1 旅行電話應答機/Traveling Answering Machine
In good weather, my friend Mark always let his yellow-naped Amazon parrot, Nicky, sit on the balcony of his tenth-floor apartment. One morning, Nicky flew away, much to Mark’s dismay. He searched and called for the bird, with no luck.
The next day when Mark returned from work, the phone rang. “Is this Mark?” The caller asked. “You’re going to think this is crazy, but there’s a bird outside on my balcony saying, ‘Hello, this is Mark.’ Then it recites this phone number and says, ‘I can’t come to the phone right now, but if you will leave a message at the tone, I will call you back.’”
Nicky’s cage had been kept in the same room as Mark’s answering machine.
在天氣好的時候，我的朋友馬克總是讓他的黃頸亞馬遜鸚鵡尼基坐在他的十層公寓的陽台上。一天早晨，尼基飛走了，這讓馬克感到沮喪。他找啊叫啊，但沒找到。
第二天當馬克下班回來時，電話響了。“是馬克嗎？”對方問。“你一定認為這太不靠譜了，在我的陽台外麵的一隻鳥說，’你好，我是馬克。’然後它背誦出這個電話號碼，說：’我現在不能接電話，但如果你在’滴’聲後留言，我會打給你。'”
尼基的籠子跟馬克的電話應答機放在同一個房間。
2 弄錯的蛇/Wrong Snake
When a rattlesnake got loose in the second-floor hall of the science building at my university, it created quite a furor. Fortunately, one of the professors was an expert on snakes. An agitated student ran to fetch him, urging him to come quickly, as a dangerous snake was loose, terrorizing everyone in the building.
The professor leisurely strolled out into the hall, examined the snake from head to tail, and calmly returned to his office. “It’s not one of mine,” he said, and closed the door.
當一條響尾蛇在我校的科學樓的二樓大廳溜走，它引起了一個相當的轟動。幸運的是，教授之一是蛇的專家。一個焦慮的學生跑去找他，催他趕快來，因為一個危險的蛇在逃，嚇壞了在大樓中的每一個人。
教授悠閑地踱出進入大廳，把蛇從頭到尾仔細地研究了一遍，然後冷靜地回到了他自己的辦公室。“這不是我的，”他說，並關上了門。
3 顏色問題/Color Problems
A favorite story among color-film processors concerns the negative of a poodle which a woman sent to a photo-finishing lab. When the print was made, the dog came out looking green. Figuring that there must have been a mistake in the color balance, a problem which plagues color processors, the lab tried again and again, and finally got the dog to come out a kind of improbable tan.
The woman who sent in the negative was furious when she got the picture of the tan poodle, which, she informed the lab, she had dyed green.
在彩色膠片處理器中一個喜愛故事是有關一名女子送到照片處理實驗室的獅子狗的底片。當照片出來時，狗的顏色是綠的。盤算一定有色彩平衡方麵的錯誤，一個困擾色彩處理器的問題，實驗室試了一次又一次，終於讓狗的顏色成了一種不大可能的黃褐色。
那個送來底片的女人拿到黃褐色的獅子狗的照片時大怒，她告訴該實驗室，她已經把狗染成了綠色。
4 獵犬/The Retriever
I’m a police officer and occasionally park my cruiser in residential areas to watch for speeders. One Sunday morning I was staked out in a driveway, when I saw a large dog trot up to my car. He stopped and sat just out of arm’s reach. No matter how much I tried to coax him to come for a pat on the head, he refused to budge. After a while I decided to move to another location. I pulled out of the driveway, looked back and learned the reason for the dog’s stubbornness. He quickly picked up the newspaper I had been parked on and dutifully ran back to his master.
我是一名警察，偶爾把我的巡邏車停在居民區查看超速者。一個星期天早上，我把車停在一個住戶的車道上監視時我看到一隻大狗小跑到我的車這兒。他停下來，坐在我的手臂夠不到的地方。不管我多麽想哄他過來拍拍他的頭，他無動於衷。過了一會兒，我決定換一個地方。我開出車道，回頭一看，明白狗固執的原因了。他趕緊拿起我一直停車的地方的報紙然後盡職盡責地跑回到他的主人那裏。
5 給狗的/Going to the Dogs
When our client’s dog lapped up anti-freeze, the veterinarian I work for ordered a unique treatment: an IV drip mixing fluids with vodka. “Go buy the cheapest bottle you can find,” he told me.
At the liquor store, I was uneasy buying cheap booze so early in the day, and I felt compelled to explain things to the clerk.
“Believe it or not,” I said, “this is for a sick dog.”
As I was leaving, the next customer plunked down two bottles of muscatel and announced, “These are for my cats.”
當我們的客戶的狗舔食了防凍液，我工作的獸醫定了獨特的治療：點滴混合伏特加液體。“去買你能找到的最便宜的一瓶，”他告訴我。
這麽早的時間在賣酒的商店購買便宜的酒讓我忐忑不安，我覺得有必要給營業員解釋一下。
“信不信由你，”我說，“這是為一條生病的狗買的。”
當我離開時，後麵一個顧客毫不猶豫地拿了兩瓶麝香葡萄酒，並聲明，“這是給我的貓買的。”
6 一個真正的肚子笑話/A Real Gut-Buster
A woman noticed her husband standing on the bathroom scale, sucking in his stomach. “Ha! That’s not going to help,” she said.
“Sure, it does,” he said. “It’s the only way I can see the numbers.”
一名婦女注意到她的丈夫站在浴室的秤上正在收腹。“哈！這個沒用，”她說。
“當然，這樣有用，”他說。“這是我能看到數字的唯一辦法。”
