My husband’s 30+ year career as an in-home electronics repairman yielded some amazingly funny stories.
Like the one about the folks who kept a bathtub filled with water. Why? Well, it seems they had a horse whose pasture was right outside the bathroom wall.
A horse who would sidle over to the hole they cut in that wall so he could drink out of the bathtub. Who would’ve thought?
My human lets me drink *in* the house! 🙂 (Image courtesy of Pixabay)
And this one he told me just the other day. Seems a lady called and reported her TV would change channels all on its own. Do I hear Twilight Zone music . . .?
Collection of antique remotes
Now this was back in the day before infrared/Bluetooth remotes–instead, they worked with ultrasonic sound to talk to your TV and switch channels when the button was pressed.
My husband reported for duty in her living room, but could find nothing wrong. He said, “Have a nice day,” and left.
What’s your cat’s superpower?
And went back a second time when she called. While there, he observed the channel-switching phenomenon for himself. At the same time the channel magically changed, the lady’s cat jumped off the couch. The cat with a bell on its collar–which rang when he jumped.
My husband jokes that he told the lady to “remove the bell, and that’ll be a hundred dollars, please.”
Okay, it’s your turn, TKZers.
What’s the funniest story you’ve ever heard or told, and have you used it in your writing?
Happy Friday, Deb! The TV remote story was hilarious–could it have been haunted 🙂
The funniest story I ever heard came from one of my best and oldest friends, who while he was in the US Army in the 1980s, had a private who he’d detailed to guard tanks at a base manage to lose one. When my friend (then a Sergeant) arrived to check on the tanks, one of them had disappeared. The private, when asked what had happened to the tank said, “Honest, Sarge, it was right there!”
My friend noticed faint tread tracks on the ground heading over a hillock. He followed them and discovered the tank resting against a building, which must have been out of the private’s line of sight. It was customary then to run the tanks at night for a bit during cold weather Apparently the idling tank had slipped into gear and driven off on its own.
My friend commented to me later that, “You could leave an anvil in the middle of a desert, tell a private to guard it, return later and then anvil would be broken and the private would have no idea how it had happened.
The story of the missing tank still cracks me up.
Dale, we had a truck driver who could break an anvil. 😉
Hilarious, Dale! Maybe a bell around the tank’s gun would’ve helped!
We live just over the hill and a few miles away from Hanford…I’ll watch for large tread tracks on the dirt road where we live.
Have a super Friday!
Deb, love your husband’s story…and I bet he has a lot more to tell. My funniest story comes from my neighbor. She and her husband spent two hours looking for his glasses. Finally they found them when they discovered hers lying on the bed…she was wearing his…at least they weren’t looking for teeth…
Oh, that one’s one for the book…the one entitled “Older Is Funnier”.
I used to work a 9-5 in the medical field, for awhile in orthopedics. I heard some funny stuff from our more mature married patients, like getting their walkers mixed up.
Have a great day!
I actually do have a funny story.
My neighbor, Tammy, and I joke that she’s Mrs. Magoo without her glasses. A few years back, she had a single guy living in her camper while he found a new apartment. The guy had an indoor cat living with him. Early one morning, Tammy goes out to feed her chickens. In the yard is a black-and-white cat.
“What are you doing loose?” She opens the door to the camper and deposits the cat back inside.
Done and done. Crisis averted.
When the tenant gets home from work, he strolls into the camper. It’s totally trashed. Tufts of fur everywhere. And this stray cat lunges off the refrigerator and attacks him. He finally manages to get the stray out of the camper. When he knocks on Tammy’s door, his arms are bleeding with long, deep scratches, a few on his cheek, too.
“Oh my goodness,” she says. “What happened to you?”
“Someone put a stray cat in the camper.”
“That wasn’t your cat?”
“Umm, no. But my cat’s probably pregnant now. Why weren’t you wearing your glasses, Tammy?”
“Can’t find ’em.”
“They’re on your head.”
He moved out shortly after.
Sue, that story’s a coffee-snorter for sure.
I don’t know how many times my glasses go *missing*, or my phone, which I have in my hand. 🙂
I knew I’d hear some good ones this morning, so I brought some napkins to my desk with my cuppa.
Have a great day!
A relative took over a business and no longer wanted the refrigerator-size soda machine the former owner had been leasing. He called the company and politely asked them to pick it up. The sales rep flatly and rudely refused and the discussion escalated.
“I didn’t lease it, the former owner did. I don’t want it and I won’t pay for it.”
“You have to keep it and you have to pay for it! Or else!”
“Or else? You pick it up by close of business 5 p.m. or else!”
At 5 p.m., the soda machine was still there. My relative hooked a tow chain around the big machine and used a truck to drag it off his property out into the middle of a very busy street during rush hour.
The police weren’t happy about the traffic jam. They called the soda company and demanded they get their property out of the street…or else!
