Mildreds Miscellany

METAPHORS

These are metaphors from English GCSE essays. Some of them are absolutely superb! Her face was a perfect oval, like a circle that had its two other sides gently compressed by a Thigh Master. His thoughts tumbled in his head, making and breaking alliances like underpants in a tumble dryer. She caught your eye like one of those pointy hook latches that used to dangle from doors and would fly up whenever you banged the door open again. The little boat gently drifted across the pond exactly the way a bowling ball wouldn't. McMurphy fell 12 stories, hitting the pavement like a paper bag filled with vegetable soup. Her hair glistened in the rain like nose hair after a sneeze. Her eyes were like two brown circles with big black dots in the centre Her vocabulary was as bad as, like, whatever. He was as tall as a six-foot-three-inch tree. The hailstones leaped from the pavement, just like maggots when you fry them in hot grease. Long separated by cruel fate, the star-crossed lovers raced across the grassy field toward each other like two freight trains, one having left York at 6:36 p.m. travelling at 55 mph, the other from Peterborough at 4:19p.m. at a speed of 35 mph. The politician was gone but unnoticed, like the full stop after the Dr. on a Dr Pepper can. John and Mary had never met. They were like two hummingbirds who had also never met. The thunder was ominous sounding, much like the sound of a thin sheet of metal being shaken backstage during the storm scene in a play. The red brick wall was the colour of a brick-red crayon. Even in his last years, Granddad had a mind like a steel trap, only one that had been left out so long it had rusted shut. The door had been forced, as forced as the dialogue during the interview portion of Family Fortunes. Shots rang out, as shots are wont to do. The plan was simple, like my brother Phil. But unlike Phil, this plan just might work. The young fighter had a hungry look, the kind you get from not eating for a while. Oh, Jason, take me!" she panted, her breasts heaving like a student on 31p-a-pint night. He was as lame as a duck. Not the metaphorical lame duck either, but a real duck that was actually lame. Maybe from stepping on a land mine or something. Her artistic sense was exquisitely refined, like someone who can tell butter from "I Can't Believe It's Not Butter. She had a deep, throaty, genuine laugh, like that sound a dog makes just before it throws up. It came down the stairs looking very much like something no one had ever seen before. The knife was as sharp as the tone used by Glenda Jackson MP in her first several points of parliamentary procedure made to Robin Cook MP, Leader of the House of Commons, in the House Judiciary Committee hearings on the suspension of Keith Vaz MP. The ballerina rose gracefully en-pointe and extended one slender leg behind her, like a dog at a lamppost. The revelation that his marriage of 30 years had disintegrated because of his wife's infidelity came as a rude shock, like a surcharge at a formerly surcharge-free cash point. The dandelion swayed in the gentle breeze like an oscillating electric fan set on medium. It was a working class tradition, like fathers chasing kids around with their power tools. He was deeply in love. When she spoke, he thought he heard bells, as if she were a dustcart reversing. She was as easy as the Daily Star crossword. She grew on him like she was a colony of E. Coli and he was room-temperature British beef. She walked into my office like a centipede with 98 missing legs. Her voice had that tense, grating quality, like a first-generation thermal paper fax machine that needed a band tightened. It hurt the way your tongue hurts after you accidentally staple it to the wall.

FUNNY ENGLISH NOTICES AROUND THE WORLD!

Here are some signs and notices written in English that were discovered throughout the world. You have to give the writers an 'E' for Effort. I hope you enjoy them.

In a Tokyo Hotel:
Is forbidden to steal hotel towels please. If you are not a person to do such thing is please not to read notis.

In a Bucharest hotel lobby:
The lift is being fixed for the next day. During that time we regret that you will be unbearable.

In a Leipzig elevator:
Do not enter the lift backwards, and only when lit up.

In a Belgrade hotel elevator:
To move the cabin, push button for wishing floor. If the cabin should enter more persons, each one should press a number of wishing floor. Driving is then going alphabetically by national order.

