Deep Thoughts, by Jack Handey

If you go parachuting, and your parachute doesn't open, and your friends are all watching you fall, I think a funny gag would be to pretend you were swimming.

If you ever fall off the Sears Tower, just go real limp, because maybe you'll look like a dummy and people will try to catch you because, hey, free dummy. Sometimes you have to be careful when selecting a new nickname for yourself. For instance, let's say you have chosen the nickname "Fly Head". Normally, you would think that "Fly Head" would mean a person who had beautiful swept-back features, as if flying though the air. But think again. Couldn't it also mean "having a head like a fly"? I'm afraid some people might actually think that.

If you ever feel like you're on the verge of a nervous breakdown, just follow these simple rules: First, calm down; second, come over and wash my car; third, shine all my shoes. There, isn't that better?

You know what would make a good story? Something about a clown who makes people happy, but inside he's real sad. Also, he has severe diarrhea.

Dad always thought laughter was the best medicine, which I guess is why several of us died of tuberculosis.

It's probably not a good idea to be chewing on a toothpick if you're talking to the president, because what if he tells a funny joke and you laugh so hard you spit the toothpick out and it hits him in the face or something.

When this girl at the museum asked me who I liked better, Monet or Manet, I said, "I like mayonnaise." She just stared at me, so I said it again, louder. Then she left. I guess she went to try to find some mayonnaise for me. Just as bees will swarm about to protect their nest, so will I "swarm about" to protect my nest of chocolate eggs.

The face of a child can say it all, especially the mouth part of the face. If you wear a toupee, why not let your friends try it on for a while? Come on, we're not going to hurt it.

Why do the caterpillar and the ant have to be enemies? One eats leaves, and the other eats caterpillars. Oh, I see now.

If a kid asks where rain comes from, I think a cute thing to tell him is "God is crying." And if he asks why God is crying, another cute thing to tell him is "Probably because of something you did."

I bet one legend that keeps recurring throughout history, in every culture, is the story of Popeye.

There should be a detective show called "Johnny Monkey," because every week you could have a guy say "I ain't gonna get caught by no MONKEY," but then he would, and I don't think I'd ever get tired of that. I think a cute movie idea would be about a parrot who is raised by eagles. It would be cute because the parrot can't seem to act like an eagle. After a while, though, to keep the movie from getting boring, maybe put in some pornography. Later, we see the happy parrot flying along, acting like an eagle. He see two parrots below and starts to attack, but it's his parents. Then, some more pornography.

Today I accidentally stepped on a snail on the sidewalk in front of our house. And I thought, I too am like that snail. I build a defensive wall around myself, a "shell" if you will. But my shell isn't made out of a hard, protective substance. Mine is made out of tinfoil and paper bags.

I think somebody should come up with a way to breed a very large shrimp. That way, you could ride him, then after you camped at night, you could eat him. How about it, science?

Whenever I see an old lady slip and fall on a wet sidewalk, my first instinct is to laugh. But then I think, what if I was an ant, and she fell on me. Then it wouldn't seem quite so funny.

I bet a fun thing would be to go way back in time to where there was going to be an eclipse and tell the cave men, "If I have come to destroy you, may the sun be blotted out from the sky." Just then the eclipse would start, and they'd probably try to kill you or something, but then you could explain about the rotation of the moon and all, and everyone would get a good laugh.

I don't think I'm ever more "aware" than I am right after I hit my thumb with a hammer.

Worship the potato? The idea seemed silly to me. But then I thought, what else is more deserving of worship? It's simple, it comes from the earth, and it can kill you if you disobey it.

Sometimes when I feel like killing someone, I do a little trick to calm myself down. I'll go over to the person's house and ring the doorbell. When the person comes to the door, I'm gone, but you know what I've left on the porch? A jack-o'-lantern with a knife in the side of its head with a note that says "You." After that, I usually feel a lot better, and no harm done.

In weightlifting, I don't think sudden, uncontrolled urination should automatically disqualify you.

I bet a funny thing about driving a car off a cliff is, while you're in midair, you still hit those brakes! Hey, better try the emergency brake!

