1998
Darwin Awards Honorable Mentions AUGUSTA, ME - Four people were
injured in a string of bizarre accidents. Sherry Moeller was admitted with
a head wound caused by flying masonry, Jim Vegas was diagnosed with a mild case
of whiplash and contusions on his chest, arms and face, Bryan Corcoran suffered
torn gum tissue, and Pamela Klesick's first two fingers of her right hand had
been bitten off. Moeller had just dropped her husband off for his first day of
work and, in addition to a
good-bye kiss, she flashed her breasts at him. "I'm still not sure why I did
it," she said later. "I was really close to the car, so I didn't think anyone
would see. Besides, it couldn't have been for more than two seconds. However,
cab driver Vegas did see, and lost control of his cab, running over the curb
and into the corner of the Johnson Medical Building. Inside, Klesick, a dental
technician, was cleaning Corcoran's teeth. The crash of the cab against the building
made her jump, tearing Corcoran's gums with a cleaning pick. In shock, he bit
down, severing two fingers from Klesick's hand. Moeller's wound was caused by
a falling piece of the
medical building. TAOS, NM -
A woman went to a poison control center after eating three birth-control vaginal
inserts. Her English was so bad she had to draw a picture describing how she
believed she had poisoned herself. A translator arrived shortly thereafter and
confirmed doctors' suspicions. Marie Valishnokov thought the
inserts were some kind of candy or gum, being unable to read the foil wrappers.
After the third one, she realized something was wrong when her throat and mouth
began to fill with a sour-tasting foam. She ran for the Poison Control Center,
only a few blocks away where doctors were able to flush the foam from her mouth,
throat and stomach with no ill effects. TACOMA, WA
- Kerry Bingham, had been drinking with several friends when one of them said
they knew a person who had bungee-jumped from the Tacoma Narrows Bridge in the
middle of traffic. The conversation grew more heated, until at least 10 men trooped
along the walkway of the bridge at 4:30 a.m. Upon arrival at the midpoint of
the bridge they discovered that no one had brought bungee rope. Bingham, who
had continued drinking, volunteered and pointed out that a coil of cable had
been left near the railing. Bingham's friends tied one end to his leg and the
other to the bridge. His fall lasted 40 feet before the cable tightened and tore
his foot off at the ankle. He miraculously survived his fall into the icy river
water and was rescued
by two nearby fishermen. "All I can say," said Bingham, "is that God was watching
out for me on that night. There's just no other explanation for
it." Bingham's foot was never located. On February
3, 1990, a Renton, Washington man tried to commit a robbery. This was probably his first attempt,
as suggested by the fact that he had no previous record of violent crime, and
by his terminally stupid choices as listed below: 1. The target
was H&J Leather & Firearms, a gun shop; 2. The shop was full of customers,
in a state where a substantial portion of the adult population is licensed to
carry concealed handguns in public places; 3. To enter the shop, he had
to step around a marked Police patrol car parked at the front
door; 4. An officer in uniform was
standing next to the counter, having coffee before reporting to duty. Upon seeing
the officer, the would-be robber announced a holdup and fired a few wild shots.
The officer and a clerk promptly returned fire, removing him from the gene pool.
Several other customers also drew their guns, but didn't fire. No one else was
hurt. MOSCOW, RUSSIA
-A drunk security man asked a colleague at the Moscow bank they were guarding
to stab his bullet-proof vest to see if it would protect him against a knife
attack. It didn't, and the 25-year-old guard died of
a heart wound. (It's good to see the Russians
getting into the spirit of the Darwin Awards.) In France,
Jacques LeFevrier left nothing to chance when he decided to commit suicide. He
stood at the top of a tall cliff and tied a noose around his neck. He tied the
other end of the rope to a large rock. He drank some poison and set fire to his
clothes. He even tried to shoot himself at the last moment. He jumped and fired
the pistol. The bullet missed him completely and cut through the rope above him.
Free of the threat of hanging, he plunged into the sea. The sudden dunking extinguished
the flames and made him vomit the poison. He was dragged out of the water by
a kind fisherman and was
taken to a hospital, where he died ... of hypothermia. And the winner
is: Japan Times-April
16, 1997 "The government must crack down on this disgusting craze of "Pumping",
a spokesman for the Nakhon Ratchasima hospital told reporters. "If this perversion
catches on, it will destroy the cream of Thailand's manhood." He was speaking
after the remains of 13 year-old Charnchai Puanmuangpak had been rushed into
the hospital's emergency room. "Most 'Pumpers' use
a standard bicycle pump," he explained, "inserting the nozzle far up their rectum,
giving themselves a rush of air, creating a momentary high. This act is a sin
against God." Charnchai took it further still. He started using a two-cylinder
foot pump, but even that wasn't exciting enough for him, and he boasted to friends
that he was going to try the compressed air hose at a nearby gasoline station.