In a Paris hotel elevator:
Please leave your values at the front desk.

In a hotel in Athens:
Visitors are expected to complain at the office between the hours of 9 and 11 A.M. daily.

In a Yugoslavian hotel:
The flattening of underwear with pleasure is the job of the chambermaid.

In a Japanese hotel:
You are invited to take advantage of the chambermaid.

In the lobby of a Moscow hotel across from a Russian Orthodox Monastery:

You are welcome to visit the cemetery where famous Russian and Soviet composers, artists, and writers are buried daily except Thursday.

In an Austrian hotel catering to skiers:
Not to perambulate the corridors in the hours of repose in the boots of ascension.

On the menu of a Swiss restaurant:
Our wines leave you nothing to hope for.

On the menu of a Polish hotel:
Salad a firm's own make; limpid red beet soup with cheesy dumplings in the form of a finger; roasted duck let loose; beef rashers beaten up in the country people's fashion.

Outside a Hong Kong tailor shop:
Ladies may have a fit upstairs.

In a Bangkok dry cleaner's:
Drop your trousers here for best results.

Outside a Paris dress shop:
Dresses for street walking.

In a Rhodes tailor shop:
Order your summers suit. Because is big rush we will execute customers in strict rotation.

A sign posted in Germany's Black forest:
It is strictly forbidden on our black forest camping site that people of different sex, for instance, men and women, live together in one tent unless they are married with each other for that purpose.

In a Zurich hotel:
Because of the impropriety of entertaining guests of the opposite sex in the bedroom, it is suggested that the lobby be used for this purpose.

In an advertisement by a Hong Kong dentist:
Teeth extracted by the latest Methodists.

In a Rome laundry:
Ladies, leave your clothes here and spend the afternoon having a good time.

In a Czechoslovakian tourist agency:
Take one of our horse-driven city tours - we guarantee no miscarriages.

Advertisement for donkey rides in Thailand:
Would you like to ride on your own ass?

In a Swiss mountain inn:
Special today -- no ice cream.

In a Bangkok temple:
It is forbidden to enter a woman even a foreigner if dressed as a man.

In a Tokyo bar:
Special cocktails for the ladies with nuts.

In a Copenhagen airline ticket office:
We take your bags and send them in all directions.

On the door of a Moscow hotel room:
If this is your first visit to the USSR, you are welcome to it.

In a Norwegian cocktail lounge:
Ladies are requested not to have children in the bar.

In a Budapest zoo:
Please do not feed the animals. If you have any suitable food, give it to the guard on duty.

In the office of a Roman doctor:
Specialist in women and other diseases.

In an Acapulco hotel:
The manager has personally passed all the water served here.

In a Tokyo shop:
Our nylons cost more than common, but you'll find they are best in the long run.

From a Japanese information booklet about using a hotel air conditioner:

Cooles and Heates: If you want just condition of warm in your room, please control yourself.

From a brochure of a car rental firm in Tokyo:
When passenger of foot heave in sight, tootle the horn. Trumpet him melodiously at first, but if he still obstacles your passage then tootle him with vigor.

Two signs from a Majorcan shop entrance:
   -   English well talking.
   -   Here speeching American.

SCREW-UPS OF THE YEAR -2002

When his 38-caliber revolver failed to fire at its intended victim during a hold-up in Long Beach, California, would be robber James Elliot did something that can only inspire wonder: He peered down the barrel and tried the trigger again. This time it worked.

The chef at a hotel in Switzerland lost a finger in a meat cutting machine and, after a little hopping around, submitted a claim to his insurance company. The company, suspecting negligence, sent out one of its men to have a look for himself. He tried the machine out and lost a finger. The chef's claim was approved.

A man who shovelled snow for an hour to clear a space for his car during a blizzard in Chicago returned with his vehicle to find a woman had taken the space. Understandably, he shot her.

