Amateur Archaeologist

The story behind the letter below is that there is this nutball in
Newport, RI, named Scott Williams who digs things out of his
backyard and sends the stuff he finds to the Smithsonian Institute,
labeling them with scientific names, insisting that they are actual
archaeological finds. This guy really exists and does this in his
spare time! Anyway... here's the actual response from the
Smithsonian Institution.

______________
Smithsonian Institute
207 Pennsylvania Avenue
Washington, DC 20078

Dear Mr. Williams:

Thank you for your latest submission to the Institute, labeled "93211-D, layer seven, next to the clothesline post...Hominid skull." We have given this specimen a careful and detailed examination, and regret to inform you that we disagree with your theory that it represents conclusive proof of the presence of Early Man in Charleston County two million years ago. Rather, it appears that what you have found is the head of a Barbie doll, of the variety that one of our staff, who has small children, believes to be "Malibu Barbie." It is evident that you have given a great deal of thought to the analysis of this specimen, and you may be quite certain that those of us who are familiar with your prior work in the field were loathe to come to contradiction with your findings. However, we do feel that there are a number of physical attributes of the specimen which might have tipped you off to its modern origin:

1. The material is molded plastic. Ancient hominid remains are typically fossilized bone.
2. The cranial capacity of the specimen is approximately 9 cubic centimeters, well below the threshold of even the earliest identified proto-hominids.
3. The dentition pattern evident on the skull is more consistent with the common domesticated dog than it is with the ravenous man-eating Pliocene clams you speculate roamed the wetlands during that time.

This latter finding is certainly one of the most intriguing hypotheses you have submitted in your history with this institution, but the evidence seems to weigh rather heavily against it. Without going into too much detail, let us say that:

A. The specimen looks like the head of a Barbie doll that a dog has chewed on.
B. Clams don't have teeth.

It is with feelings tinged with melancholy that we must deny your request to have the specimen carbon-dated. This is partially due to the heavy load our lab must bear in its normal operation, and partly due to carbon-dating's notorious inaccuracy in fossils of recent geologic record. To the best of our knowledge, no Barbie dolls were produced prior to 1956 AD, and carbon-dating is likely to produce wildly inaccurate results. Sadly, we must also deny your request that we approach the National Science Foundation Phylogeny Department with the concept of assigning your specimen the scientific name Australopithecus spiff-arino. Speaking personally, I, for one, fought tenaciously for the acceptance of your proposed taxonomy, but was ultimately voted down because the species name you selected was hyphenated, and didn't really sound like it might be Latin. However, we gladly accept your generous donation of this fascinating specimen to the museum. While it is undoubtedly not a Hominid fossil, it is, nonetheless, yet another riveting example of the great body of work you seem to accumulate here so effortlessly. You should know that our Director has reserved a special shelf in his own office for the display of the specimens you have previously submitted to the Institution, and the entire staff speculates daily on what you will happen upon next in your digs at the site you have discovered in your Newport back yard. We eagerly anticipate your trip to our nation's capital that you proposed in your last letter, and several of us are pressing the Director to pay for it. We are particularly interested in hearing you expand on your theories surrounding the trans-positating fillifitation of ferrous ions in a structural matrix that makes the excellent juvenile Tyrannosaurus Rex femur you recently discovered take on the deceptive appearance of a rusty 9- mm Sears Craftsman automotive crescent wrench.

Yours in Science,
Harvey Rowe
Chief Curator-Antiquities

Minnesota Truck Driver

As a Minnesota trucker stops for a red light, a blonde catches up. She jumps out of her car, runs up to his truck, and knocks on the door. The trucker lowers the window, and she says, "Hi, my name is Heather, and you are losing some of your load!"

The trucker ignores her and proceeds down the street. When the truck stops for another red light, the girl catches up again. See jumps out of her car, runs up and knocks on the door. Again, the trucker lowers the window. As if they've never spoken, the blonde says brightly, "Hi, my name is Heather, and you are losing some of your load!"

Shaking his head, the trucker ignores her again and continues down the street. At the third red light, the same thing happens again. All out of breath, the blonde gets out of her car, runs up, knocks on the truck door. The trucker lowers the window. Again she says, "Hi, my name is Heather, and you are losing some of your load!"

When the light turns green the trucker revs up and races to the next light. When he stops this time, he hurriedly gets out of the truck, and runs back to the blonde. He knocks on her window, and as she lowers it, he says, "Hi, my name is Jerry, it's winter in Minnesota, and I'm driving the SALT TRUCK!"

Punnies

1. A vulture boards an airplane, carrying two dead raccoons. The stewardess looks at him and says, "I'm sorry, sir, only one carrion allowed per passenger."

2. Two fish swim into a concrete wall. The one turns to the other and says, "Dam!"

3. Two Eskimos sitting in a kayak were chilly, so they lit a fire in the craft. Unsurprisingly it sank, proving once again that you can't have your kayak and heat it too.