They dared him to do it, so, under cover of darkness, he snuck in. Not realizing
how powerful the machine was, he inserted the tube deep into his rectum, and
placed a coin in the slot. As a result, he died virtually instantly, but passers-by
are still in shock. One woman thought she was watching a twilight fireworks display,
and started clapping. "We still haven't located all of him.", say the police
authorities. "When that quantity of air interacted with the gas in his system,
he nearly exploded. It was like a bomb went off or something." "Pumping is the
devil's pastime, and we must all say no to Satan," Ratchasima
concluded. "Inflate your tires by all means, but then hide your bicycle pump
where it cannot tempt you." Let's hear it for Charnchai Puanmuangpak, the NEW
1998 undisputed Darwin Awards recipient! top
of page MAN
/ WOMAN 1. A man will pay $2 for a $1
item he wants. A woman will pay $1 for
a $2 item that she doesn't want. 2. A woman worries about the
future until she gets a husband. A man never worries about
the future until he gets a wife. 3. A successful man is one who
makes more money than his wife can spend. A successful woman is one
who can find such a man. 4. To be happy with a man you
must understand him a lot & love him a little. To be happy with a woman
you must love her a lot & not try to understand her at
all. 5. Married men live longer than
single men - but married men are a lot more willing to
die. 6. Any married man should forget
his mistakes - there's no use in two people
remembering the same thing. 7. Men wake up as good-looking
as they went to bed. Women somehow deteriorate during
the night. 8. A woman marries a man expecting
he will change, but he doesn't. A man marries a woman expecting
that she won't change & she does. 9. A woman has the last word
in any argument. Anything a man says after that is the beginning
of a new argument. 10. There are 2 times when a
man doesn't understand a woman - before marriage & after
marriage. top
of page Fruit Brandon, Troy, and Kevin who
were lost in the forest were captured by cannibals. The cannibal king told the
prisoners that they could live if they passed a trial. The first step of the
trial was to go to the forest and get ten pieces of the
same kind of fruit. All three men went their
separate ways to gather the fruit. Brandon came back and
said to the king, "I brought ten apples". The king explained the trial
to him, "You have to shove the fruit up your butt without any expression on your
face, or you'll be eaten." The first apple went in...
but on the second one he winced out in pain, so he was
killed. Troy arrived and showed
the king ten berries. When the king explained the trial to him he thought to
himself that this should be easy. 1...2...3...4...5...6...7...8...
and on the ninth berry he burst out in laughter and was killed. Brandon and Troy met in
heaven. Brandon asked, "Why did you laugh, you almost got
away with it!" Troy replied, "I couldn't help it, I looked up and saw Kevin coming
back with pineapples." top
of page Two
Digits for a Date (to the tune of "Gilligan's Island," more or less) Just
sit right back and you'll hear a tale Of the doom
that is our fate. That started
when programmers used Two digits
for a date. Two digits
for a date.
Main mem-o-ry
was smaller then; Hard disks
were smaller, too. "Four digits
are extravagant, So let's get
by with two. So let's get
by with two."
"This works
through 1999," The programmers
did say. "Unless we
rewrite before that It all will
go away. It all will
go away."
But Management
had not a clue: "It works
fine now, you bet! A rewrite
is a straight expense; We won't do
it just yet. We won't do
it just yet."
Now when
2000 rolls around It all goes
straight to hell, For zero's
less than ninety-nine, As anyone
can tell. As anyone
can tell.
The mail
won't bring your pension check It won't be sent
to you When you're
no longer sixty-eight, But minus
thirty-two. But minus
thirty-two.
The problems
we're about to face Are frightening,
for sure. And reading
every line of code's The only certain
cure. The only certain
cure.
[key change,
big finish]
There's
not much time, There's too
much code. (And Cobol-coders,
few) When the century
is finished with, We may be
finished, too. We may be
finished, too.
