And Now For Something Stupid

Izzy! Izzy, everyone's favorite Olympic mascot, officially welcomes you to the And Now For Something Stupid Archives. Join us as we celebrate stupidity. And Now For Something Stupid is a regular feature of Joe Lavin's Humor Column published every Tuesday and Friday. To subscribe to the column, send me mail at joelavin@sure.net or fill out the form at the web site. And now without further ado, the stupid stuff.

At college, I worked for the film society where I was once asked, "Excuse me, what time is the midnight movie?"

I found this quote last year in CMJ New Music Monthly:

"Uh, what movies was he in?" -- Pamela Anderson at the Cannes Film Festival , responding to the question, "Do you read Kierkegaard?"

Ah, poor Pamela.

On Daily Variety's Movies in Production Page, there was a recent listing for a future movie entitled, Postal Worker. The entry read, "Postal Worker. Now shooting in New Mexico..."

From Friendly's, the slowest restaurant on the planet:

A waitress explaining why my burger was taking a half hour to be served: "I'm sorry. Your burger's gonna take a little longer. The computer was down."

Anybody need any dirt? Apparently, they've got some in Radford, Virginia. Thanks to the lovely Jennifer Owings for sending me this picture.

A woman I met from Nebraska: "You know, I really like Mariah Carey. She's like my idol. I mean, she's probably like the best artist of the nineties. No, not the nineties! The latter half of the twentieth century."

Later in the conversation, she also explained that her grandparents had come to America on the Mayflower.

My roommate works for Disney and was trying to give out the Disney mailing address to a government employee on the phone.

"Okay. You should address it to the Walt Disney Company."

"What?"

"The Walt Disney Company."

"Wall?"

"The Walt Disney Company."

"Um, could you spell it?"

Why doesn't it surprise me that this was a government employee?

Sam Perkins of the Seattle Supersonics explaining how his team would rebound from a 35 point loss: "We just have to maintain our consistency."

Legendary New York Yankees broadcaster Phil Rizzuto: "With this eye of mine, a normal human being would be in the hospital. I've had four specialists work on my foot .... Not my foot. My eye."

From my job in the admissions office of a law school:

An Accepted Law Student: "Um, I accepted a spot in the class, but I'm not sure if I'll be able to make it. You see, I'm up in Northern California, and I have to see if I can get my car fixed. If I can't, I don't think I'll be able to make it down there, so I might have to give up my spot in your law school."

A recent letter from someone named Hoofman appealing his rejection to law school: "Please accept this version of my appeal letter(s), for the letter(s) that you received were sent accidentally in draft form. Please accept my apologies for any inconvenience's that this may bring."

Two stupid people at the law school in one day.

1. The man who kept referring to his apartment as "Number G."

2. Moments later, the woman who couldn't quite understand the concept of averages. She wanted to know the average LSAT score for our applicants. Not satisfied with my answer, she next wanted to know what the "highest average" was. And later "Could you list some scores below the average?"

The following is the first line from the personal statement of someone's law school application.

"Education is a priviledge."

This prompted the following mail from Judi:

Dear Joe Lavin,

Well, I just finished reading your column and I must admit, it was sort of weird in a funny way. But one thing that confuses me on your Tuesday column [I think it's that one], When you put out "And Now For Something Funny" I didn't quiet understand it. Law application? Education is a privilege??Goodness, if I didn't know better, I would've thought the world was coming to an end. I'm a oncoming sophomore in my high school and well, I have to admit, EDUCATION IS NOT A PRIVILEGE!! ITS A PAIN ON THE ASS!!!

An American student in London to a London resident: "Wow, you mean like when you hear Americans, you think we have an accent. That's so strange."

An exchange between two runners, who are by the way wonderful people and not at all stupid:

"You have to run the 10K race with me. It'll be great."

"I don't want to."

"Come on. You have to. They have the best All You Can Eat Buffet afterwards."

From alert surfer Cameron Dixon who had the following conversation while answering phones for the Canadian shopping channel:

"Hi, welcome to The Shopping Channel, how can I help you?"

"Um, hi. That ab machine you've got on, now, right, the one for $49.95?"

"Yes?"

"How much is that?"

"That's $49.95. Plus shipping, handling, and tax."

"Right. . . . What was the other one you had on, earlier this week?"

"Was that the Ab Sculptor?"

"Right, yeah, that one, right. How much was that one?"

"That was $89.95 plus shipping, handling, and tax."

"So this one's cheaper, right?"

In a news report on food poisoning at a fast food restaurant, a reporter asked a customer, "Do you eat there often?"