4. Two hydrogen atoms meet. One says, "I've lost my electron." The other says, "Are you sure?" The first replies, "Yes, I'm positive."

5. Did you hear about the Buddhist who refused Novocain during a root canal? His goal: transcend dental medication.

6. A group of chess enthusiasts checked into a hotel and were standing in the lobby discussing their recent tournament victories. After about an hour, the manager came out of the office and asked them to disperse. "But, why?" they asked, as they moved off. "Because", he said, "I can't stand chess-nuts boasting in an open foyer.

7. A woman had twins and gave them up for adoption. One of them went to a family in Egypt and was named "Ahmal." The other went to a family in Spain; they named him "Juan." Years later, Juan sent a picture of himself to his birth mother. Upon receiving the picture, she told her husband that she wished she also had a picture of Ahmal. To which her husband responded, "They're twins! If you've seen Juan, you've seen Ahmal."

8. These friars were behind on their belfry payments, so they opened up a small florist shop to raise funds. Since everyone liked to buy flowers from the men of God, a rival florist across town thought the competition was unfair. He asked the good fathers to close down, but they would not. He went back and begged the friars to close. They ignored him. So, the rival florist hired Hugh MacTaggart, the roughest and most vicious thug in town, to "persuade" them to close. Hugh beat up the friars and trashed their store, saying he'd be back if they didn't close up shop. Terrified, they did so, thereby proving that only Hugh can prevent florist friars.

9. Mahatma Gandhi, as you know, walked barefoot most of the time, which produced an impressive set of calluses on his feet. He also ate very little, which made him rather frail and with his odd diet, he suffered from bad breath. This made him ..... (Oh, man, this is so bad, it's good)..... a super calloused fragile mystic hexed by halitosis.

10. And finally, there was the person who sent ten different puns to his friends, with the hope that at least one of the puns would make them laugh. No pun in ten did.

The Importance of Punctuation

The kindergarten class had a homework assignment to find out about
something exciting and relate it to the class the next day. When the time
came for the little kids to give their reports, the teacher was calling on
them one at a time. She was reluctant to call upon little Johnnie, knowing
that he sometimes could be a bit crude. But eventually his turn came.
Little Johnnie walked up to the front of the class, and with a piece of
chalk, made a small white dot on the blackboard, then sat back down. Well
the teacher couldn't figure out what Johnnie had in mind for his report on
something exciting, so she asked him just what that was. "It's a period."
reported Johnnie. "Well I can see that," she said. "But what is so exciting
about a period?" "Damned if I know," said Johnnie, "but this morning my
sister said she missed one. Then Daddy had a heart attack, Mommy fainted,
and the man next door shot himself."

YOU MIGHT BE A REDNECK IF:

*Taking your wife on a cruise means circling the Dairy Queen.
*You think that Dom Perignon is a mafia leader.
*You think the last words to The Star Spangled Banner are "Gentlemen, start your engines."
*You have refused to watch the Academy Awards since "Smokey and The Bandit" was snubbed for Best Picture.
*You think God looks a lot like Hank Williams Jr., and heaven looks a lot like Daytona Beach.

Benefits of Aging......

A distraught senior citizen phoned her doctor's office. "Is it true," she wanted to know, "that the medication you prescribed has to be taken for the rest of my life?"
"Yes, I'm afraid so," the doctor told her.
There was a moment of silence before the senior lady replied, "I'm wondering, then, just how serious is my condition. This prescription is marked 'NO REFILLS'."
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Geriatric humor

An older Jewish gentleman was on the operating table awaiting surgery and he insisted that his son, a renowned surgeon, perform the operation. As he was about to get the anesthesia he asked to speak to his son. "Yes, Dad, what is it?" "Don't be nervous, son; do your best and just remember, if it doesn't go well, if something happens to me ... your mother is going to come and live with you and your wife...."
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Aging: Eventually you will reach a point when you stop lying about your age and start bragging about it.
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The older we get, the fewer things seem worth waiting in line for.
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Some people try to turn back their odometers. Not me. I want people to know "why" I look this way. I've traveled a long way and some of the roads weren't paved.
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How old would you be if you didn't know how old you are?
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When you are dissatisfied and would like to go back to youth, think of Algebra.
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You know you are getting old when everything either dries up or leaks.
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I don't know how I got over the hill without getting to the top.
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One of the many things no one tells you about aging is that it is such a nice change from being young.
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Ah, being young is beautiful, but being old is comfortable.
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Old age is when former classmates are so gray and wrinkled and bald, they don't recognize you.
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If you don't learn to laugh at trouble, you won't have anything to laugh at when you are old.
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First you forget names, then you forget faces. Then you forget to pull up your zipper. It's worse when you forget to pull it down.
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Long ago when men cursed and beat the ground with sticks, it was called witchcraft.. Today, it's called golf.
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