Eight thousand
years from now I hope That things
weren't left too late, And people
aren't then lamenting Four digits
for a date. Four digits
for a date. top
of page
OOOOPS This guy is in a bar, just looking
at his drink, he stays like that for half-an-hour, or so, then, this big burly
trouble-maker of a truck driver comes and sits next to him, and drinks what the
guy was staring at. The poor man starts
crying. The truck driver
says, "Come on man, I was just joking. Here, I'll buy you another drink. I just can't see a grown man
crying." "No, that's not it, says the
guy, "This day has been the worst day of my life. First, I oversleep cause my
alarm doesn't go off, and I get to work late. My boss is outraged and he fires
me. When I leave the building, to get to my car, I find it was stolen, and the
police say they can do nothing about it. I get a cab to go home,
and remember I left my wallet and credit cards at the house. The cab driver takes
off without me. I walk the six miles to home, and when I get there, I find my
wife in bed with the mailman. I grab my wallet and come to this bar, and when
I was thinking about putting an end
to my life, you show up and drink my poison. top
of page Rubbing A married man goes to confessional
and tells the priest, "I had an affair with a woman
- almost." The priest says, "What do you mean, 'almost'?" The man
says, "Well, we got undressed and rubbed together, but then I stopped." The priest
replies, "Rubbing together is the same as putting it in. You're not to
go near that woman again. Now, say five Hail Mary's and put $50 in the
poor box." The man leaves confessional, goes over and says his prayers, then
walks over to the poor box. He pauses for a moment and then starts
to leave. The priest, who was watching him, quickly runs over to him and
says, "I saw that. You didn't put any money in the poor box!" The
man replied, "Well, Father, I rubbed up against it and you said that was the
same as putting it in!" top
of page Dog
Wash A young boy, about eight years
old, was at the corner "Mom & Pop" grocery picking out a pretty good size
box of laundry detergent. The grocer walked over, and,
trying to be friendly, asked the boy if he had a lot of laundry
to do. "Oh, no laundry," the boy said, "I'm
going to wash my dog." "But you shouldn't use this to
wash your dog. It's very powerful and if you wash your dog in this, he'll get
sick. In fact, it might even kill him." But the boy was not to be stopped
and carried the detergent to the counter and paid for it, even as the grocer
still tried to talk him out of washing his dog. About a week later the boy was
back in the store to buy some candy. The grocer asked the boy how his dog was
doing. "Oh, he died," the boy
said. The grocer, trying not
to be an I-told-you-so, said he was sorry the dog died but added, "I tried to
tell you not to use that detergent on your dog." "Well," the boy replied, "I
don't think it was the detergent that killed him." "Oh? What
was it then?" "I think it was the spin
cycle!" top
of page Actual
Answering Machine answers recorded and verified by the world famous International
Institute of Answering Machine Answers.....
A is for Academics,
B is for beer. One of those reasons is why we're not here.
My wife and I can't
come to the phone right now, but if you'll leave your name and number,
we'll get back to you as soon as we're finished.
Hi. This is John: If
you are the phone company, I already sent money. If you are my parents,
please send money. If you are my financial aid institution, you didn't
lend me enough money. If you are my friends, you owe me money. If you are
a female, don't worry, I have plenty of money.
Hello, you've reached
Jim and Sonya. We can't pick up the phone right now because we're doing
something we really enjoy. Sonya likes doing it up and down, and I like
doing it left to right...real slowly. So leave a message, and when we're
done brushiing our teeth we'll get back to you.
Hi. My answering machine
is broken. This is the refrigerator. Please speak slowly and I'll stick
your message to myself with one of these magnets.
Hello, this is Sally's
microwave. Her answering machine just eloped with her tape deck, so I'm
stuck with taking her calls. Say, if you want anything cooked while you
leave your message, just hold it up to the phone.
Hello, you are talking
to a machine. I am capable of receiving messages. My owners do not need
siding, windows, or a hot tub, and their carpets are clean. They give to
charity through their office and do not need their pictures taken. If you're
still with me, leave you name and number and they will
get back to you.
Hi. I am probably home,
but I'm just avoiding someone I don't like. Leave me a message, and if
I don't call back, it's you.
If you are a burglar,
then we're probably at home cleaning our weapons right now and can't come
to the phone. Otherwise, we probably aren't home and it's safe to leave
a message.
You have reached the
CPX-2000 Voice Blackmail System. Your voice patterns are now being digitally
encoded and stored for later use. Once this is done, our computers will
be able to use the sound of "your" voice for literally thousands of illegal
and immoral purposes. There is no charge for this initial consultation.
