Home  >> Stories  >> The Tale Spinner #2017-43

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IN THIS ISSUE

• Ed Roberts sends an account of a lost billfold in Heroic Stories
• Catherine Nesbitt forwards the story of a burglary
• Irene Harvalias proves that some people are idiots
• Tom Telfer sends a story about ducks from Edmonton
• Shirley Conlon shares George Carlin´s masterpiece
• Jackie Stevens claims that men see things differently
• Interesting sites are suggested by Catherine Nesbitt and Tom Telfer

Ed Roberts of Texas writes that appearance is not always a reliable guide:

BEYOND THE COVER

In the late 1960s, when we lived in California, my wife went grocery shopping one payday. She had cashed both of our pay checks at the store and bought a few groceries. When she got home, she realized that she had left her billfold in the shopping cart when she put the groceries in the car.

We went back and searched, checked with lost and found, and asked several people if they had seen it. No one had. We searched all of the baskets in the parking lot. When my wife tells the story, she says that I was pretty grumpy that day.

We had moved from a trailer park into a house a few months before, and the folks who were renting the mobile home were behind on their rent. So I went there to try to talk them out of some money to get us by. It was two weeks until the next paycheck, and we were broke. But they were broke, too.

When I came out of the mobile home, I saw a young man with long hair, a knapsack, sandals, and a guitar strapped across his back. He was talking with my wife, who was sitting in the car.

Back in those days, she changed the colour of her hair about twice a month. This particular day she happened to be a blonde, which was not the colour of her hair on her driver´s license. He asked her about the colour of her hair, where we lived, where she worked, and a few personal questions. He asked why we were at the trailer park if we had moved.

This man was a stranger to me, and I was starting to get upset about his questioning when he reached inside his shirt and took out the billfold and gave it to her. He said that he wanted to make sure he gave it to the right person. We hadn´t changed the address on her driver´s license yet, so he had come to the trailer park to find her. I looked in the billfold and every cent was there.

I tried to give him a reward for the billfold. He told me that if both of us had to work, we couldn´t afford to give away any money. He told me that he didn´t need much money. I stuck some money in his shirt pocket anyway. When we got home, we found the money we had given him lying on the front seat of the car. He must have pitched it in the window before he walked away.

To this day, if I find money I do my best to find the owner. I´ve found money on several occasions and I´ve always been able to find the owners. And one more thing: I also learned to not judge a book by its cover.

ED. NOTE: To comment on this story, or to get your own free subscription to this site, click on

http://www.heroicstories.org

Catherine Nesbitt forwards this story:

A BURGLARY IN FLORIDA (You just can´t make this stuff up!)

When southern Florida resident Nathan Radlich´s house was burglarized recently, thieves ignored his wide-screen plasma TV, his VCR, and even left his Rolex watch.

What they did take, however, was a white box filled with a grayish-white powder. (That´s the way the police report described it.)

A spokesman for the Fort Lauderdale police said that it looked similar to high-grade cocaine and they´d probably thought they´d hit the big time.

Later, Nathan stood in front of numerous TV cameras and pleaded with the burglars: "Please return the cremated remains of my sister, Gertrude. She died three years ago."

The next morning, the bullet-riddled corpse of a local drug dealer known as Hoochie Pevens was found on Nathan´s doorstep. The white box was there too; about half of Gertrude´s ashes remained.

Scotch taped to the box was this note which said: "Hoochie sold us the bogus blow so we wasted Hoochie. Sorry we snorted your sister. No hard feelings. Have a nice day."

And you thought California was the land of fruits and nuts!

Irene Harvalias sends these examples of

IDIOT SIGHTINGS

I handed the teller at my bank a withdrawal slip for $400 and said, "May I have large bills, please?" She looked at me and said, "I´m sorry, sir, all the bills are the same size." When I got up off the floor I explained it to her.

When my husband and I arrived at an automobile dealership to pick up our car, we were told the keys had been locked in it. We went to the service department and found a mechanic working feverishly to unlock the driver side door. As I watched from the passenger side, I instinctively tried the door handle and discovered that it was unlocked. "Hey," I said to the technician, "it´s open!" His reply: "I know. I already got that side." This was at the Ford dealership in Canton, MS.