A short time later, the chagrinned sales rep arrived to pick up his machine.
Ha!
I love it when the good guys win, Debbie.
Thanks for sharing, and have an awesome Friday…
It must be soda companies.
I managed a pizza store and had a soda machine in the back room. It broke and the company would not repair it or remove it. A couple of us dragged it into a parking lot.
“Your machine is in the parking lot. You want it, come get it.”
Good one, Alan.
My dad owned a service station (‘member those?) back in the day, and he had several vending machines. I remember one had bottles of Shake Break, which was the best drink to come down the pike in awhile.
He told stories of those vending machines, like the one where he was in the office closing up at about 8-9pm, and he heard an almighty racket out front. Couple of guys trying to steal it.
Dad won.
Life in the pizza world has left me many funny stories. Some can even be told in polite company.
I worked at the store that delivered to St. Louis International Airport. There were a lot of hotels in the area. This was in the days of 30 or free, and no credit cards.
I take an order from a woman at a hotel. I end the conversation like always, “We will be there in 30 minutes or less or it is free. We do not take checks at hotels.”
“That is alright. Neither do I. was the reply.”
Mmm…good thing you were delivering pizzas, Alan!
Have a great day!
In 2008 this was voted as the funniest joke in the world.
Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson go on a camping trip. After a good dinner and a bottle of wine, they retire for the night and go to sleep. Some hours later, Holmes wakes up and nudges his faithful friend.
“Watson, look up at the sky and tell me what you see.”
“I see millions and millions of stars, Holmes,” replies Watson.
“And what do you deduce from that?”
Watson ponders for a minute.
“Well, astronomically, it tells me that there are millions of galaxies and potentially billions of planets.”
“Anything else?”
“Astrologically, I observe that Saturn is in Leo. Horologically, I deduce that the time is approximately a quarter past three.”
“Anything else?”
“Meteorologically, I suspect that we will have a beautiful day tomorrow.”
“Anything else?” Holmes asked again.
“Theologically, I can see that God is all powerful and that we are a small and insignificant part of the universe. What does it tell you, Holmes?”
Holmes is silent for a moment. “Watson, you idiot! Someone has stolen our tent!”
This takes the prize so far today, Alan…Holmes wasn’t called The Great Deducer for nothing, hey?
Thanks for sharing that, and making me choke on my bagel.
🙂
This was also named world’s funniest:
Two hunters are out in the woods when one of them collapses. He doesn’t seem to be breathing and his eyes are glazed.
The other guy whips out his phone and calls the emergency services. He gasps, “My friend is dead! What can I do?”
The operator says, “Calm down. I can help. First, let’s make sure he’s dead.”
There is a silence; then a gun shot is heard. Back on the phone, the guy says, “OK, now what?”
And the beat goes on here at TKZ Funny Friday!
Thanks, JSB–a corker for sure.
🙂
Good morning, Deb. Fun question.
My wife tells the story of a second grade teacher who was growing old and fat, apparently developing Pickwickian Syndrome with falling asleep during reading classes. The fire drill alarm bell rang. Miss Pool awoke, startled, and fell over backwards into a large green metal waste basket. The students had been instructed to march out of the building during drills, no matter what. They dutifully marched past their teacher, whose head and arms and feet protruded from the waste basket as she thrashed and screamed. Apparently, Miss Pool was rescued after her class was found unattended in the parking lot.
*Guffaw*
Is that story true? 🙂
I’m thinking a primary grade school would be an inexhaustible source of funny stories.
Let me think back about *%@& years . . .
Another TV story for you, Deb. When I lived in St. Louis, station KSD changed its name to KSDK. A woman repeatedly called the station to complain that the channel didn’t work right on her TV since the K was added.
Hmm…I would ask, “Which one, ma’am?”
Or, was it a radio station?
Life on a ranch can be fun. We rescue mustangs and have 5 along with 2 rescued quarter horses (mother and daughter) My husband had just finished cleaning up the the area where they wait to be fed. He went to put the tools away, locking the gate with the slide lock but not the chain. Well, he started back to the house. I’m standing there watching Blondie, our escape artist opening the gate. She lifted the slide lock with her teeth, then put her leg thought the bars and pulled the gate open. She turned and pulled it closed behind her, leaving the other horses in the pasture.
She then opened the second gate and proceeded to follow my husband up the road. I yelled at him to turn around. He turned around and Blondie did too. After a glance back at him, she put her head up high and trotted back opened both gates again and let herself back in the pasture. She then turned around and “laughed” like only a horse can at the my husband who seemed to be frozen as she showed off her breaking out skills to perfection.
Barbara, that was one heck of a good story.
I’d like to have been there to see the look on your husband’s face. My in-laws had horses when my husband was a kiddo, and they had some stories to tell also.
Thanks for horsin’ around with us today, and have a great weekend!