Arizona Humor

humor:

The traffic lights in Phoenix Lare set for certain speeds, and traffic being what it was that particular day, my friend's wife had to stop at most of them on a long drive across town. On the return trip, her husband took over, saying, "Now pay attention. I'm going to show you how to cross this town without making a single stop."

Several times he drove through yellow lights, and one turned red before the car cleared the intersection, prompting his wife to remark, "Well, now I see how it's done. You just don't pay any attention to the color."

An Arizona Fish Story

For hours my friend Dorothy and I drove along a barren stretch of Interstate 10 through Arizona. The temperature exceeded 100° F., and we'd seen no sign of water or any vegetation to indicate moisture. Then we happened upon an amazing sight. A man was walking about 20 feet off the road through the desert, carrying a fishing pole. We puzzled over the scene for many miles afterward. Stopping for lunch later, we shared this mystifying experience with our waitress, but she didn't skip a beat.

"Oh, him," she said, The difference between a cowboy and his brother-in-law is one rides the bull and the other shoots it Smiling. "He works for the highway department. His job is to walk around with that fishing pole and relieve the boredom for drivers along that stretch of road." Pat Paeper, Tigard, OR

Perfect for Mom

Several years ago, one of our daughters, a college student at the time, was visiting the family home in Page with her fiance, an art student. As it was Mother's Day weekend, the young man sat outside whittling a piece of wood into a bird to give to me as a gift. Our eight-year-old daughter watched intently. After finishing the work, our future son-in-law shook his head and said he didn't think the carving turned out well enough to give as a gift. But the child exclaimed enthusiastically, "Oh, I think you should give it to Mom. I give her ugly things all the time, and she loves them."

Talk about Typical

I flew into Phoenix last summer to spend a few weeks working on an archaeological dig. A friend met me at the airport and before driving to his home in Mesa, he gave me a tour of Arizona State University in Tempe. Proud of his campus, my friend pointed out the library, the student center, and Sun Devil Stadium. Then I noticed a circular building up ahead and asked him what it was.

"Oh, that's the law school," he replied.

"Well," I responded, "isn't it just like a bunch of lawyers to build a building where they can't be cornered."

Doublespeak

While hiking in the Prescott area with my family, my five-year-old son found the skull of a small rodent and studied it in rapt fascination. Upon returning home, I showed him pictures of various animal skulls, and we compared each one to a photo of a human skull so he could see the size difference. "You see," I told him, "of all the animals, man has the biggest brain." "Is man an animal?" he asked, truly surprised. "Well, he's part of the animal kingdom," I replied, and left it at that. This must have made quite an impression on him, for that night as my husband tucked him into bed, I heard our son announce, "Mommy said that men are animals."

TO SUBMIT HUMOR

Send us an original short story, no more than 200 words, about your humorous experiences, and we'll pay $75 for each one we publish. Send them to Humor, Arizona Highways, 2039 W. Lewis Ave., Phoenix, AZ 85009. Please enclose your name, address, and telephone number with each submission. We'll notify those whose stories we intend to publish, but we cannot acknowledge or return unused submissions.