Collage 215               H u m o u r N e t               12 FEB 96

Wow. Things have been just wild lately.

*Many* thanks to all of you who have taken the time to let me know
that you agree with the tack I have taken in handling the "mad-dog
listproc" problem. Interestingly, the listproc situation (and the
approach taken in attempting to resolve it) might end up in a book
about the Internet, according to an e-mail I received today from one
of our subscribers. Hopefully, the account won't appear in the
"Don't" column ... :-)

Although I have a pretty clear idea of how I plan to handle such
situations, it's good to know that at least a pretty large percentage
of the list agrees with me. (Thanks.)

And, interestingly, most of you *also* agreed with my "Women's
Attitudes" opener (Collage 212) -- even the women! Not a single
person wrote to me to challenge the statements/implications/etc. In
fact, some of the female respondents stressed the point that they
are professional, working women (Hmmmm ... does that make housewives
"unprofessional"?), and one even mentioned that she's a working
*mother*.

(Pray, are you all pro-choice, too?) (FYI, yes, I have gone there --
albeit briefly -- and you can read it in Collage 128.)

Perhaps the most interesting response, however, came from a member
of the 'hood ("brotherhood," that is). Ron wrote to tell me:

"We have a woman in our office (and there is another guy in my office
who subscribes to this list) to whom we gave a list of men jokes. It
was from one of the past collages, but I forget which one. There
were about 20 of them, and she was laughing out loud and faxing them
to her sister."

(I believe that Ron is referring to the "Dumb Men" jokes in
Collage 17.)

"About one week later, this other guy told a 'blonde' joke, and she
[filed] a sexual harassment complaint to the supervisor. The joke
was:

   Q: Was do you call three blondes standing in a row?
   A: A wind tunnel."

(Hardly anything that would justify a sexual harassment complaint,
eh?)

"Because of this joke, we are now forbidden to tell jokes at work!"

Now *this* is what scares me (and -- obviously -- employers, too).

"Now if the joke was 'What do you call three *men* ...,' it would
have been O.K., I guess."

Naturally. Men are the problem; women are the solution. Oh, speaking
of problems, my girlfriend, Kim -- whom I quoted in the "Women's
Attitudes" opener -- was a little miffed that I "made her out to look
like a feminist." Hardly; I merely quoted -- narrowed eyes and all.
However, for the sake of my -- er, well, to help set the record
straight, let it be known that Kim is anything but a feminist -- nor
could I put up with anyone who suffers from that particular variety
of severe insecurity. Kim, in fact, responds to feminists' criticisms
of the male use of the word "girl" (when referring to an adult woman)
with, "I am girl; hear me roar." A feminist she's not.

Ron closes with:

"I was tempted to give this woman your last collage, but I'm in
enough trouble as it is."

Nah, you wouldn't be in any more trouble, Ron. You'd be dead. (Heh,
so would I.) But, just to ensure that your death is quick and
painless, you might want to make sure that you get her *really*
angry. Try *this* joke, sent to us by Linda (who mentions that she
"wasn't the least bit offended by [my] rewrite of the IQ joke"):

<joke>

A young blonde woman had to go to the dentist.
She climbed into his chair chewing gum and
snapping her fingers -- and wearing a Walkman.

The dentist thought to himself, "Well, I'll let
her keep that on for awhile as it obviously
relaxes her."

He proceeded to examine her teeth. When it came
time to take new x-rays, however, he told her he
needed her to remove the walkman.

"NO, NO, NO," she cried, "Please don't. I really
need to keep it on."

"But, I can't continue working with that thing on
your head," replied the dentist.

"Oh, you must find a way," she said. "I really
have to have it."

The dentist was losing his patience, and snarled
through clenched teeth, "You take this thing off!"
He snatched the walkman from her head, flung it
to his assistant, and continued working.

His patient sat straight and still. Then, a few
minutes later, she suddenly, without warning, just
slumped in the chair, her head rolling to one
side, not breathing. Dead.

"What!" thought the dentist. "What have I done?
What has gone wrong?" He checked his needles, and
his pastes, and his gas, and his instruments. All
in order.

"What possibly could have happened? A heart
attack in one so young? An allergy?"

Then, he spotted her walkman, picked it up, put on
the headphones, and heard, "Breathe in ... breathe
out ..."

