Short Stories

You may have heard the story about Wally. Wally was big for his age — seven years old. Everyone wondered what role the teacher would give him in the annual Christmas play. Especially considering the fact that he was also a slow learner. Perhaps he could pull the curtain. To […]

A Buddhist monk strode into a Zen pizza parlor and said, “Make me one with everything.” The proprietor appreciated the Zen humor and, when the monk paid with $20 bill, the guy pocketed it. “Hey,” asked the monk, “where’s my change?” “Change,” replied the owner inscrutably, “must come from within.”

A teacher asked the children in her Sunday School class.”If I sold my house and my car, had a big garage sale and gave all my money to the church, would that get me into heaven?” “NO!” the children all answered. “If I cleaned the church every day, mowed the

Do you know what my favorite key is on my computer? It’s the DELETE key. All kinds of problems go away when I press DELETE. I use it all the time. Junk e-mail? DELETE. Misspellings? DELETE. Unwieldy sentences and confusing paragraphs? DELETE. DELETE. I sometimes wish my life had a

Government surveyors came to Ole’s farm in the fall and asked if they could do some surveying. Ole agreed, and Lena even served them a nice meal at noon time. The next spring, the two surveyors stopped by and told Ole, “Because you were so kind to us, we wanted

“Squawks” are maintenance complaints US Air Force pilots leave for their ground crews to address between flights. Somebody sent me these actual squawks and the replies to each from maintenance. Enjoy. Pilot: Left inside main tire almost needs replacement. Maintenance: Almost replaced left inside main tire. Pilot: Test flight OK,

A philosophy professor stood before his class with some items on the table in front of him. When the class began, wordlessly he picked up a very large and empty mayonnaise jar and proceeded to fill it with rocks, about 2 inches in diameter. He then asked the students if

Two brothers fulfilled their mother’s last wish by hiring a small plane to carry them out to sea where they might scatter her ashes. One of the two pilots opened the cockpit door and the brothers immediately emptied the contents of the urn into the wind. But a stiff breeze

That tireless inventor Thomas Edison famously said of his various experiments, “I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.” Murphy’s Law is much less sanguine about it: “If you never try anything new, you’ll miss out on many of life’s great disappointments.” I have to say,

Sunday school teachers are sometimes amazed at some of the things their children say in class. One Sunday, a class was studying the power of kings and queens in Bible times. After talking about a few examples, the teachers said, “There is a higher power. Can anybody tell me what