However our staff of professional extortionists will contact you in the
near future to further explain the benefits of our service, and to arrange
for your schedule of payment. Remem top
of page
Joe
had asked Bob to help him out with the deck after work, so Bob just went straight
over to Joe's place. When they got to the door, Joe went straight to his wife,
gave her a hug and told her how beautiful she was and how much he had missed
her at work. When it was time for supper, he complimented his wife on her cooking,
kissed her and told her how much he loved her. Once they were working on the
deck, Bob told Joe that he was surprised that he fussed so much over his wife.
Joe said that he'd started this about 6 months ago, it had revived their marriage,
and things couldn't be better. Bob thought he'd give it a go. When he got home,
he gave his wife a massive hug, kissed her and told her that he loved her. His
wife burst into tears.
Bob was confused and asked why she was crying. She said, "This is the worst day
of my life. First, little Billy fell off his bike and twisted his ankle. Then,
the washing machine broke and flooded the basement. And now, you
come home drunk!" top
of page An
Amish Family Comes to Tysons An Amish boy and his father were
visiting The Galleria at Tysons II. They were amazed by almost everything they
saw, but especially by two shiny, silver walls that could move apart and back
together again. The boy asked his father, "What is this, Father?" The father
(never having seen an elevator) responded "Son, I have never seen anything like
this in my life, I don't know what
it is." While the boy and his father were watching wide-eyed, an old lady in
a wheel chair rolled up to the moving walls and pressed a button. The walls opened
and the lady rolled between them into a small room. The walls closed and the
boy and his father watched as the woman moved higher and higher to the next level
of the mall. Then they saw the walls open and a beautiful 24-year-old woman stepped
out. The father said to his son, "Go get your mother." top
of page Viruses These are new computer viruses
that are coming out so be careful. Freudian VirusYour computer becomes
obsessed with its own motherboard. Lorena Bobbit Virus turns your
hard disk into a 3.5 inch floppy Tonya Harding Virus turns your
.BAT files into lethal weapons Paul Revere Virus warns of an
impending virus infection: 1 if by LAN, 2 if by C:\ Hillary Rodham Clinton Virus
instantly turns 1K of disk space into 1 Meg Ollie North Virus plays a patriotic
.WAV while it shreds your files Joey Buttafuaco Virus only attacks
minor files Ronald Reagan Virus saves your
data, but forgets where it's stored Jane Fonda Virus attacks your
hard drive's FAT Oprah Winfrey virus Your 200MB
hard drive suddenly shrinks to 80MB, and then slowly expands
to 300MB AT&T Virus Every three minutes
it tells you what great service you are getting. MCI Virus Every three minutes
it reminds you that you're paying too much for the AT&T virus Politically
Correct Virus Never calls itself a "virus," but instead
refers to itself as an "electronic microorganism." Ross Perot Virus Activates every
component in your system, just before the whole darn thing
quits. Arnold Schwarzenegger Virus Terminates
and stays resident. It'll be back Government Economist Virus Nothing
works, but all your diagnostic software says everything is
fine Federal Beaurocrat Virus Divides
your hard disk into hundreds of little units, each of which does practically
nothing, but all of which claim to be the most important
part of your computer Adam and Eve Virus Takes a couple
of bytes out of your Apple computer Congressional Virus #1 The computer
locks up, screen splits erratically with a message appearing on each half blaming
the other side for the problem Congressional Virus #2 Runs every
program on the hard drive simultaneously but doesn't
allow the user to accomplish
anything Airline Virus You're in Dallas,
but your data is in Singapore PBS Virus Your computer stops
every few minutes to ask for money Jimmy Hoffa Virus Your programs
can never be found again LAPD Virus It claims it feels
threatened by the other files on your PC and erases them
in "self-defense." O.J. Virus It claims that it
did not, could not and would not delete two of your files and vows to find the
virus that did it. top
of page Groaner
of the week A man went to his dentist
to have a new dental plate made. But he returned several weeks later with a complaint.