After stopping for drinks at an illegal bar, a Zimbabwean bus driver found that the 20 mental patients he was supposed to be transporting from Harare to Bulawayo had escaped. Not wanting to admit his incompetence, the driver went to a nearby bus-stop and offered everyone waiting there a free ride. He then delivered the passengers to the mental hospital, telling the staff that the patients were very excitable and prone to bizarre fantasies. The deception wasn't discovered for 3 days.

Reasons why the English language is so hard to learn:

1)      The bandage was wound around the wound.
2)      The farm was used to produce produce.
3)      The dump was so full that it had to refuse more refuse.
4)      We must polish the Polish furniture.
5)      He could lead if he would get the lead out.
6)      The soldier decided to desert his dessert in the desert.
7)      Since there is no time like the present, he thought it was time to present the present.
8)      A bass was painted on the head of the bass drum.
9)      When shot at, the dove dove into the bushes.
10)     I did not object to the object.
11)     The insurance was invalid for the invalid.
12)     There was a row among the oarsmen about how to row.
13)     They were too close to the door to close it.
14)     The buck does funny things when the does are present.
15)     A seamstress and a sewer fell down into a sewer line.
16)     To help with planting, the farmer taught his sow to sow.
17)     The wind was too strong to wind the sail.
18)     After a number of injections my jaw got number.
19)     Upon seeing the tear in the painting I shed a tear.
20)     I had to subject the subject to a series of tests.
21)     How can I intimate this to my most intimate friend?

Let's face it - English is a crazy language. There is no egg in eggplant, nor ham in hamburger; neither apple nor pine in pineapple. English Muffins weren't invented in England or French fries in France. Sweetmeats are candies while sweetbreads, which aren't sweet or bread, are meat.

We take English for granted. But if we explore its paradoxes, we find that quicksand can work slowly, boxing rings are square and a guinea pig is neither from Guinea, nor is it a pig. And why is it that writers write but fingers don't fing, grocers don't groce and hammers don't ham? If the plural of tooth is teeth, why isn't the plural of booth, beeth? One goose, 2 geese. So one moose, 2 meese? One index, 2 indices? Doesn't it seem crazy that you can make amends but not one amend. If you have a bunch of odds and ends and get rid of all but one of them, what do you call it? If teachers taught, why didn't preachers praught? If a vegetarian eats vegetables, what does a humanitarian eat?
Sometimes I think all the English speakers should be committed to an asylum for the verbally insane. In what language do people recite at a play and play at a recital? Ship by truck and send cargo by ship? Have noses that run and feet that smell? How can a slim chance and a fat chance be the same, while a wise man and a wise guy are opposites?
You have to marvel at the unique lunacy of a language in which your house can burn up as it burns down, in which you fill in a form by filling it out, and in which an alarm goes off by going on. English was invented by people, not computers, and it reflects the creativity of the human race, which, of course, is not a race at all. That is why, when the stars are out, they are visible, but when the lights are out, they are invisible.
Finally, "the only way to stop this computer is to push the Start Button."

Prisoners in a jail in Lima were instructed to make new uniforms for the guards as part of a cost-cutting drive. Most of the prisoners showed uncharacteristic enthusiasm for the task which was hardly surprising since 28 of them made uniforms for themselves and strolled out of the jail to freedom.

