Airman Jones was assigned to the induction centre, where he advised new recruits about their government benefits, especially their GI insurance. It wasn’t long before Captain Smith noticed that Airman Jones had almost a 100% record for insurance sales, which had never happened before.
Rather than ask about this, the Captain stood in the back of the room and listened to Jones’s sales pitch. Jones explained the basics of the GI Insurance to the new recruits, and then said, “If you have GI Insurance and go into battle and are killed, the government has to pay $200,000 to your beneficiaries. If you don’t have GI insurance, and you go into battle and get killed, the government only has to pay a maximum of $6000.”
“Now,” he concluded, “which bunch do you think they are going to send into battle first?”
A fellow stopped at a rural gas station and, after filling his tank, he paid the bill and bought a soft drink. He stood by his car to drink his cola and he watched a couple of men working along the roadside. One man would dig a hole two or three feet deep and then move on. The other man came along behind and filled in the hole. While one was digging a new hole, the other was about 25 feet behind filling in the old. The men worked right past the fellow with the soft drink and went on down the road.
“I can’t stand this,” said the man, tossing the can in a trash container and heading down the road toward the men.
“Hold it, hold it,” he said to the men. “Can you tell me what’s going on here with this digging?”
“Well, we work for the county government, ” one of the men said.
“But one of you is digging a hole and the other is filling it up. You’re not accomplishing anything. Aren’t you wasting the county’s money?”
“You don’t understand, mister,” one of the men said, leaning on his shovel and wiping his brow. “Normally there’s three of us – me, Rodney and Mike. I dig the hole, Rodney sticks in the tree and Mike here puts the dirt back.”
“Yea,” piped up Mike. “Now, just because Rodney’s sick, that don’t mean we can’t work, does it?”
Yesterday’s post raised a few comments that I thought I would answer here.
First of all, a big thank you to slpmartin, who always leaves such lovely comments, and yesterday’s was the nicest yet. You should check out his poetry here; it’s well worth a look.
Tory Boy asked me to clarify that he didn’t shout at his brother at all. But you knew that, didn’t you? Those of you who have been reading my blog for more than a week must be aware that I never met an exaggeration I didn’t like.
Also Peter (a wonderful man) is his host and I should have got the reference because Tory Boy cleverly echoed my (a wonderful woman) interjections. However, I can’t read code; that’s why there are never any metaphors in my poems. But you should check out his blog, especially if you are interested in wine. If you are more interested in whine, keep reading me.
Tory Boy promised to phone on Friday night but he was early by three and a half days because of disgruntled Londoners. I believe London may be conspiring to keep my son from governing the nation because Sunday’s train was reluctant to arrive and when it did, it deposited him outside the country’s security HQ; the canteen prices in the Houses of Parliament rose significantly on his first day; and now there is a tube strike. Actually, I’m grateful for that last one because I texted him about it and he was standing at the bus stop with time to kill and he phoned me.
He had a brilliant first day doing grunt work – everybody’s got to start somewhere and he enjoyed himself enormously; was fed by both his hosts and his colleagues; and it only took forty minutes from Wimbledon to London in spite of the bus, train and two tubes he had to take.
On his first day he also managed to be both late and early at the same time. He slept through two alarm clocks, possibly because he is in such a lovely bedroom. He raved about it, telling me more about the room than the Commons. It is like a loft conversion except it was built that way and there was never a loft, and he banged his head six times yesterday on the sloping roof, particularly when he stumbled out of bed at 7:45 in a panic at being late on his first day. He arrived at nine-thirty to find he wasn’t supposed to start until ten. Phew! and boy, do British governments have it hard….
I am instructed not to worry that he might be late again: yesterday was an aberration because he has always been able to get up when he has to; it is just that he is still struggling with his sleep pattern. He has a plan – he has placed his alarm clocks under the sloping roof so he will crack his head on it when he tries to turn them off: that’s bound to wake him up. I’ve made an appointment with my doctor when TB gets back to check for concussion and the idiot gene; but I must confess, I think it’s inspired.
My good friend Flo has asked the question: Is that a Boris Johnson barnet Tory Boy is sprouting? She is referring to the hair of our eccentric Conservative London Mayor, the man who offended Liverpool. Have a look for yourself and tell me what you think:
On his rivals in the Liberal Democrats: “The Lib Dems are not just empty. They are a void within a vacuum surrounded by a vast inanition.”
On The 2005 Conservative Leadership Contest: “I am supporting David Cameron purely out of cynical self-interest.”
And my personal favourite: In his Telegraph column December 2, 2004 on being sacked from the Tory front bench: “My friends, as I have discovered myself, there are no disasters, only opportunities. And, indeed, opportunities for fresh disasters.”
Boris Johnson is affectionately known as ‘BoJo’. If Tory Boy follows the same trend he will be known as ‘ToBo’ – which is what we call our dog. Still, if the hairdo fits….