He said he had been eating Hollandaise sauce and his dental plate actually disintegrated
inside his mouth. The dentist said he would make him a brandnew plate, but this
time it would be made of chrome. The man said he had never heard of a dental
plate make of chrome.
and the dentist replied, "There's no plate like chrome for the Hollandaise... top
of page A
Math Lesson Little Tommy was doing very badly
in math. His parents had tried everything--tutors, flash cards, special learning
centers, in short everything that they could think of. Finally, in a last-ditch
effort, they took Tommy down and enrolled him in the local Catholic School. After
the first day, little Tommy came home with a very serious look on his face. He
didn't kiss his mother hello. Instead, he went straight to his room and started
studying. Books and paper were spread out all over the room and Little Tommy
was hard at work. His
mother was amazed. She called him down to dinner
and, to her shock and amazement, the minute he was done, he marched back to his
room without a word and in no time he was back hitting
the books as hard as before. This went on for some time, day after day,
while the Mother tried to understand what had made all the difference. Finally,
little Tommy brought home his report card. He quietly laid it on the table and
went up to his room and hit the books. With great trepidation, his mom
looked at it and, to her surprise, little Tommy had gotten an A in Math. She
could no longer contain her curiosity. She went to his room
and said, "Son, what was it? Was it the nuns?" Little Tommy looked at her
and shook his head. "Well then," She persisted, "was it the books, the
discipline, the structure, the uniforms, WHAT was it??" Little Tommy looked at her and
said, "Well, on the first day of school, when I saw that guy nailed to the plus
sign, I knew they weren't fooling around." top
of page SYMPHONY A number of years ago, the Seattle
Symphony was going to perform Beethoven's Ninth. At this point, you must understand
two things: (1) There's a long segment in this symphony where the bass violins
don't have a thing to do. Not a single note for page after page. (2) There used
to be a tavern right across the street
from the Seattle Opera House, rather favored by local
musicians. It had been decided that during
this performance, after the bass players had played their parts in the opening
of the Ninth, they were to quietly lay down their instruments and leave the stage
rather than sit on their stools looking and feeling dumb for twenty minutes.
Well, once they got backstage, someone suggested
that they trot across the street and quaff a few brews. After they had downed
the first couple rounds, one said, "Shouldn't we be getting back? It'd be awfully
embarrassing if we were late." Another, presumably the one who suggested this
excursion in the first place, replied, "Oh, I anticipated we could use a little
more time, so I tied a string around the last pages of the conductor's score.
When he gets down to there, Milton's going to have to slow the tempo way down
while he waves the baton with
one hand and fumbles with the string with the other." So they had another round
and finally returned to the Opera House, a little tipsy by now. However, as they
came back on stage, one look at their conductor's face told them they were in
serious trouble. The condutor was furious! After all... It was the bottom of
the Ninth, the score was tied, and the basses were loaded. top
of page The
Affair A married man was having
an affair with his secretary. One day, their passions overcame them and they
took off for her house, where they made passionate
love all afternoon.
Exhausted from the wild
sex, they fell asleep, not awakening until around eight PM.
As the man threw on
his clothes, he told the woman to take his shoes outside and rub them through
the grass and dirt.
Mystified, she nonetheless
complied. He slipped into his shoes and flew home.
Where have
you been?" demanded his wife when he entered the house.
"Darling, I can't lie
to you. I've been having an affair with my SECRETARY AND WE'VE BEEN HAVING
SEX ALL AFTERNOON. I FELL ASLEEP and didn't wake up until eight
o'clock!"
The wife glanced down
at his shoes and said, "You lying bastard! YOU'VE
BEEN PLAYING GOLF!" top
of page
Haiku Don Meyer Imagine if instead of cryptic,
geeky text strings, your computer produced error messages in haiku... A file
that big? It might be very useful. But now it is
gone. ** The Web site you seek cannot
be located but endless others exist ** Chaos reigns within. Reflect,
repent, and reboot. Order shall return. ** ABORTED effort: Close all that
you have. You ask way too much. ** First snow, then silence. This
thousand dollar screen dies so beautifully. ** With searching comes loss and
the presence of absence: "My Novel" not found. ** The Tao that is seen Is not the
true Tao, until You bring fresh toner. ** Windows NT crashed. I am the
Blue Screen of Death. No one hears your screams. ** Stay the patient course Of little
worth is your ire The network is down ** A crash reduces your expensive
computer to a simple stone. ** Yesterday it worked Today it
is not working Windows is like that. ** Three things are certain: Death,
taxes, and lost data. Guess which has occurred. ** You step in the stream, but the
water has moved on. This page is not here. ** Out of memory. We wish to hold
the whole sky, But we never will. ** Having been erased, The document
you're seeking Must now be retyped. ** Rather than a beep Or a rude
error message, These words: "File not found." ** Serious error. All shortcuts
have disappeared. Screen. Mind. Both are blank top
of page Shaggy
Dog stories An old man lived with his
hound-dog, Mace, in a run-down shack on the outskirts
of town. He had no family and only a few
meager possessions: table and chair, a bed, a bag of hand tools, and his dog.