QUACKERS

This is a true report of an incident in Michigan: A bloke buys a brand new Lincoln Navigator for $42,500 and has $560 monthly payments. He and a friend go duck hunting in winter, and of course all the lakes are frozen. These two guys go out on the lake with the guns, the dog, and of course the new vehicle. They drive out onto the lake ice and get ready. Now, they want to make some kind of a natural landing area for the ducks, something for the decoys to float on. In order to make a hole large enough to look like something a wandering duck would fly down and land on, it is going to take a little more effort than an ice hole drill. So, out of the back of the new Navigator comes a stick of dynamite with a short, 40-second fuse. Now these two Rocket Scientists do take into consideration that they want to place the stick of dynamite on the ice at a location far from where they are standing (and the new Navigator), because they don't want to take the risk of slipping on the ice when they run from the burning fuse and possibly go up in smoke with the resulting blast. They light the 40-second fuse and throw the dynamite. Remember a couple of paragraphs back when I mentioned the vehicle, the guns and the dog? Let's talk about the dog: A highly trained Black Lab used for RETRIEVING. Especially things thrown by the owner. You guessed it, the dog takes off at a high rate of doggy speed on the ice and captures the stick of dynamite with the burning 40-second fuse about the time it hits the ice. The two men yell, scream, wave their arms and wonder what to do now. The dog, cheered on, keeps coming. One of the guys grabs the shotgun and shoots the dog. The shotgun is loaded with # 8 buckshot, hardly big enough to stop a Black Lab. The dog stops for a moment, slightly confused, but continues on. Another shot and this time the dog, still standing, becomes really confused and of course terrified, thinking these two geniuses have gone insane. The dog takes off to find cover, under the brand new Navigator. ----BOOM!---- Dog and Navigator are blown to bits and sink to the bottom of the lake in a very large hole, leaving the two idiots standing there with this "I can't believe this happened" look on their faces. The insurance company says that sinking a vehicle in a lake by illegal use of explosives is not covered. He still had yet to make the first of those $560 a month payments! And you thought your day was not going well?

THE NEXT TIME YOU THINK YOU ARE HAVING A BAD DAY:

Fire authorities in California found a corpse in a burned out section of forest while assessing the damage done by a forest fire. The deceased male was dressed in a full wet suit, complete with SCUBA tanks on his back, flippers, and facemask. A post-mortem revealed that the person died not from burns, but from massive internal injuries. Dental records provided a positive identification.

Investigators then set about to determine how a fully clad diver ended up in the middle of a forest fire. It was revealed that, on the day of the fire, the person went for a diving trip off the coast some 20 miles away from the forest. The fire fighters, seeking to control the fire as quickly as possible, called in a fleet of helicopters with very large dip buckets. Water was dipped from the ocean then flown to the forest fire and emptied. You guessed it. One minute our diver was making like Flipper in the Pacific, the next he was doing the breaststroke in a fire dip bucket 300 feet in the air. Apparently he extinguished exactly 5'-10" of the fire. Some days it just doesn't days it just doesn't pay to get out of bed! This article was taken from the California Examiner, March 20, 1998

STILL THINK YOU ARE HAVING A BAD DAY?

A man was working on his motorcycle on his patio and his wife was in the kitchen. The man was racing the engine on the motorcycle when it accidentally slipped into gear. The man, still holding on to the handlebars, was dragged through the glass patio doors on to the floor inside the house. The wife, hearing the crash, ran into the dining room and found her husband lying on the floor, cut and bleeding, the motorcycle lying next to him and the shattered patio door. The wife ran to the phone and summoned an ambulance. Because they lived on a fairly large hill, the wife went down the several flights of stairs to the street to escort the paramedics to her husband. After the ambulance arrived and transported the man to the hospital, the wife upright the motorcycle and pushed it outside.

Seeing that gas was spilled on the floor, the wife got some paper towels, blotted up the gasoline, and threw the towels in the toilet. The husband was treated and released to come home.

Upon arriving at home, he looked at the shattered patio door and the damage done to his motorcycle. He became despondent, went to the bathroom, sat down on the toilet and smoked a cigarette. After finishing the cigarette, he flipped it between his legs into the toilet bowl while still seated. The wife, who was in the kitchen, heard the loud explosion and her husband screaming. She ran into the bathroom and found her husband lying on the floor. His trousers had been blown away and he was suffering burns on the buttocks, the back of his legs and his groin. The wife again ran to the phone to call the ambulance.

The very same paramedic crew was dispatched and the wife met them at the street. The paramedics loaded the husband on the stretcher and began carrying him to the street. While they were going down the stairs to the street accompanied by the wife, one of the paramedics asked the wife how the husband had burned himself. She told them and the paramedics started laughing so hard, one of the paramedics started laughing so hard, one of them slipped and tipped the stretcher, dumping the husband out. He fell down the remaining stairs and broke his arm.