You may recall a while back I mentioned that Tory Boy was offered an internship at the Houses of Parliament. His accommodation was all arranged and then it fell through and I was lamenting that fact on my blog. One of my sisters-in-law (a wonderful woman) emailed her company’s London branch and asked if anyone could help out. One of her colleagues (a wonderful woman) emailed to say that her mother sometimes hosted students and she would ask her. My sister-in-law’s colleague’s mother (a wonderful woman) said yes, that would be fine. Even more kindly – once dates were established – my sister-in-law’s colleague’s mother’s husband was up here on business and offered Tory Boy a lift down to their home last Friday, saving him the train fare. Unfortunately Tory Boy had the Muse gig, or he’d have gone then.
However, we packed him off on the train yesterday afternoon and he arrived safely if somewhat late, British trains doing their usual we run when we feel like it thing. I didn’t mind because it gave him the opportunity to phone me from outside MI5 to tell me he was calling me from outside MI5. I was an avid spy book fan in my twenties and TB knows that sort of thing excites me, particularly as I live my life vicariously through the adventures of others (like a lot of mothers).
Tory Boy phoned again when he arrived to let us know the people were lovely the house was lovely his room was lovely yes they were feeding him a roast dinner as it happened and he was right to stand firm against my motherly angst and not let me pack him a food parcel of crisps & Cornflakes.
We have been thinking about him all day on the first day of Parliament and hoping he got up at six okay to catch his bus, train and two tubes to Westminster. We wouldn’t dare phone him to ask, of course, in case he was in consultation with the Prime Minister on which song is Muse’s best to date, so it was fortuitous that the accidental call Tory Boy made to Spud three days ago happened to come through as a missed call on Spud’s phone as he left school this afternoon. Spud thought it was made today and naturally returned the call, only to get a hiss blast from his brother to ‘stop bothering me at work,’ so we know he got there okay and hasn’t been sucked in by druggies and drunks. But he barely knows our MPs yet.
Here is a message for Tory Boy: a letter arrived today from the Lancaster area; what do you want me to do with it?
A message for everyone else: I posted that message to TB here because he doesn’t read my emails or answer my calls, me not being a woman of importance in the life of the child who ate my figure but not my food if he could avoid it.
The Hub and I are quite excited about the kind of work he might be doing: setting policy, delivering mail, who knows? Maybe he could work on safety laws for old people: no pensioner vaulting between the hours of ten and six would be a good one. As we were crawling home on Saturday night, the Hub stopped – or, more accurately, didn’t start – the car to let an old couple cross the road in front of us. There was a fence on the pavement and we were astonished to see the elderly man try to jump it from the road; fail; fall back with his legs hooked over the top so he was dangling head first backwards; and be rescued by his even more elderly wife, who gamely cradled his head in her chins until younger and more able pensioners ran to their rescue.
Whatever Tory Boy is doing down there in t’ big city, I’m sure he’s enjoying it and we won’t hear from him again. I’d be sad, but I need his room to store my athletic equipment; I’m entering the 2032 Olympics.
I can’t say I’m impressed by the government’s plans to save £12billion: if I understand Sky News correctly, they simply have to stop spending. If it’s that simple, why has it taken so long to do? I’m really not convinced by the argument; after all, when I cut up my credit cards last week, did that mean I had saved £12billion myself? No, I didn’t; I’m not going to see that money in my savings account anytime soon, am I? I’m just not going to spend any more, and I’m going to be paying off past debts for a long time to come, just like my government. And neither of us has any gold reserves with which to make the process easier.
But on to the REALLY important news: Joe McElderry is in the X-Factor final. Another two flawless performances this weekend. I was glad to see Olly Murs and Stacey Solomon in the final as well, though sorry that Danyl had to go; I loved his rendition of And I Am Telling You in the first live show. It was a strong contest this year. Oddly, however, there were no obvious standout performances as in other years: Leona Lewis and Alexandra Burke, for example, had some cracking shows in which they were clear frontrunners; and Ray Quinn was brilliant when he sang My Way in Leona’s year. Joe has been consistently good, but not electrifying. But I’ll still be voting for him to win next week: I can afford it now that I have £12billion to spare.
I am a little fat. I like food; what can I say? I have dull hair: mousey. I don’t wear much make-up and have no need of a dressing table. If I look like a bag lady, I chose my own clothes. If I look nice, the Hub picked them for me. Despite all this, I am a little vain. This photograph is from 2003. I had to go back that far to find one of me that I liked. But I don’t really care: my husband still thinks I’m beautiful and if he doesn’t, he loves me enough to lie about it. I’m lucky. I have two boys. They never lie to me. Still, you can't have everything.
The Laughing Housewife 
I have the funniest readers in the blogosphere (not necessarily ha ha…)