Daily Dose - 020602 - marinate, Rotten News, shoe store, dessert, DDL, Hey Martha

One evening a man was very impressed with the meat entree his wife had served. "What did you marinate this in?" he asked.

His wife immediately went into a long explanation about how much she loves him and how life wouldn't be the same without him, etc.

Eventually, his puzzled expression made her interrupt her answer with a question of her own, "What did you ask me?"

She chuckled at his answer and explained, "I thought you asked me if I would marry you again!"

As she left the room, he called out, "Well, would you marry me again?"

Without hesitation, she replied, "Vinegar and barbecue sauce."

________________________

Rotten News.... (true)

Twenty die in Indian sewer

[Lucknow, March 14] - At least 20 potential army recruits are believed to have been killed after they fell into a large septic tank in India. The surivors then went on a rampage.

Superintendent Rajesh Pande said more than 5 000 youths responding to a recruitment drive had gathered on an open piece of ground in the northern Indian town when the accident occurred.

"A large number were standing on the cover of the tank, when it suddenly gave way and they plunged through," Pande said, adding that the accident sparked panic.

"So far we have managed to recover 15 bodies, and we are trying to extricate five more bodies which are in the tank," he said.

People standing on the sides got pushed into the tank as panic broke out when the cover gave way.

Some of the would-be recruits, angered by the incident, burned a bus and damaged some passing vehicles, but Pande said the police had brought the situation under control.

[Sapa-AFP]

*********

March 06, 2002

Sheep cull man 'shot colleague in head'
By Sam Lister

A SLAUGHTERMAN killed a colleague during the foot-and-mouth epidemic by shooting him at point-blank range with a gun used to cull sheep, a court was told yesterday.

Keith Hubbard, 38, is said to have put the gun, which fires a 3in captive bolt, to Steven Smart’s head as they argued about whether a sheep was still alive.

Standing among carcasses at a burial site at Great Orton airfield, near Carlisle, Mr Smart, 27, told Mr Hubbard: “You missed that one, you bugger.” Mr Hubbard is alleged to have replied: “I’ll shoot you, you bugger,” before grabbing the younger man round the shoulders and bringing the gun to his head.

John Milford, QC, for the prosecution at Preston Crown Court, said that Mr Smart suffered a brain injury and died the following day. Mr Hubbard, of Atherstone, Warwickshire, denies manslaughter.

Christopher Taylor, a vet at the scene, said that there was no bad blood between the two men. “Mr Smart made a jokey comment to Mr Hubbard,” Mr Taylor said. “Mr Hubbard, in a father-son situation, wrestled and put his arms round him. They were mucking about. Mr Hubbard put the gun to the left-hand side of his head and I remember thinking ‘that’s not a good idea’.”

Mr Milford said that the death was an accident, but “an accident of the defendant’s making which should never have taken place and it amounts to the offence of manslaughter”.

The case continues.

_________________________

Two elderly women were trying on shoes in our store. When I slipped a shoe onto one woman's foot, the end of my tie got caught beneath her heel.

Unaware of my predicament, she stood up and started toward the mirror. For a few seconds, I found myself crawling along the floor beside her, trying to get her attention.

"Look, Martha," her friend said. "he wants to go home with you!"

________________________

My husband and I were invited to a party, and each couple brought a dish. When it came time to serve dessert, the person who prepared it said the recipe was called "Better Than Sex Cake."

After my husband tasted it, he blurted out, "I sure feel sorry for the person who named this dessert."

________________________

DDL

There once was a man names Homer
Who had a kidney stone stuck in his boner.
He did scream and shout
When they yanked that sucker out.
And his piss shot all the way to Tacoma!

_________________________

This gem is the closing paragraph of a nationally-circulated memo from a large communications company:

"Lucent Technologies is endeavouringly determined to promote constant attention on current procedures of transacting business focusing emphasis on innovative ways to better, if not supersede, the expectations of quality!"

__________________________

"All I ask is the chance to prove that money can't make me happy."

-Spike Milligan

__________________________

Little Noah came into the house with a new harmonica. "Grandpa, do you mind if I play this in here?"

"Of course not, Noah. I love music. In fact, when your grandma and I were young, music saved my life."

"What happened?" "Well, it was during the famous Johnstown flood. The dam broke and when the water hit out house it knocked it right off the foundation. Grandma got on the dining room table and floated out safely."

"How about you?"

"Me? I accompanied her on the piano!"

__________________________

Hey Martha (true)

Friday, March 15, 2002

Snakes slither back into Ireland

By SHAWN POGATCHNIK-- The Associated Press

DUBLIN (AP) -- Legend has it that St. Patrick scared the snakes out of Ireland. Maybe, but these days they're catching on as pets, and turning up in unexpected places.

"We're finding them in attics, in people's cupboards, under the sink in the bathroom," said Gillian Bird, education officer of the Dublin Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. "One family was watching TV when a snake crawled out from underneath. TVs are such warm places."

Increasingly, Bird's office is being contacted about snake sightings. One lady was spotted last week dropping her out-of-favour serpent from a car parked outside Dublin Zoo. But sometimes people's imaginations are getting the better of them.

"When we go out on a call we're wondering, 'Is this going to be a garden hose again?'" Bird said.

The half-dozen reptiles in her centre's two-year-old "snake house" are real enough: corn snakes, bull snakes and a red-tailed boa, none native to this damp and cool land, all abandoned or on the run from their owners.

Bird admits they're no experts in caring for them but they've had to learn, because snakes are becoming popular pets.

"We tell people a snake's for life, not just for Paddy's Day, but not everybody listens," she said.

The Irish snake trade has its own murky history. Monica Roden, whose Dublin Pet Stores is the oldest such shop in Ireland, doesn't sell anything slithery these days. But her father did back in the 1930s.

"We had grass snakes here, shipped over from England. I was just a wee girl but I remember my father going down to the docks to collect the wriggly boxes," said Roden, 69, whose family business dates from 1845.

"There were no rules in my father's time and pet shops sold everything from geese to monkeys."

Today, the best place to go for a good snake in Dublin is Thomas McElheron's shop on Wellington Quay, where St. Patrick's celebrations were starting Friday night with floating bonfires on the River Liffey.

McElheron each year breeds a few hundred snakes -- corn snakes from the Carolinas in the United States, dwarf pythons from Africa and Australia, milk snakes and rosy boas from South America and Mexico -- but he won't sell one to just anybody.

"This is a 15-year commitment. I vet everyone who says they want a snake, to see if they're on an ego trip or have really researched it," said McElheron, who turned to reptiles as a boy when the family dog made his allergic brother wheezy.

He thinks the growing popularity of snakes has to do with Ireland's booming economy, which has transformed Dublin from a go-slow backwater to a busy metropolis.

"Today's people don't have the time to keep dogs. Handling a snake is low maintenance," he said.

A young snake, McElheron said, might eat a thawed, dead mouse every two to four days, and should be picked up and cuddled every day or so "to keep the snake mellow."

Reptile experts doubt that any snakes were native on the island back in the fifth century when Patrick was spreading Christianity and, supposedly, scaring off any serpents that got in his way.

Most abandoned snakes turn up dead, unable to keep their cold blood going through the night. Bird's veterinarians respond to every snake sighting, but on Thursday they were too late.

"An old lady called saying there was a snake sitting in her garden," said Bird. "She'd seen it there basking in the sun on Wednesday, but she was scared to death of it and wouldn't go out.

"She called us when it was still sitting there the next day," Bird said. "It died of the cold; a fine corn snake it was."