</joke>

Go for it, Ron -- I'm sure she'll *love* it.

And, to give you an idea of just how pervasive the problem is, Perri
(a girl (heh heh) who works with me) contributes this one from the
"U.S. News & World Report," February 12, 1996:

"Members of 'EAT ME,' a group of student food cranks at Williams
College, gagged themselves with duct tape and spent hours locked
inside a College display case to demonstrate that women are 'silenced
objects of display in a patriarchal society.'"

Too bad the display case wasn't hermetically sealed. :-)

But don't panic just yet -- it gets worse ...

"The group also decried 'supposedly correct punctuation and
supposedly correct capitalization' as ways of 'trying to control
women that lead directly to their subjugation.' Besides that, they
say, capitalizing the first letter of a written sentence unfairly
prioritizes that letter at the expense of the other underprivileged
letters that follow."

Sorry, girls -- the F's you received in English 100 still stand. Nice
try, though. Many of us guys especially liked that "gagging" thing.
Too bad you didn't leave them on.

Right now, I have the feeling that a lot of the women on this list
are saying, "Hey! They're the minority, and they're making the rest
of us look bad!" Well, perhaps. But I've yet to see a woman walk up
to some gagged chick in a cabinet and say, "Excuse me, but you're
ruining it for the rest of us, you dumb b*tch."

Try it. Tell'em I sent you.

Oh, and tell'em Dominick, Chris, Sergio, Shawn, and Michael sent
you, too. They are presenting our rebuttal to the female-perspective
humor in Collage 212. (I know I promised this one last week, but the
listproc excitement has just been too much fun for me.)

Dominick (who -- upon finding out that these pieces were finally going
into a Collage -- is "taking cover") sends us "Bad Ideas, Masculine
Version, Take One" *and* "Bad Ideas ... Take Two."

Chris sends us "Marriage Humor" from Humor-L.

Sergio provides "A Decade of Peace and Quiet." (I could really go for
that, Sergio.)

Shawn takes credit for "More Thoughts on Marriage."

And finally, Michael contributes the "Sleeping With The Enemy" piece.

*Many* thanks to the contributors. And an *extra* huge thanks to
everyone on the list for your patience with the current listproc
problems. My apologies for the inconveniences we've had -- hopefully,
we'll get this straightened out soon.

Enjoy!

- Vince Sabio
  HumourNet Moderator
  HumourNet@telephonet.com
____________________________________________________________________
          Opener (above) Copyright 1996 by Vincent Sabio
  Permission is hereby granted to forward or post this "Collage";
  please observe the guidelines stated at the end of the message.
____________________________________________________________________

SUBJ: Bad Ideas, Masculine Version, Take One

A woman is lying in bed, asleep at 3:00 in the morning, when her
husband comes in, drunk.

He staggers up to the bedroom and his wife angrily says, "I'm sick
of your behavior -- I'll fix you."

"How's that?" he says.

"I'll cut off your sex life." she retorts.

"How you gonna do that?" he says, "You don't even know her name."

========================[ H U M O U R N E T ]=======================

SUBJ: Bad Ideas, Masculine Version, Take Two

The same husband comes home from work and finds his wife packing her
clothes ...

"What are you doing?" he asks.

"I'm packing my clothes," she replies.

"I can see that, but why are you packing your clothes?" he says.

"Because I'm leaving you," she says.

"Where are you gonna go?" he asks.

"I'm going to Las Vegas," she replies.

"Las Vegas, why Las Vegas?" he inquires, a little puzzled.

"Well I found out what I've been *giving* you all these years, I can
get $400 a shot for in Las Vegas," she retorts.

The husband, in a rather determined fashion, begins to pack his
clothes also.

"What are you doing?" she asks.

"I'm packing my clothes," he replies.

"I can see that, but why are *you* packing your clothes?" she says.

"Because I'm going with you," he says.

"Going *with* me? Why are you going with me?" she asks.

"I want to see how you're going to live on $800 a year."

