A man's house burned to the ground. Upon hearing of it, the man
said angrily, "This is the fault of oxygen!" For, as he explained,
if there hadn't been any oxygen in the atmosphere, his house never
would have burned.
* * *
When the boss called Smervits and Jenkins into the office, Jenkins
was very nervous because his plan to salvage the Freeble contract
had not worked. Smervits wasn't worried because he had shrewdly
stood by while Jenkins floundered with the contract.
"Jenkins, you failed," the boss said forcefully after the two men
had entered. "That's good," he added, "because it shows that you
tried something. Smervits, you didn't fail, but you didn't try
anything, either. You're fired."
* * *
One day the power went off in the mine, leaving the miners in
absolute darkness. One miner found a match and lit it. "What a
dinky little flame," said one of his companions, with contempt.
"What a great light in the darkness," said another, with awe.
* * *
"Just think," said the man in the orange hard hat, "to us that's just
a useless pile of rock. But to someone with greater vision it has
value. It can be changed by his direction into something useful."
"How's that?" someone asked.
"First it has to be crushed, and then heated in a furnace, to give
up its old properties and take on new ones. Then it can be mixed
with water and molded into something beautiful."
"So that's how you make cement, huh?"
"No," someone said, "that's how you make a Christian."
* * *
An officer came upon a young soldier so weighted down with weapons
and ammunition that he couldn't move. "You know why you aren't
attacking the enemy, don't you?" asked the officer.
"Yes," replied the soldier. "I'm waiting for more ammunition."
* * *
Once in a pleasant garden there stood a tree, from which, legend
said, God himself would one day reign. But instead, a group of
wicked men broke in and chopped the tree down. They hacked the tree
into a beam and nailed a holy man to it, leaving him to die upon a
hill. So the tree of hope now had become a beam covered with blood
and death. "See here," the wicked men said, laughing with scorn,
"in what manner God's promises are fulfilled."
* * *
The chairman of the department asked the young professor how his
book was coming along. Said the professor, "Oh, the book is already
written; I just haven't put it down on paper yet." The chairman
patted the man on the back and told him to keep up the good work.
A construction worker, watching this scene transpire, decided that
what was good enough for academe was good enough for him, so he sat
back and opened a beer. Presently his foreman came along and wanted
to know what was going on. Said the worker, "Oh, the hole is
already dug; I just haven't taken out the dirt yet." The foreman,
not having been enlightened by Higher Education, fired the worker,
right in the middle of his beer.
* * *
A man on foot approached an abandoned auto wrecking yard that still
had many old pieces of assorted cars lying around. "What an
enormous pile of worthless junk," he said to himself as he walked
by. The next day another man on foot approached the same yard.
"What a wonderful pile of worthy raw materials," he thought as he
surveyed the area. A few days later the second man drove away in
his own car.