He used the tools to do odd jobs in town, for which he usually would be paid
enough to get food for the next day. Mace and his master lived from one day to
the next on what little these jobs would bring in. The dog was just a normal
hound, with one exception: while most dogs like to chew on grass occasionally,
Mace loved it. When the old man was in town, Mace would spend the day in the
yard in front of the house,
chewing away on the lawn.
One bright, sunny day
the old man said goodbye to his dog and headed into town to work. He had
a plumbing repair job in one of the homes there that would take him most
of the day and would probably pay enough for food for the remainder of
the week, if he managed the money carefully. He headed for town with
a spring in his step and a whistle on his lips. Inside the house
and ready to start, the old man reached in the bag for his wrench. To his
surprise, he didn't feel it. He dug around again, but there didn't
seem to be any wrench. He looked in the bag, then dumped its contents
on the floor, but still no wrench. Reality set in. Without a wrench he
couldn't finish the job, and without the pay he couldn't even buy food
for that night's supper, let alone for tomorrow. When he finally
came to grips with reality, he told the lady who hired him what the situation
was. While she sympathized with his situation, the job needed to be done.
If the old man couldn't do it, she would have to hire someone else.
The old man packed up
his tools and headed home, head bowed and shoulders stooped. The whistle
was gone and no longer was there a spring in his step. A walk that normally
took 15 minutes seemed to last forever. But finally the old shack
came into view, and there was Mace in the distance, munching away as usual
on the lawn. When the dog saw his master, he came running, tail wagging,
telling the old man how glad he was to see him.
Kneeling beside the
hound, the man began to pet him, and through tear-filled eyes told the
dog that there would be no supper tonight and no food for tomorrow. What's
more, without money to buy a new wrench, he had no idea what the future
held. It was the loneliest, most helpless feeling he ever had!
Then he caught a glimpse
of something shining in the grass. As the old man went over to see what
this piece of shining material was, his despair turned in an instant to
joy! It was the wrench! The old man had dropped it on his way out that
morning, and it would have been lost forever had Mace not been eating farther
away from the house than he usually did!
The old man grabbed
the dog, gave him a hug that almost suffocated him, and ran into the house.
Reaching for a stub of pencil and the only piece of paper he had, he wrote
a moving tribute to his canine companion.
Few people have ever
heard these words -- until now, that is. One man who did happen to read
them changed them a bit, and has his name recorded in music history. The
old man never did get the credit he deserved. But, now you are privileged
to read the opening line of his original poem, which began: "A grazing
Mace, how sweet the hound that saved a wrench for me." top
of page
RECYCLING A Texan, a New Yorker, and a
Vermonter were drinking their favorite beverage in a bar. The Texan drained his
glass of tequila, threw the half full bottle up in the air, drew and fired his
pistol, shattering the bottle. The other two were shocked at his ruining perfectly
good tequila. The Texan however,
simply drew himself up and announced: "Where I come from, we have plenty
of tequila."
The New Yorker, not
to be outdone, drained his glass of wine, threw the wine bottle into the
air, drew and fired his pistol, also shattering his bottle. Looking over
at the other two with an air of superiority, he announced, "Where I come
from, we have plenty of fine wine and the best of everything!"
The Vermonter drained
his bottle of Catamount beer, threw it up in the air, drew his deer rifle,
and shot the New Yorker dead. He then caught the bottle on the way down
and showed it to the Texan: "Where I come from," he said, "we recycle these...
and we have plenty of New Yorkers." top
of page
Don't
Despair Sitting by the window of her
convent, Sister Barbara opened a letter from home one evening. Inside the letter
was a $100 bill her parents had sent. Sister Barbara smiled at the
gesture. As she read the letter by the window, she noticed a shabbily dressed
stranger leaning against the lamp post below.
Quickly, she wrote, "Don't
despair. Sister Barbara," on a piece of paper, wrapped the $100 bill in
it, got the man's attention and tossed it out the window to him. The stranger
picked it up, and with a puzzled expression and a tip of his hat, went
off down the street. The next day, Sister Barbara was told that a man was
at her door, insisting on seeing her. She went down, and found the stranger
waiting.
Without a word, he handed
her a huge wad of $100 bills. "What's this?" she asked. "That's the $8,000
you have coming Sister," he replied. "Don't Despair paid 80-to-1."