We had to have the garage door repaired. The Sears repairman told us that one of our problems was that we did not have a large enough motor on the opener. I thought for a minute, and said that we had the largest one Sears made at that time, a 1/2 horsepower. He shook his head and said, "Lady, you need a 1/4 horsepower." I responded that 1/2 was larger than 1/4. He said, "No, it´s not. Four is larger than two." We haven´t used Sears repair since.

My daughter and I went through the McDonald´s take-out window and I gave the clerk a $5 bill. Our total was $4.25, so I also handed her a quarter. She said, "You gave me too much money." I said, "Yes I know, but this way you can just give me a dollar bill back." She sighed and went to get the manager, who asked me to repeat my request. I did so, and he handed me back the quarter, and said, "We´re sorry, but we could not do that kind of thing." The clerk then proceeded to give me back $1.75 cents in change. Do not confuse the clerks at McD´s.

My daughter went to a local Taco Bell and ordered a taco.She asked the person behind the counter for "minimal" lettuce. He said he was sorry, but they only had iceburg lettuce.

I was at the airport, checking in at the gate, when an airport employee asked, "Has anyone put anything in your baggage without your knowledge?" To which I replied, "If it was without my knowledge, how would I know?" He smiled knowingly and nodded. "That´s why we ask."

The stoplight on the corner buzzes when it´s safe to cross the street. I was crossing with an intellectually challenged co-worker of mine. She asked if I knew what the buzzer was for. I explained that it signals blind people when the light is red. Appalled, she responded, "What on earth are blind people doing driving?" She was a probation officer in Wichita , KS.

At a good-bye luncheon for an old and dear co-worker who was leaving the company due to downsizing, our manager commented cheerfully, "This is fun. We should do this more often." Not another word was spoken. We all just looked at each other with that deer-in-the-headlights stare. This was a lunch at Texas Instruments.

I work with an individual who plugged her power strip back into itself, and for the sake of her life, couldn´t understand why her system would not turn on. She was a deputy with the Dallas County Sheriffs office.

How would you pronounce this child´s name? "Le-a" Leah? NO. "Lee-A"? NOPE. "Lay-a"? NO. "Lei"? Guess again. This child attends a school in Kansas City, Mo. Her mother is irate because everyone is getting her name wrong. It´s pronounced "Ledasha." When the mother was asked about the pronunciation of the name, she said, "The dash don´t be silent." So if you see something like this come across your desk, please remember to pronounce the dash. If dey axe you why, tell dem de dash don´t be silent.

STAY ALERT! They walk among us ... and they VOTE.

Tom Telfer forwards this true story of

A DUCK FROM EDMONTON

Something really cute happened in downtown Edmonton this spring.

Michael R. is an accounting clerk at a bank and works there in a second-story office. In the spring, he watched a mother duck choose the concrete awning outside his window as the unlikely place to build a nest above the sidewalk. The mallard laid ten eggs in a nest in the corner of the planter that is perched over 10 feet in the air. She dutifully kept the eggs warm for weeks, and one afternoon, all of her ten ducklings hatched.

Michael worried all night about how the momma duck was going to get those babies safely off their perch in a busy downtown, urban environment to take to the water, which typically happens in the first 48 hours of hatching.

Next morning, Michael watched the mother duck encourage her babies to the edge of the perch with the intent to show them how to jump off. Office work came to a standstill as everyone gathered to watch.

The mother flew down below and started quacking to her babies above. In disbelief, Michael watched as the first fuzzy newborn trustingly toddled to the edge and astonishingly leapt into thin air, crashing onto the cement below. Michael couldn´t stand to watch this risky effort nine more times! He dashed out of his office and ran down the stairs to the sidewalk where the first obedient duckling, near its mother, was resting in a stupor after the fall. Michael stood out of sight under the awning-planter, ready to help.

As the second one took the plunge, Michael jumped forward and caught it with his bare hands before it hit the concrete. Safe and sound, he set it down it by mom and the other stunned sibling, still recovering from that painful leap. (Momma must have sensed that Michael was trying to help her babies.)

One by one the babies continued to jump. Each time Michael hid under the awning just to reach out in the nick of time as the duckling made its free fall. At the scene of the busy downtown sidewalk, traffic came to a standstill. Time after time, Michael was able to catch the remaining eight and set them by their approving mother.

At this point Michael realized the duck family had only made part of its dangerous journey. They had two full blocks to walk across traffic, crosswalks, curbs and past pedestrians to get to the closest open water, the river, site of the famed "River Walk." Onlooking office secretaries and several Edmonton police officers joined in.

