I made a joke once.

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I taught "Gifted" students for about 8 months for the Maury County (TN) School District.  At the beginning of the year we had a multi-school staff meeting that was attended by myself and about 30 women.

My boss was named "Charlene" pronounced "CHAR-LEEN" (she was named after her father.)  At each of our places at out tables was a little candy bag tied with a dainty (and beautiful) ribbon.  Charlene was a very proper Southern Lady.  She was very formal and things needed to be done in a proper Southern way.  We all understood how things were supposed to go and we all accepted our roles, even though it made for a super-boring meeting.

On our lace candy bag ribbons were beautifully written (in calligraphy no less) inspirational sayings.  Charlene would call on someone in the meeting occasionally to read the inspirational messags and everyone would quietly nod or say to the person next to them, "Oh yes,,,so true, so true...lovely, simply lovely...blesses my heart..."  They were things like, "Children are God's blessings for the future" and "I believe that for every drop of rain, a flower grows"...lame stuff like that. I don't do well in meetings anyway.

So it came to be my turn.  "Mr. Geil, Why don't you read your ribbon? OK?"  So I awkwardly stood before the 30 women, all sitting at the edge of their seats, waiting for the wisdom to..spew.

I looked at the ribbon. Read it to myself.  Shuffled on my feet uncomfortably.  Looked up at the crowd, shrugged, and stated this proverb:

"I'd rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy."

I grinned (or shall I say sha-grinned) and sat down.

Everyone slowly turned toward Charlene with quizzical looks and grins (some of the less sophisticated chuckled.) She turned a bright shade of red and started laughing uncomfortably. "Ho ho ho it doesn't say that, no it doesn't say that at all." she kept repeating.  I handed my ribbon to the woman next to me as if to say, "See?"  She never let on that it actually said something like, "Children are wet cement" (or something like that.)

That made the meeting better for like...5 minutes.

chris