Union Germs

So, my wife and I are in the grocery store at the checkout when the cashier begins hacking up a lung into one hand while wiping her nose with the back of the other before handling our food. "Are you sick?" I ask.

"I feel like I'm going to die."

"Then why are you handling food?" asked my wife. "Just trying to spread your joy?" The cashier gave us a blank, deer in headlights stare. "Could we get another cashier to handle our food? Perhaps someone a little more healthy and who isn't dying?"

Perhaps fever was causing dementia as the cashier yells to the extremely busy person at the checkout next to her, "I need you to take over my register."

The person looks at her own long line of customers, eyeballs several cashiers who are standing around with nothing to do, turns around to look at the sick girl like she is nuts before saying, "Ummm, I'm a little swamped with my own customers over here. Do you think you could find someone who is a little less busy?"

After a very short search, a new cashier was found although the attitude of the new person was one of being inconvenienced.

I wanted to let the manager know the severity of the employees illness so I headed for the service desk. The manager was paged and when he arrived, my wife filled him in on the situation.

"Yes she is pretty sick," said the manager.

"So you know that she's handling food while she's sick?"

"Well, I would send her home but she's a union employee and I'll still have to pay her if she goes home."

"I'm sorry, did you just say that you're jeopardizing public health over a few dollars? I didn't just hear you say that did I?"

"Look, she's getting sicker by the minute and she'll probably go home on her own in a little while anyway."

"Have you ever heard of Typhoid Mary?"

"Typhoid who?"

"Nevermind. She was probably union too."

---

Peanuts and Meat

When I die, I will have be judged by Jesus. I imagine that He will ask me if I have walked the path of good. Being in denial, I will probably tell Him that I did my very best to be good. It will be then that He will say, "What about peanuts and meat?"

"What?"

"You know. Peanuts and meat."

"I am deeply sorry my Lord, but I don't have any idea what you're talking about."

"It's the stuff like peanuts and meat that will get you every time."

"I'm sorry Lord but I still don't follow what you mean by peanuts and meat."

Are you familiar with the Olive garden?"

"You mean the Mount of Olives where you prayed with the disciples before being arrested and crucified for our sins?"

"No, I mean the restaurant."

"Yes Lord, I know of the restaurant."

"When your son was four-years-old, he didn't like to eat peanuts or meat did he?"

"If I remember correctly he didn't but what does that have to do with my judgment?"

"Once he asked to go to Olive Garden but you didn't want to go there. You told him that they only served peanuts and meat."

"I did?"

"You did."

"I guess I did,"

"Do you remember telling him that Taco Bell was closed at 4:30 in the afternoon?"

"Seems like I do."

"And he couldn't go swimming because the pool was full of sharks?"

"Okay, I remember that."

"Or the time he wanted to go to the park but you told him it was closed on Flaboodle Day. What exactly is Flaboodle Day?"

"It's a made up holiday."

"That's a good one."

"I thought so."

It's my thoughts of judgment day that keep me honest with my son. I certainly don't want to teach him to lie. Just today he asked me if he could play outside and I told him no because it was raining.

"It's not raining," he said.

"Yes it is."

"Daddy the sun is shining," he laughed.

I smiled. "No it isn't."

He giggled. "Yes it is."

I tickled him as I said, "No it isn't."

He laughed, "You're silly Daddy!"

"Thank you son," I told him. "Do me a favor and tell that to Jesus."

He grinned, "He already knows."

---

Let My People Free

My wife and I were in the grocery store when our four-year-old son, without warning, blasted out at the top of his lungs, "Let my people free!" It seems that he and his mother had been playing a game with some of his toy characters when my wife made the comment that he had picked up. He has been doing things like this more and more lately. We will tell him something parental only for it to be used against us at a later date.

My son has a habit of walking around with one of his hands down his pants and, despite my explanations as to why this is inappropriate behavior, I still catch him doing it on occasion. My immediate reaction upon spotting him in this situation is to blurt out, "Get your hands out of your pants!"

So, our little family is out to dinner at a local Mexican restaurant when my son turns to me and yells, "Get your hands out of your pants!"

"Son," I whispered. "That isn't something we say when we are out in public."

"He looked at me and said, "Who are you?"

On other occasions in public, within earshot of others, he has told me to get my finger out of my nose, say excuse me when I burp and has also told me that "You are going to be in so much trouble when we get home."

The bottom line is, it doesn't matter whether or not you are careful about what you say around your kids. They will get you no matter what. Nobody is safe.

---

Credit Reference

Working as a laboratory manager at a major state supported institution, I am in charge of maintaining laboratory equipment. A fork lift that is owned by the lab was in need of a new set of batteries so I called a local company to place an order.

The gentleman on the phone told me that the state already had an account with them and that my order would not be a problem. It was then that he asked for the laboratory address so that he could set up an account.

“I thought you said the state already had an account,” I told him.

“Yes,” he replied,” but I’ll need to set up an individual account for your lab.”

I’ve always thought this to be a little silly since most of the other vendors I deal with have one account set up for the state but I wasn’t too surprised as I had run into this in the past. However, what he said next did surprise me. “I need three credit references.”

“You do realize that this is for a state run institution. It’s the state. One of the original thirteen colonies even.”

“Yes but I can’t complete the form without references.”

“I’ll have to get back to you on that one,” I replied.

I promptly told my boss about the incident before ordering from a vendor that didn’t require as much red tape since we were in critical need of the batteries. I also told my boss that I was going to send the first vendor some credit references anyway just to see what he said.

“Who are you going to use as references?” he asked.

“We’ll I thought I’d use three of my neighbors.”

“Your neighbors? Why use them?”

“Well, they’re always complaining about paying taxes and since they are technically footing the bill for the batteries, I thought they wouldn’t mind telling the vendor where the money is coming from.”

My boss thought this was a good idea.

After clearing it with my neighbors, I used their names as credit references. The account was approved the next day.