When you go for a job interview, I think a good thing to ask is if they ever press charges.

If I lived back in the Wild West days, instead of carrying a six-gun in my holster, I'd carry a soldering iron. That way, if some smart-aleck cowboy said something like, "Hey look. He's carrying a soldering iron!" and started laughing, and everybody else started laughing, I could just say, "That's right, it's a soldering iron. The soldering iron of justice." Then everybody would get real quiet and ashamed, because they made fun of the soldering iron of justice, and I could probably hit them up for a free drink.

If you saw two guys named Hambone and Flippy, which one would you think liked dolphins the most? I'd say Flippy, wouldn't you? You'd be wrong though. It's Hambone.

I wish I could shrink down to the size of an ant. And maybe there would be thousands of other people shrunken down to ant-size, and we would get together and dig tunnels down into the ground and live there. But don't ever call us "ants," because we hate that.

Laurie got offended that I used the word "puke." But to me, that's what her dinner tasted like.

If I come back as a horsefly, I think my favorite thing would be to land on someone's lip. Even if they smash you, ick!, you're all over their lip!

Here's a good tip for when you go to the beach: A sand dollar may look like a nice cracker that someone left, but trust me, they don't taste like it.

I think a good scene in a movie would be where one scientist tells another scientist, "You know what will save the world? You're holding it in your hand." And the other scientist looks, and in his hand are peanuts. Then when he looks up, the first scientist is being taken away to the insane asylum.

Maybe in order to understand mankind, we have to look at the word itself. Mankind. Basically, it's made up of two separate words---"mank" and "ind". What do these words mean? It's a mystery, and that's why so is mankind.

Probably the earliest flyswatters were nothing more than some sort of striking surface attached to the end of a long stick.

As the evening sun faded from a salmon color to a sort of flint gray, I thought back to the salmon I caught that morning, and how gray he was, and how I named him Flint.

Like jewels in a crown, the precious stones glittered in the queen's round metal hat.

I'm not afraid of insects taking over the world, and you know why? It would take about a billion ants just to AIM a gun at me, let alone fire it. And you know what I'm doing while they're aiming it at me? I just sort of slip off to the side, and then suddenly run up and kick the gun out of their hands.

It makes me mad when I go to all the trouble of having Marta cook up about a hundred drumsticks, then the guy at the Marineland says, "You can't throw chicken to the dolphins. They eat fish." Sure they eat fish, if that's all you give them. Man, wise up.

One thing kids like is to be tricked. For instance, I was going to take my little nephew to Disneyland, but instead I drove him to an old burned-out warehouse. "Oh, no," I said, "Disneyland burned down." He cried and cried, but I think that deep down, he thought it was a pretty good joke. I started to drive over to the real Disneyland, but it was getting pretty late.

To me, boxing is like a ballet, except there's no music, no choreography, and the dancers hit each other.

As I bit into the nectarine, it had a crisp juiciness about it that was very pleasurable---until I realized it wasn't a nectarine at all, but A HUMAN HEAD!!

I wish my name was Todd, because then I could say, "Yes, my name's Todd. Todd Blankenship." Oh, also I wish my last name was Blankenship.

If you're robbing a bank, and your pants suddenly fall down, I think it's okay to laugh, and to let the hostages laugh too, because come on, life is funny.

When I found the skull in the woods, the first thing I did was call the police. But then I got curious about it. I picked it up, and started wondering who this person was, and why he had deer horns.

I wish I had a dollar for every time I spent a dollar, because then, yahoo!, I'd have all my money back.

I think a good novel would be where a bunch of men on a ship are looking for a whale. They look and look, but you know what? They never find him. And you know why they never find him? It doesn't say. The book leaves it up to you, the reader, to decide. Then, at the very end, there's a page you can lick and it tastes like Kool-Aid.

I guess of all my uncles, I liked Uncle Cave Man the best. We called him Uncle Cave Man because he lived in a cave and because sometimes he'd eat one of us. Later on we found out he was a bear.


 

Oneray | Bjork | Random | Collection | Resume | yak

lily@rupture.net
File /~oneray/random/deepthoughts.shtml
was last updated : 06:30 PM 03/23/01