FRIVOLOUS LAWSUITS

In 1994, a New Mexico jury awarded $ 2.9 million U.S. in damages to 81-year-old Stella Liebeck who suffered third-degree burns to her legs, groin and buttocks after spilling a cup of McDonald's coffee on herself.
This case inspired an annual award - The "Stella" Award - for the most frivolous lawsuit in the U.S. The ones you see listed below are clear candidates.

1. January 2000: Kathleen Robertson of Austin Texas was awarded 780,000 by a jury of her peers after breaking her ankle tripping over a toddler who was running amok inside a furniture store. The owners of the store were understandably surprised at the verdict, considering the misbehaving tyke was Ms. Robertson's son.
2. June 1998: A 19 year old Carl Truman of Los Angeles won 74,000 and medical expenses when his neighbour ran over his hand with a Honda Accord. Mr. Truman apparently didn't notice there was someone at the wheel of the car, when he was trying to steal his neighbour’s hubcap.
3. October 1998: A Terrence Dickson of Bristol Pennsylvania was exiting a house he finished robbing by way of the garage. He was not able to get the garage door to go up, because the automatic door opener was malfunctioning. He couldn't re-enter the house because the door connecting the house and garage locked when he pulled it shut. The family was on holiday. Mr. Dickson found himself locked in the garage for eight days. He survived on a case of Pepsi he found, and a large bag of dry dog food. Mr. Dickson sued the homeowner's insurance claiming the situation caused him undue mental anguish. The jury agreed to the tune of half a million dollars.
4. October 1999: Jerry Williams of Little Rock Arkansas was awarded 14,500 and medical expenses after being bitten on the buttocks by his next door neighbour's beagle. The beagle was on a chain in it's owner's fenced-in yard, as was Mr. Williams. The award was less than sought because the jury felt the dog may have been provoked by Mr. Williams who, at the time, was shooting it repeatedly with a pellet gun.
5. May 2000: A Philadelphia restaurant was ordered to pay Amber Carson of Lancaster, Pennsylvania 113,500 after she slipped on soft drink and broke her coccyx. The beverage was on the floor because Ms. Carson threw it at her boyfriend 30 seconds earlier during an argument.
6. December 1997: Kara Walton of Claymont, Delaware successfully sued the owner of a night club in a neighbouring city when she fell from the bathroom window to the floor and knocked out her two front teeth. This occurred while Ms. Walton was trying to sneak through the window in the ladies room to avoid paying the 3.50 cover charge. She was awarded 12,000 and dental expenses.
7. And just so you know that cooler heads do occasionally prevail: Kenmore inc., the makers of Dorothy Johnson's microwave, were found not liable for the death of Mrs. Johnson's poodle after she gave it a bath and attempted to dry it by putting the poor creature in her microwave for, just a few minutes, on low," The case was quickly dismissed.

FASCINATING FACTS

The US Customs Service regularly confiscates planes used by drug smugglers and sells them at auction for prices way below their market value. The biggest customer’s for these aviation bargains are... Drug smugglers.

A couple of years back the pilot of a light aircraft was forced to make an emergency landing on a toll road in Illinois. He promptly received a ticket for entering the road at the wrong junction and for failing to pay 30 cents toll.

We’ve all heard about the lady with the lamp, Florence Nightingale but a lesser-known fact about her is when touring hospital wards she carried an owl in her pocket. She was so obsessed with death that in 1857 she made all her own funeral arrangements. She lived for another 53 years, the last 40 spent in bed.

Frenchman Louis Lennormond invented the parachute one hundred years before the aeroplane it was designed to help people to jump from burning buildings.

Lovers in Elizabethan times would exchange ‘love apples’ when plighting their troth. Peeled apples were kept under respective armpits until saturated with sweat and then inhaled by male and female as a reminder of their love.