An empty copy-paper box was brought to collect the babies. They were gathered up with the mother´s approval, and loaded into the container. Michael held the box low enough for the mom to see her brood. He then slowly navigated through the downtown streets toward the river, while mom waddled behind and kept her babies in sight all the way.

As they reached the river, the mother took over and passed him, jumping into the river and quacking loudly. At the water´s edge, Michael tipped the box and helped shepherd the babies toward the water and to the waiting mother after their adventurous ride.

All ten darling ducklings safely made it into the water and paddled up snugly to mom. Michael said the mom swam in circles, looking back toward the beaming bank bookkeeper and proudly quacking.

And here´s the family portrait before they head on to further adventures.

Like all of us in the big times of our lives, they never could have made it without lots of helping hands. I think it gives the name of the famous River Walk a whole new meaning! Maybe you will share this story with others. It´s too good to lose!

Shirley Conlon forwards these words written in 2008:

GEORGE CARLIN´S MASTERPIECE

The paradox of our time in history is that we have taller buildings but shorter tempers, wider freeways but narrower viewpoints. We spend more, but have less; we buy more, but enjoy less. We have bigger houses and smaller families, more conveniences, but less time.

We have more degrees but less sense; more knowledge, but less judgment; more experts, yet more problems; more medicine, but less wellness.

We drink too much, smoke too much, spend too recklessly, laugh too little, drive too fast, get too angry, stay up too late, get up too tired, read too little, watch TV too much, and pray too seldom.

We have multiplied our possessions, but reduced our values.

We talk too much, love too seldom, and hate too often.

We´ve learned how to make a living, but not a life.

We´ve added years to life not life to years. We´ve been all the way to the moon and back, but have trouble crossing the street to meet a new neighbour.

We conquered outer space but not inner space.

We´ve done larger things, but not better things.

We´ve cleaned up the air, but polluted the soul.

We´ve conquered the atom, but not our prejudice.

We write more, but learn less. We plan more, but accomplish less.

We´ve learned to rush, but not to wait.

We build more computers to hold more information, to produce more copies than ever, but we communicate less and less.

These are the times of fast foods and slow digestion; big men and small character; steep profits and shallow relationships.

These are the days of two incomes but more divorce; fancier houses, but broken homes.

These are days of quick trips, disposable diapers, throwaway morality, one-night stands, overweight bodies, and pills that do everything from cheer, to quiet, to kill.

It is a time when there is much in the showroom window and nothing in the stockroom. A time when technology can bring this letter to you, and a time when you can choose either to share this insight, or to just hit delete.

Remember: spend some time with your loved ones, because they are not to be around forever.

Remember to say a kind word to someone who looks up to you in awe, because that little person soon will grow up and leave your side.

Remember to give a warm hug to the one next to you, because that is the only treasure you can give with your heart and it doesn´t cost a cent.

Remember to say, "I love you" to your partner and your loved ones, but most of all, mean it. A kiss and an embrace will mend hurt when it comes from deep inside of you.

Remember to hold hands and cherish the moment, for someday that person will not be there again.

Give time to love, give time to speak! And give time to share the precious thoughts in your mind.

And always remember: Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away.

If you don´t send this to at least eight people ... who cares?

Jackie Stevens claims that

MEN SEE THINGS DIFFERENTLY

A wife was curious when she found an old negative in a drawer, and had it made into a print.

She was pleasantly surprised to see that it was of her at a much younger, slimmer time. It was taken many years ago on one of her first dates with her husband.

When she showed him the photo, his face lit up.

"Wow, look at that!" he said with appreciation, "That´s my old Ford!"

SUGGESTED WEBSITES

Catherine Nesbitt forwards this link to wonderful photos from around the world. Click on each picture to move to the next:

Tom Telfer sends the URL for a video of partners performing awesome feats of strength and grace:

CARP Promotions explains why influenza is so hazardous to people over 65, and why we should get flu shots to help protect us from its effects. Last year there were 175,000 emergency room visits, 12,200 hospitalizations, and 3,500 flu-related deaths:

From Good News Stories, here is a link to the story of a stray dog that crashed a wedding, and later found a forever home with the newly-weds:

In this TED talk, Dr. Raj Panjabi has a bold vision to bring health care to everyone, everywhere, by modernizing how community health workers are taught:

This site makes 17 predictions about the future that read like science fiction: