1. The funeral cortège:

Bill was walking along Main Street when he saw a funeral cortège, so he stopped for a moment as a mark of respect.

He noticed that there were two hearses with coffins in the cortège and the procession was being followed by a man walking solemnly with a pitbull terrier on a leash.

And behind him there was a long line of about 100 men walking quietly in single file.

Curious Bill spoke to the man with the dog and asked, “Excuse me sir, I don’t want to intrude on this sad occasion but you’re situation seems a little unusual. Whose funeral is this?”

“Well”, the man replied, “The first hearse is for my late wife. She died after this dog attacked her.”

“And the second hearse?” said Bill.

“The second hearse is for my late mother-in-law. She was trying to help my wife during the attack and the dog savaged her to death too”, the man responded.

Bill thought momentarily about the challenges in his own life and then he said to the man, “Is there any chance I could borrow your dog after the funeral?”

The man smiled and pointed to the line of men behind him and said, “You’ll have to join the queue buddy.”

2. The power of prayer:

Jackie was invited to give a talk at her local women’s group about the power of prayer.

With her husband Mike in the audience, she recalled how a few short months ago she’d turned to God when poor Mike had suffered an unfortunate accident.

“Six months ago”, Jackie began, “my husband Mike was knocked off his motorcycle and his scrotum was smashed.”

Jackie explained that for Mike the pain had been unbearable and his doctors weren’t sure they’d be able to help him.

“The doctors warned us that our lives might never be the same again”, said Jackie. “I can tell you I was scared. Mike was unable to get close to me or the children because every move caused him such extreme discomfort. And that meant we could no longer touch him around the scrotum.”

Jackie paused momentarily to allow the audience to absorb her words.

Then she said, “I’m not ashamed to say I turned to God for help and I prayed that the doctors would be able to repair Mike.”

Again she paused and then said, “Fortunately our prayers were answered and the doctors were able to piece together the remnants of Mike’s scrotum with wire holding everything in place. His medical team tell me that he will make a full recovery and regain the full use of his scrotum.”

As the audience burst into applause, a lone man walked slowly up to the stage and said, “Hello I’m Mike, Jackie’s husband and I just wanted to remind my wife once again that the word is ‘sternum’.”

3. Discovering facts:

As part of her rehabilitation, a patient in a mental hospital was told by her psychiatrist to go out into the nearby town and discover one new fact.

Off she went and then a few hours later the patient returned to the hospital to tell the psychiatrist all about what she had learned.

So said her psychiatrist, “Were you able to find out something you didn’t know before?”

“Yes”, said the patient, “I discovered that spiders have ears on their legs.”

“Ears on their legs?” said the psychiatrist. “How did you work that out?”

The patient produced a matchbox and when opened a large spider crawled out on to the psychiatrist’s desk.

The patient then said “Boo!”

The spider scurried quickly across the desktop.

The patient then grabbed the spider and proceeded to pull off all its legs.

She then put it back on the desk and once again said, “Boo!”

Naturally the spider was motionless.

The patient looked at the psychiatrist, smiled and then said, “Do you see? Without its legs it can’t hear me.”

4. The admiral and the general:

A Navy admiral and an Army general were fishing together on a lake one day when a storm blew up and their boat capsized.

Not being quite as fit as they once were, both men were floundering helplessly in the water.

However eventually the general managed to right the boat and clamber back on board.

He then rescued the admiral from drowning by reaching out to him with one of the oars and then hauling him back in.

As the admiral was dragged into the boat he struggled for a few seconds to regain his composure.

Then he said, “Please don’t say a word to anyone about this. If anyone in the Navy knew I couldn’t swim, I’d be disgraced.”

The general smiled and said, “Don’t worry buddy your secret’s safe with me. I’d hate for my troops to find out that I couldn’t walk on water.”

5. The origin of the species:

As she was getting ready for school one morning Grace asked her mother, “How did the human race appear mom?”

“Well”, said her mother, “God made Adam and Eve and they had children and that’s how we all began dear.”

Two days later Grace asked her father the same question.

“Well”, said her father, “first there were apes and from them the human race has evolved.”

Naturally these responses left Grace a little confused.

So once again she spoke with her mother and said, “Mom I don’t understand. You said that we were created by God but dad says we evolved from apes. How can that be?”

Her mother smiled and said, “Well darling it’s all very simple really. I was telling you about my side of the family and your father told you about his.”

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