HUMOR

humo "One question I have about retirement. Who okays my expense vouchers?"

From the WitWorks™ humor book Retirement: Twice the Time, Half the Money by Gene Perret. To order, call toll-free (800) 543-5432. The cost is $6.95 plus shipping and handling.

NAME DROPPER

One day I asked my 3-year-old granddaughter how many friends she had. Her reply was, "Seventeen." I asked, "Can you name them?" She said, "No." I asked her why, and she answered, "They already have names."

VEGETARIAN HYMN

The words of a hymn we sing at Resurrection Parish in Tempe are: Love is flowing like a river, setting all the captives free. The 5-year-old boy standing next to me enthusiastically belted out his own Southwestern rendition of the song: Love is flowing like a river, setting all the cactus free.

SOMETHING NEW

When my dad was a young man working in California, around 1912 to 1913, he and his buddy wanted to go to Phoenix. They loaded his car with camping equipment, food and tools, then started out.After the second day of driving on mostly dirt roads, they came to a fork in the road and saw a man walking. They asked him the way to Phoenix and he pointed to his left, so they went that way, passed through a little village and then came to a dead end at a small farm. They chatted for a while with the elderly farm couple, and then retraced their route.

When they got back to the fork, they turned right and, after a few miles, came upon the same fellow walking. They stopped and asked him why he had guided them the wrong way.

He replied that his parents lived at the end of the road and they had never seen an automobile, so he wanted them to see one.

NUTTY FLAVOR

Being a new resident of Arizona, I decided to visit a local swap meet in Sierra Vista, where I came across a man selling piñon nuts. Everything about the Southwest was new and exciting for me and I wanted to discover it all, so when he offered me a sample of the nuts, I readily accepted. I chewed away on a handful and when I swallowed, the vendor asked, "Well, what do you think?"

Frankly, I was a little disappointed with the taste but, not wanting to seem ungrateful for the opportunity to try a new food, I said, "They're all right."

To which he replied, "Most people like them better after they take the shells off."

MOTORIZED OVERKILL

friend from our hometown of Chattanooga, Tennessee, went to Phoenix on business. We met her there and showed her the sights. One afternoon, as we drove through Paradise Valley, we commented that it was anaffluent area. "It must be," she said, pointing out the window at a man who was using a chain attached to his late-model Mercedes to remove a large stump from his yard. "Back home, we'd just use a pickup."

NEW PATIENT

After hiking the Hermit's Creek trail in the Grand Canyon, the last thing I wanted to do was return to work. But Monday came, and as I looked over my schedule I noticed a new amputee patient was first. I was to provide him with the physical therapy he needed to strengthen the remaining muscles of his left leg.

He was an older man. After becoming acquainted, I motioned for him to sit on the bench and remove his artificial limb. As he did so, he made a "pop" sound with his mouth. "It's a real winner with the grandkids," he said.

I then took his prosthetic leg and placed it on a nearby chair, and he shouted, "Hey, get my foot off the furniture!"

A YOUNG ZONIE

At the end of a six-hour return car ride from the beach, our 3-year-old daughter asked, "Why did the construction workers build San Diego so far away?"

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.

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