In Bermuda in 1974 a man on a motor scooter was knocked down and killed by a taxi. Exactly a year later the same driver in the same taxi, carrying the same passenger, knocked down and killed the motor scooter riders brother, on the same street, riding the same scooter.

STRANGE LAWS

Women with waists measuring more than thirteen inches were banned from the court of Catherine de Medici.

The law banned 16th century England husbands from beating their wives after 10 p.m.

Residents of Minnesota were banned from hanging out underwear of different sexes on the same washing line.

Books on geography and astrology were banned in England in the 1550’s because they were thought to be infected with magic.

Elizabeth the first of Russia once banned everyone apart from herself from wearing pink.

Pigs were once banned from the streets of France after one caused an accident involving a member of the royal family.

Two Nebraskan dentists have teamed up to launch their own practice using their unusual names - Toothaker and Payne. Jeffrey Payne and Randy Toothaker weren't sure how the name would be received by the public, but, in fact, new patients choose them from the telephone directory because of the unusual name.

Iraqi terrorist, Khay Rahnajet, didn't pay enough postage on a letter bomb. It came back with "return to sender" stamped on it. Forgetting it was the bomb, he opened it. He was 38.

A pair of Michigan robbers entered a record shop nervously waving revolvers. The first one shouted, "Nobody move!" When his partner moved, the startled first bandit shot him.

Chong Kim Lee, a Thai chef, was jailed for 15 years after being found guilty of trying to have sex with an elephant. He was found, naked from the waist down, standing on a box behind the animal. Chong claimed that the elephant was in fact the reincarnation of his wife who died 28 years earlier. He told the court, "I recognised her immediately because of the naughty glint in her eye."

Construction supplier Sam Krogstad posted an entire harbour through the post in 1988. Broken up into concrete blocks it was sent from Anchorage Alaska 700-miles north to Wainwright. Krogstad saved himself thousands of dollars in shipping fees.

Anthony S. Clancy of Dublin was born on the seventh day of the week, on the seventh day of the month, in the seventh year of this century. He was the seventh child of seventh child and had seven brothers. On his twenty seventh birthday while attending a horse race he bet on horse number seven called seventh heaven to win the seventh race on the card at 7 - 1. The race was a seven-stone handicap. He lost his seven-shilling bet... Yes you guessed! It came in seventh.

Gloria Sykes was struck by a cable car and sustained some cuts and bruises. She sued the cable car company claiming compensation for the psychological damage caused by the accident. Miss Sykes claimed the accident had turned her into a nymphomaniac resulting in her sleeping with nearly 100 men. The court awarded her $50,000.

In January 1987 a woman was driving her car in Chester. She noticed how friendly people were waving at her as she passed by. At last she got the feeling that something might be wrong. It was she was driving on the frozen Shropshire union canal. She just managed to get out of the car before it sank through the ice.

A thief was disturbed when robbing a house in Antwerp, Belgium. He fled out the back door, clambered over a nine-foot wall, dropped down the other side, and found himself in the city prison.

17-year-old Brazilian boxer Manuel Salgado suffered a serious setback to his career. His mother dragged him out of the ring during a bout in Rio de Janeiro and sent him home to do his homework.

Janos Zeklos, a professional football player from Romania retired in 1979 after accidentally scoring against his own team for the 23^rd time in his career.

Jerry Wolfson knocked on the door of Norwich prison and asked to be let back in after he’d escaped from the establishment two hours earlier. He said he was tired, hungry and had developed an embarrassing tear in his trousers.

A farmer from Uruguay called Ernesto Erosa had a bad toothache and rather than go to the dentist thought he would do the job himself. He decided to shoot away the offending tooth using a.22 calibre pistol. He got the tooth all right but also managed to blow away his lower lip, his jaw, and both gums.

MINDLESS TRIVIA

Sneezes leave the human body at 85 per cent of the speed of sound.

Saudi Arabia imports sand from Scotland and camels from North Africa.

Digestive biscuits were invented to control flatulence.