========================[ H U M O U R N E T ]=======================

SUBJ: Marriage Humor

Many a man owes his success to his first wife and his second wife to
his success.
- Jim Backus

I recently read that love is entirely a matter of chemistry. That
must be why my wife treats me like toxic waste.
- David Bissonette

I've sometimes thought of marrying, and then I've thought again.
- Noel Coward, 1956

A man is incomplete until he is married. After that, he is finished.
- G.B. Shaw

I'm an excellent housekeeper. Every time I get a divorce, I keep
the house.
- Zsa Zsa Gabor

When a man steals your wife, there is no better revenge than to let
him keep her.
- Sacha Guitry

Marriage is like pi -- natural, irrational, and very important.
- Lisa Hoffman

She's a lovely person. She deserves a good husband. Marry her
before she finds one.
- Oscar Levant to Harpo Marx upon meeting Harpo's fiancee

Eighty percent of married men cheat in America. The rest cheat in
Europe.
- Jackie Mason

Marriage is like a cage; one sees the birds outside desperate to get
in, and those inside desperate to get out.
- Montaigne

After marriage, husband and wife become two sides of a coin; they
can't face each other, but still they stay together.
- Hemant Joshi

By all means marry. If you get a good wife, you'll be happy. If
you get a bad one, you'll become a philosopher ... and that is a good
thing for any man.
- Socrates

A successful man is one who makes more money than his wife can
spend. A successful woman is one who can find such a man.
- Lana Turner

Marriage is a great institution--but I'm not ready for an
institution.
- Mae West

========================[ H U M O U R N E T ]=======================

SUBJ: A Decade of Peace and Quiet

A man is boasting to his friends that he is taking his wife to Rome
for their 40th wedding anniversary.

"What will you do for your 50th?" one of them asks.

"I'll go and get her."

========================[ H U M O U R N E T ]=======================

SUBJ: More Thoughts on Marriage

Getting married is very much like going to a continental
restaurant with friends. You order what you want, then when you
see what the other fellow has, you wish you had ordered that.

At the cocktail party, one woman said to another, "Aren't you
wearing your wedding ring on the wrong finger?" The other
replied, "Yes I am -- I married the wrong man."

Marriage is an institution in which a man loses his bachelor's
degree and the woman gets her master's.

A little boy asked his father, "Daddy, how much does it cost to
get married?" And the father replied, "I don't know, son, I'm
still paying for it."

Young Son: Is it true, Dad, I heard that in some parts of
Africa a man doesn't know his wife until he marries her?
Dad: That happens in most countries, son.

Then there was a man who said, "I never knew what real
happiness was until I got married; and then it was too late.

A happy marriage is a matter of give and take; the husband
gives and the wife takes.

When a newly married man looks happy we know why. But when a
ten-year married man looks happy, we wonder why.

Married life is very frustrating. In the first year of
marriage, the man speaks and the woman listens. In the second
year, the woman speaks and the man listens. In the third year,
they both speak and the neighbors listen.

After a quarrel, a wife said to her husband, "You know, I was
a fool when I married you." And the husband replied, "Yes,
dear, but I was in love and didn't notice it."

It doesn't matter how often a married man changes his job, he
still ends up with the same boss.

A man inserted an 'ad' in the classifieds: "Wife wanted." Next
day he received a hundred letters. They all said the same
thing: "You can have mine."

When a man opens the car door for his wife, you can be
sure of one thing: either the car is new or the wife.

A perfect wife is one who helps the husband with the dishes.

A woman was telling her friend , "It is I who made my husband a
millionaire." "And what was he before you married him?" Asked
the friend. The woman replied, " A multi-millionaire."

========================[ H U M O U R N E T ]=======================

SUBJ: Sleeping With The Enemy

A gentleman (?) and his wife are speeding down the highway when a
state trooper pulls them over.

"I'm sorry, sir, but I clocked you speeding at 75 mph. I'll have to
give you a ticket."

"No way, officer," says the guy, "I was watching my speedometer
closely, and I never exceeded 55 mph."

"Oh, honey," says the wife, "you were going 75, I saw the
speedometer."

"Be quiet, woman," he responds.

"Also," continued the trooper, "I'll have to give you a ticket for
not wearing your seat belt."

"But officer," he responded, "I ALWAYS waer my seat belt. I just
took it off when you pulled me over so that I could get my license
and insurance card from the glove compartment."

"Oh, honey," his wife continued, "you never wear your seat belt, and
you weren't wearing it today, either."

"Shut up!" he yelled.

"Excuse me, ma'am," said the trooper, "But does he always talk to
you this way?"

"No, sir -- only when he's drunk."

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