HANDS-DOWN WINNER OF THE IDIOT CORPORATION AWARD! AT&T fired President John Walter after nine months saying he lacked intellectual leadership. He received a $26 million severance package. (Let that be a lesson to him!)

WITH A LITTLE HELP FROM OUR FRIENDS! Police in Oakland, California spent two hours attempting to subdue a gunman who had barricaded himself inside his home. After firing ten tear gas canisters, officers discovered that the man was standing beside them, shouting out to give himself up. (No one ever said you had to be “smart” to be a cop.)

NOW THIS SOUNDS LIKE IT WAS PLANNED OUT WELL…NOT! An Illinois man, pretending to have a gun, kidnapped a motorist and forced him to drive to two different automated teller machines. The kidnapper then proceeded to withdraw money from his own bank account. (Maybe he should have pretended to have a brain!)

WHEN YOU THINK YOU’RE HAVING A BAD DAY…READ THIS Fire investigators on Maui have determined the cause of a blaze that destroyed a $1,270,000 home last month – a short in the homeowner’s newly installed fire prevention alarm system. “This is even worse than last year, “said the distraught homeowner, “when someone broke in and stole my new security system…” (…hmmm, could this be the Illinois guy?)

NOW THIS IS WHAT I CONSIDER A DEDICATED CROOK! A man walked into a Topeka, Kansas Kwik Shop and asked for all the money in the cash drawer. Apparently, the take was too small so he tied up the store clerk and worked the counter himself for three hours until police showed up and grabbed him. (Wonder if he paid himself time and 1/2 for the overtime?)

FOOT IN MOUTH…UP TO THE KNEE! Police in Los Angeles had good luck with a robbery suspect who just couldn’t control himself during a lineup. When detectives asked each man in the lineup to repeat the words, “Give me all your money or I’ll shoot”, the man shouted, “That’s not what I said!” (Turns out, the witness was Blonde and didn’t pick him!)

NOT THE SHARPEST KNIFE IN THE DRAWER! In Modesto, CA, Steven Richard King was arrested for trying to hold up a Bank of America branch without a weapon. King used a thumb and a finger to simulate a gun but unfortunately he failed to keep his hand in his pocket. (Banks should keep Monopoly money on hand for these bright crooks.)

Amy, a city girl, marries a farmer.

One morning, before he goes out to the fields, the farmer says

to her, “The artificial insemination man is coming to

impregnate one of our cows today. I drove a big nail into the

two-by-four over the cow’s stall. You show him where it is.”

The farmer leaves, and a while later, the artificial insemination

man arrives. Amy takes him down the rows of cows until she

sees the nail.

She says, “This is the one, right here.”

The man says, “How do you know?”

Amy says, “By the nail over its stall.”

The man says, “What’s the nail for?”

Amy says, “I guess it’s to hang your pants on.”

(name withheld) Minnetonka, MN 55345

Superior Health Insurance ATTN: Claims Review 1423 W. 90th St. New York, NY 05016

Dear Sir:

This letter is in response to your recent letter requesting a more detailed explanation concerning my recent internment at Methodist Hospital. Specifically, you asked for an expansion in reference to Block 21(a)(3) of the claim form (reason for hospital visit). On the original form, I put “Stupidity”. I realize now that this answer was somewhat vague and so I will attempt to more fully explain the circumstances leading up to my hospitalization.

I had needed to use the restroom and had just finished a quick bite to eat at the local burger joint. I entered the bathroom, took care of my business, and just prior to the moment in which I had planned to raise my trousers, the locked case that prevents theft of the toilet paper in such places came undone and, feeling it striking my knee, unthinkingly, I immediately, and with unnecessary force, returned the lid back to its normal position.

Unfortunately, as I did this I also turned and certain parts of my body, which were still exposed, were trapped between the device’s lid and its main body. Feeling such intense and immediate pain caused me to jump back. It quickly came to my attention that, when one’s privates are firmly attached to an immovable object, it is not a good idea to jump in the opposite direction.

Upon recovering some of my senses, I attempted to reopen the lid. However, my slamming of it had been sufficient to allow the locking mechanism to engage. I then proceeded to get a hold on my pants and subsequently removed my keys from them. I intended to try to force the lock of the device open with one of my keys; thus extracting myself.

Unfortunately, when I attempted this, my key broke in the lock. Embarrassment of someone seeing me in this unique position became a minor concern, and I began to call for help in as much of a calm and rational manner as I could. An employee from the restaurant quickly arrived and decided that this was a problem requiring the attention of the store manager.

Betty, the manager, came quickly. She attempted to unlock the device with her keys. Since I had broken my key off in the device, she could not get her key in. Seeing no other solution, she called the EMS (as indicated on your form in block 21(b)(1)).

After approximately 15 minutes, the EMS arrived, along with two police officers, a fire-rescue squad, and the channel 4 ”On-the-Spot” news team. The guys from the fire department quickly took charge as this was obviously a rescue operation. The senior member of the team discovered that the device was attached with bolts to the cement wall that could only be reached once the device was unlocked. (His discovery was by means of tearing apart the device located in the stall next to the one that I was in. (Since the value of the property destroyed in his examination was less than $50 (my deductible) I did not include it in my claim.) His partner, who seemed like an intelligent fellow at the time, came up with the idea of cutting the device from the wall with the propane torch that was in the rescue truck.

The fireman went to his truck, retrieved the torch, and commenced to attempt to cut the device from the wall. Had I been in a state to think of such things, I might have realized that in cutting the device from the wall several things would also inevitably happen. First, the air inside of the device would quickly heat up, causing items inside the device to suffer the same effects that are normally achieved by placing things in an oven. Second, the metal in the device is a good conductor of heat causing items that are in contact with the device to react as if thrown into a hot skillet. And, third, molten metal would shower the inside of the device as the torch cut through.

The one bright note of the propane torch was that it did manage to cut, in the brief time that I allowed them to use it, a hole big enough for a small pry bar to be placed inside of the device. The EMS team then loaded me, along with the device, into the waiting ambulance as stated on your form.

Due the small area of your block 21(a)(3), I was unable to give a full explanation of these events, and thus used the word which I thought best described my actions that led to my hospitalization.

Sincerely, (name withheld)

A redneck wanted to learn how to sky dive. He got an instructor and started lessons. The instructor told the redneck to jump out of the plane and pull his rip cord. The instructor then explained that he himself would jump out right behind him so that they would go down together. The redneck understood and was ready.

The time came to have the redneck jump from the air plane. The instructor reminded the redneck that he would be right behind him. The redneck proceeded to jump from the plane and after being in the air for a few seconds pulled the rip cord. The instructor followed by jumping from the plane. The instructor pulled his rip cord but the parachute did not open. The instructor, frantically trying to get his parachute open, darted past the redneck.

The redneck, seeing this, yelled as he undid the straps to his parachute, “So you wanna race, eh?”

A man who had spent his whole life in the desert visited a friend. He’d never seen a train or the tracks they run on. While standing in the middle of the railroad tracks, he heard a whistle, but didn’t know what it was. Predictably, he was hit and thrown to the side of the tracks, with some internal injuries, a few broken bones, and some bruises.

After months in the hospital recovering, he was at his friend’s house attending a party. While in the kitchen, he suddenly heard the tea kettle whistling. He grabbed a baseball bat from the nearby closet and bashed the tea kettle into an unrecognizable lump of metal. His friend, hearing the ruckus, rushed into the kitchen, saw what had happened, and asked the desert man, “Why’d you ruin my good tea kettle?”

The desert man replied, “Man, you gotta kill these things when they’re small.”