Duelling is legal in Paraguay – as long as both parties are registered blood donors.

The strongest muscle in the body is - the tongue.

The electric chair was invented by a dentist.

The shortest war in history was between Zanzibar and Britain in 1896. It lasted 38 minutes.

A polar bear’s skin is black and its fur isn’t white but actually clear.

The average human eats eight spiders in their lifetime at night. (Uurgh!)

Shakespeare invented the words assassin and bump.

if you keep a goldfish in the dark it’ll eventually turn white.

Women blink nearly twice as much as men.

A snail can sleep for three years.

The word “lethologica” describes the state of not being able to remember the word you want ( what was that word again?)

A rhinoceros horn is not made of bone or ivory but is actually compacted hair.

If the population of China walked past you in single file the line would never end because of the rate of reproduction.

If you yelled for 8 years, 7 months and 6 days you would have produced enough sound energy to heat one cup of coffee. (Hardly seems worth it.)

If you farted consistently for 6 years and 9 months, enough gas is produced to create the energy of an atomic bomb. (Now that's more like it!)

The human heart creates enough pressure when it pumps out to the body to squirt blood 30 feet. (Oh My God!)

A pig's orgasm lasts 30 minutes. (In my next life, I want to be a pig.)

A cockroach will live nine days without its head before it starves to death. (Creepy...I'm still not over the pig.)

Banging your head against a wall uses 150 calories an hour. (Do not try this at home...... maybe at work.)

The male praying mantis cannot copulate while its head is attached to its body. The female initiates sex by ripping the male's head off. ("Honey, I'm home. What the....?!")

The flea can jump 350 times its body length. It's like a human jumping the length of a football field.
(30 minutes... lucky pig... can you imagine??)

The catfish has over 27,000 taste buds. (What could be so tasty on the bottom of a pond?)

Some lions mate over 50 times a day. (I still want to be a pig in my next life...quality over quantity)

Butterflies taste with their feet. (Something I always wanted to know.)

Right-handed people live, on average, nine years longer than left-handed people.
(If you're ambidextrous, do you split the difference?)

Elephants are the only animals that cannot jump. (OK, so that would be a good thing....)

A cat's urine glows under a black light. (I wonder who was paid to figure that out?)

An ostrich's eye is bigger than its brain. (I know some people like that.)

Starfish have no brains. (I know some people like that too.)

Polar bears are left-handed. (If they switch, they'll live a lot longer.)

Humans and dolphins are the only species that have sex for pleasure. (What about that pig??)

American Airlines saved 40,000 dollars in 1987 by eliminating one olive from each salad served in first class.

China has more English speakers than the United States.

You share your birthday with at least nine million other people in the world.

Cats have more than 100 vocal sounds while dogs only have 10.

Our eyes always stay the same size from birth, but our noses and ears never stop growing.

February 1855 was the only month in recorded history not to have a full moon.

No word in the English language rhymes with month.

Leonardo Da Vinci invented scissors.

In the last 4000 years, no new animals have been domesticated.

Butterflies taste with their feet.

The name Wendy was made up for the book Peter Pan.

Banging your head against a wall uses 150 calories an hour.

Most people fear spiders more than they fear death.

It’s impossible to sneeze with your eyes open.

You can’t kill yourself by holding your breath.

Americans eat 18 acres of pizza every day.

Every time you lick a stamp you’re eating one tenth of a calorie

You’re more likely to be killed by a flying champagne cork than by a poisonous spider.

In ancient Egypt priests plucked every hair from their bodies including their eyebrows.

IN AN AVERAGE LIFE YOU WILL..

Spend 12 years watching television.

Use 2,574 rolls of toilet paper.

Walk 150,000 miles.

Eat 7,800 loaves of bread.

Sleep for 25 years.

Spend nine and a half days putting your undies on.

Take 13,650 baths.

Shed 300lb of skin.

Go through 600 pairs of underpants.

Blink 682 million times.

Flush the lavatory 109,200 times