1 一个金发美女和她的热水瓶 A Blonde and Her Thermos
At work, a blonde notices her that cubicle mate has a thermos.
She asks him what it's for, and he responds, "It keeps hot things hot, and cold things cold."
The blonde immediately buys one. The next day, she goes to work and proudly displays it.
Her cube mate asks, "What do you have in it?"
The blonde says, "Soup and ice cream."
2 第一次坐飞机 First Flight
Mr. Johnson had never been up in an airplane before and he had read a lot about air accidents, so one day when a friend offered to take him for a ride in his own small plane, Mr. Johnson was very worried about accepting. Finally, however, his friend persuaded him that it was very safe, and Mr. Johnson boarded the plane.
His friend started the engine and began to taxi onto the runway of the airport. Mr. Johnson had heard that the most dangerous part of a flight were the take-off and the landing, so he was extremely frightened and closed his eyes.
After a minute or two he opened them again, looked out of the window of the plane, and said to his friend, "Look at those people down there. They look as small as ants, don't they?"
"Those are ants," answered his friend. "We're still on the ground."
3 第一次与最后一次 My First and My Last
When George was thirty-five, he bought a small plane and learned to fly it. He soon became very good and made his plane do all kinds of tricks.
George had a friend. His name was Mark. One day George offered to take Mark up in his plane. Mark thought, "I've travelled in a big plane several times, but I've never been in a small one, so I'll go."
They went up, and George flew around for half an hour and did all kinds of tricks in the air.
When they came down again, Mark was very glad to be back safely, and he said to his friend in a shaking voice, "Well, George, thank you very much for those two trips in your plane."
George was very surprised and said, "Two trips?"
"Yes, my first and my last," answered Mark.
4 钉子还是苍蝇？A Nail Or A Fly?
An old gentleman whose eyesight was failing came to stay in a hotel room with a bottle of wine in each hand. On the wall there was a fly which he took for a nail. So the moment he hung them on, the bottles fell broken and the wine spilt all over the floor. When a waitress discovered what had happened, she showed deep sympathy for him and decided to do him a favor.
So the next morning when he was out taking a walk in the roof garden, she hammered a nail exactly where the fly had stayed.
Now the old man entered his room. The smell of the spilt wine reminded him of the accident. When he looked up at the wall, he found the fly was there again! He walked to it carefully and slapped it with all his strength. On hearing a loud cry, the kind-hearted waitress rushed in. To her great surprise, the poor old man was there sitting on the floor, his teeth clenched and his right hand bleeding!
5 角色逆转 Reversal of Roles
Barbara Walters did a story on gender roles in Kuwait several years before the Gulf War. She noted then that women customarily walked about 10 feet behind their husbands.
She returned to Kuwait recently and observed that the men now walked several yards behind their wives.
Ms. Walters approached one of the women and said, "This is marvelous.
Can you tell me and the free world just what enabled women here to achieve this marvelous reversal of roles?"
"Landmines," said the Kuwaiti woman. . .
6 未能通过数学考试 Failing the math test
A ten-year-old Jewish boy was failing math. His parents tried everything from tutors to hypnosis; but to no avail. Finally, at the insistence of a family friend, they decided to enroll their son in a private Catholic school.
After the first day, the boy's parents were surprised when he walked in after school with a stern, focused and very determined expression on his face. He went straight past them, right to his room and quietly closed the door.
For nearly two hours he toiled away in his room - with math books strewn about his desk and the surrounding floor. He emerged long enough to eat, and after quickly cleaning his plate, went straight back to his room, closed the door and worked feverishly at his studies until bedtime.
This pattern of behavior continued until it was time for the first quarter's report card. The boy walked in with it unopened - laid it on the dinner table and went straight to his room. Cautiously, his mother opened it and, to her amazement, she saw a large red 'A' under the subject of Math.
Overjoyed, she and her husband rushed into their son's room, thrilled at his remarkable progress. "Was it the nuns that did it?" the father asked.
The boy shook his head and said "No."
"Was it the one-to-one tutoring? The peer-mentoring?"
"No."
"The textbooks? The teachers? The curriculum?"
"No", said the son. "On that first day, when I walked in the front door and saw that guy nailed to the plus sign, I KNEW they meant business!"
(from Internet)
