protests that he is poor and has neither a computer nor an e-mail address

To this the manager replies, "You must understand that to a company like ours that means that you virtually do not exist. Without an e- mail address you can hardly expect to be employed by a high-tech firm. Good day."

Stunned, he then leaves, not knowing where to turn. With only $10 in his wallet, he walks past a farmers´ market and sees a stand selling 25-pound crates of beautiful red tomatoes. He buys a crate, carries it to a busy corner and displays the tomatoes. In less than two hours he sells all the tomatoes and makes 100% profit. Repeating the process several times more that day, he ends up with almost $100 and arrives home that night with several bags of groceries for his family.

During the night he decides to repeat the tomato business the next day. By the end of the week he is getting up early every day and working into the night. He multiplies his profits quickly.

Early in the second week he acquires a cart to transport several boxes of tomatoes at a time, but before a month is up he sells the cart to buy a broken-down pickup truck.

At the end of a year he owns three old trucks. His two sons have left their neighbourhood gangs to help him with the tomato business, his wife is buying the tomatoes, and his daughter is taking night courses at the community college so she can keep books for him.

By the end of the second year he has a dozen very nice used trucks and employs fifteen previously unemployed people, all selling tomatoes. He continues to work hard.

Time passes and at the end of the fifth year he owns a fleet of nice trucks and a warehouse that his wife supervises, plus two tomato farms that the boys manage. The tomato company´s payroll has put hundreds of homeless and jobless people to work. His daughter reports that the business grossed over one million dollars.

Planning for the future, he decides to buy some life insurance.

Consulting with an insurance adviser, he picks an insurance plan to fit his new circumstances. Then the adviser asks him for his e-mail address in order to send the final documents electronically.

When the man replies that he doesn´t have time to mess with a computer and has no e-mail address, the insurance man is stunned.

"What, you don´t have e-mail? No computer? No Internet? Just think where you would be today if you´d had all of that five years ago!"

"Ha!" snorts the man. "If I´d had e-mail five years ago I would be sweeping floors at Microsoft and making $5.35 an hour."

Which brings us to the moral of the story:

Since you got this story by e-mail, you´re probably closer to being a janitor than a millionaire.

Sadly, I received it also.

A REAL GOLFER

A golfer and his buddies were playing a big round of golf for $200. At the eighteenth green the golfer had a ten-foot putt to win the round, and the $200.

As he was lining up his putt, a funeral procession started to pass by. The golfer set down his putter, took off his hat, placed it over his chest, and waited for the funeral procession to pass. After it passed, he picked up his putter and returned to lining up his putt.

One of his buddies said, "That was the most touching thing I have ever seen. I can´t believe you stopped playing, possibly losing your concentration, to pay your respects."

The golfer turned to him and said, "Well, it was the least I could do. We were married for 45 years!"

*****FROM THE EDITOR´S DESKTOP

You may have noticed a dearth of personal stories this week and the inclusion of recycled jokes and a reprint from an early Spinner. This is the result of the non-receipt of stories from readers about their long-ago pets, or recent travels, or other stories of interest to other readers. I have another travelogue from Lyle Meeres waiting in the wings, but there is no reason why he should be responsible for the bulk of the contributions just now. Don´t just sit there - write! <nag, nag>

SUGGESTED WEBSITES

Bruce Galway forwards a link to an interesting world clock:

Catherine Nesbitt suggests this link to a video of a cat and an owl playing together:

Pat Moore sends the URL for an site for world statistics, which covers much of the same material as the world clock but in a different format:

Barefoot College in India is training middle-aged rural women to become solar engineers. Their efforts have already brought solar expertise to over 750 villages that previously had no power. This is an inspiring video of the application of Mahatma Gandhi´s belief that knowledge, skills, and wisdom found in villages should be used for development before getting skills from outside:

The clever winning animated film for 2009, with English subtitles:

James Cameron´s big-budget (and even bigger-grossing) films create unreal worlds all their own. In this personal talk, he reveals his childhood fascination with the fantastic - from reading science fiction to deep-sea diving - and how it ultimately drove the success of his blockbuster hits "Aliens," "The Terminator," "Titanic" and "Avatar." Here he addresses a TED audience:

To check out the features of the "freedictionary", which changes daily, go to