"Yes," the customer responded. "Every time I go there."

A man on the subway talking to nobody in particular:

"What stop is this? Oh, it's Jupiter. Everyone off. We're in Jupiter. . . . And the guy's best friend was a cockroach. Yeah. Imagine that! A cockroach. But, you know, she hated him so much, you know what she did? She stole his cockroach. . . . Yeah. I used to have a pet ant. But my sister hated me, so she took it. . . . I used to live in the Catskills. They read backwards there."

From reader Kevin Breti who was listening to a radio news report about the greenhouse effect when his co-worker exclaimed, "I don't know why they keep complaining about this greenhouse effect. If they know that's what's causing the problem, why don't they just stop giving people permits to build them?"

Sandra Bullock's character in The Net explaining that she has someone's e-mail address: "I have his Internet number."

Dawn visited me from London and tried to use traveler's check to pay a restaurant bill. She had an ID with her, but no passport. Because of this, the waitress asked her to print her name on the front of the traveler's check. "Really, it's for your protection." The waitress told Dawn. "Just print your full name there." And then just in case Dawn forgot her name, the waitress began reading from Dawn's ID. "That's Dawn. . . . um, Thompson."

From the British House of Commons, 10 November 1931: Proof that politicians haven't really changed that much over the years.

Lady Nancy Astor: "I should like to ask the Prime Minister whether, considering that the women did so well in the last election, he does not think that it would strengthen the National Government if he had a woman on the Front Bench."

Prime Minister J. Ramsey MacDonald: "I should be very glad not only to have one in the Administration, but half a dozen, and if my noble friend will find that there are not quite so many, or even perhaps worse than that, I, having made that statement to her and given her that assurance, am perfectly certain she will not blame me for the result."

Lady Astor: "Arising out of that answer, may I say that I cannot understand it?"

Prime Minister MacDonald: "I plead guilty. I did not mean that the Noble Lady should understand it."

Gee, can you tell I have a Master's degree in history?

Feedback from a Lemoore Union High School student: "my opinion on your stupid humor is very retarded"

My mother, bless her, is learning how to use e-mail. Her question this weekend was, "Um, so if I want you to send me e-mail, do I have to give you my password?"

I'm not sure if this is stupid or just plain weird, but this weekend in LA, you can see the film Microcosm. It's a film twenty years in the making that "stars ants, bees, ladybugs, butterflies, and snails" and "provides a unique look at entomological eroticism." Yep, bug porn. I must have missed this trend. I wonder if there's a USENET news group about it.

From reader Kwame DeRoche who was having lunch in a mall this weekend when he overheard two "obviously clueless post-teen girls," discussing roommates.

One girl exclaimed, "I wouldn't mind living with a gay guy, if they just weren't so damn anal about everything."

I was riding a bus in LA. (Wait. No. That's not the stupid part.) The bus pulled up next to an armored truck. The bus driver leaned out the window and said something to the driver of the armored truck. It turns out that the driver of the armored truck had been driving around with the keys to the truck still in the keyhole of the door.

From travel agent John Peterkin who had the following conversation with a traveler:

John: "Your flight leaves Seattle at 8:20 AM and arrives in New York at 5:35 PM with one stop en route."

Traveler: "Um, what state is Enroute in?"

Bibi from Norway sent this one in. Her friend wrote to her in a letter, "How nice that your sister had a daughter. Was it a boy or a girl?"

I once lived in the same suite with Drew, an extreme homophobe whose roommate happened to be gay. Drew never found this out, despite the fact that prominently displayed in their room was a picture of Drew's roommate and Drew's roommate's boyfriend hugging each other.

"You haven't been around much? What? Did you hook up with some chick?"

"No, Drew."

"Come on. I know you have. Is she hot? Do you have a picture of her?"

"No."

"Come on, man. Don't hold out on me."

Drew is the same person who was watching Quantum Leap and once announced, "My favorite episode was the one when Sam went back to the Civil War."

Another fan interrupted passionately, "No, man he can only travel within his own lifetime. Don't you know anything?"

"Well, yeah. The Civil War was like 1916, right?"

Another classic Drew moment: "Hey, Guys, where's Belgium?"

Rob and Maria Lorentzen found a small church with a sign that read, "No trespassing without permission."

Where would the joy in life be without stupid bank robbers? One reader wrote in with the story of a man who had no problem robbing a bank. While he was in the bank vault, he shoved a piece of paper into the lock so that when the door shut behind him he would still be able to get out. He got all>

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