Funny things heard on a plane

So having flown a couple of times during the past month I heard some funny stuff both from fellow passengers and stewards / stewardesses . So I thought I'd look around and try to find the funniest things people have heard from flight attendants. Here's some of the best I found:

As the plane landed and was coming to a stop at Ronald Reagan, a lone voice came over the loudspeaker: "Whoa, big fella. WHOA!"

"In the event of a sudden loss of cabin pressure, masks will descend from the ceiling. Stop screaming, grab the mask, and pull it over your face. If you have a small child traveling with you, secure your mask before assisting with theirs. If you are traveling with more than one small child, pick your favorite."

From the pilot during his welcome message: "Delta Airlines is pleased to have some of the best flight attendants in the industry. Unfortunately, none of them are on this flight!"

An airline pilot wrote that on this particular flight he had hammered his ship into the runway really hard. The airline had a policy which required the first officer to stand at the door while the Passengers exited, smile, and give them a "Thanks for flying our airline." He said that, in light of his bad landing, he had a hard time looking the passengers in the eye, thinking that someone would have a smart comment. Finally everyone had gotten off except for a little old lady walking with a cane. She said, "Sir, do you mind if I ask you a question?" "Why, no, Ma'am," said the pilot. "What is it?" The little old lady said, "Did we land, or were we shot down?"

After a real crusher of a landing in Phoenix, the attendant came on with, "Ladies and Gentlemen, please remain in your seats until Capt. Crash and the Crew have brought the aircraft to a screeching halt against the gate. And, once the tire smoke has cleared and the warning bells are silenced, we'll open the door and you can pick your way through the wreckage to the terminal."

A plane was taking off from Kennedy Airport. After it reached a comfortable cruising altitude, the captain made an announcement over the intercom, "Ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain speaking. Welcome to Flight Number 293, nonstop from New York to los Angeles. The weather ahead is good and, therefore, we should have a smooth and uneventful flight. Now sit back and relax.. OH, MY GOD!" Silence followed, and after a few minutes, the captain came back on the intercom and said, "Ladies and Gentlemen, I am so sorry if I scared you earlier. While I was talking to you, the flight attendant accidentally spilled a cup of hot coffee in my lap. You should see the front of my pants!" A passenger in Coach yelled, "That's nothing. You should see the back of mine."

A crowded United Airlines flight was canceled. A single agent was re-booking a long line of inconvenienced travelers. Suddenly an angry passenger pushed his way to the desk. He slapped his ticket down on the counter and said, "I HAVE to be on this flight and it has to be FIRST CLASS." The agent replied, "I'm sorry sir. I'll be happy to try to help you, but I've got to help these folks first, and I'm sure we'll be able to work something out." The passenger was unimpressed. He asked loudly, so that the passengers behind him could hear, "DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA WHO I AM?" Without hesitating, the agent smiled and grabbed her public address microphone. "May I have your attention please," she began her voice heard clearly throughout the terminal. "We have a passenger here at Gate 14 WHO DOES NOT KNOW WHO HE IS. If anyone can help him find his identity, please come to Gate 14."

"Hello Everyone, we have a first time flyer on board today - and it is also their 50th birthday!" After everybody cheers, the flight attendant continues, "Will everyone please wish the captain a Happy Birthday!”

So, what’s the funniest thing you have ever heard on a plane?

The clock ticks down and the end is near

No, I'm not going all "Harold Camping" on you. I'm talking about the fact that as of the next sunrise 50 will have dawned. I’m thinking I will likely wake up tomorrow and not feel much different than today when I was a mere 49.

Have you noticed that kids can’t wait to grow up? If you ask a young child how old they are, seldom do they say “6”. Instead you get something like “6 ½” or “6 ¾”. Or maybe they phrase it like this, “Well, I’m almost 7”. Thinking of kids and their desire to grow up I thought of the stages they go through. For those of us as adults, our “stages” are defined as “spills, drills, thrills, bills, ills, pills, and wills” (I think I’m officially in between the bills and ills stage).

But as kids, man we were in such a hurry to “grow up.” As children, we couldn’t wait to:
• crawl
• walk
• run
• ride a bike
• stay up late (now we long to go to bed early)
• spend the night at a friend’s house
• wear make-up (I never really longed for this one)
• find a girl friend or boyfriend
• get our driver’s license
• get a job (now we fondly think of retirement)
• have our own cell phone (anyone besides me wonder how we lived without these and at the same time want to “chuck” yours some days)
• buy a car

We still have “stages” we long for as adults though I think they are a bit more intense and costly. We long to:
• have kids
• will they ever talk?
• are they ever quiet?
• kindergarten
• retirement
• grandkids

What if we desired and looked with anticipation to our “growing up” spiritually with the same fervor we long for all of these other things?

So with 50 here, today I have reflected (as we old people like to call thinking) on the “good old days” (not really any better today but our memories are selective).

So what time period qualify as the “good old days” for you? For you maybe it was …
• The 90’s – Beanie Babies; Teenie Beanies; Grunge; and the phrase cha-ching
• The 80’s – PacMan; Rubic’s cube; Leg Warmers; and fraggle rock
• The 70’s – 8 track Tapes; platform shoes; and leisure suits (they WILL come back some day … NOT!)
• The 60’s – LP’s; troll dolls; and lava lamps
• The 50’s – (I’ve only been told and read about these days) wax coke-shaped bottles with colored sugar water inside, the 1st hula-hoops, and putting peanuts in your $.10 7 oz. glass coke bottle before you drank it
• The 40’s – party lines on your telephones; and “Big Band” music

All of us can remember some “good old days” … Days when we could spend an entire evening catching fireflies. Days when money issues were handled by whoever was the banker in "Monopoly." Days when it was not strange to have 3-4 "best" friends. Days when “old” referred to people past 30. Days when the worst thing you could catch from the opposite sex was "cooties". Days when you were finally be tall enough to ride the "big people" rides at the amusement park. Days when a foot of snow was a dream-come true. But what helped those days to be so “good” was the simple existence of “do-overs”; when a mistake could be easily corrected by simply yelling "do over".

So here’s the point in all this rambling (it’s what we old people do to entertain ourselves … ramble). The good ole days are not done! God has given us the opportunity of “do-overs”. The greatest do-over happens when someone is born-again. But even then the need for “do-overs” does not end, that is why God’s mercies are new every morning.

fun things that made me go hmmmm

So I like to collect these things I call “ponderings” … thinks that make you go “hmmmm.” I know I’m twisted a bit different than lots of folks but I find these funny to read and thought I’d share some of the best of them that I have collected through the years.

• If a robber tried to rob a dance club and yelled, "Everybody get down", would all the people start dancing?
• If Barbie is so popular, why do you have to buy her friends?
• If your named Will and you are in the army do you get worried when people say fire at will?
• When you put 'THE' and 'IRS' together, it forms 'THEIRS'. Coincidence? I think not!
• If Dracula has no reflection, why did he always have such a straight part in his hair?
• If Milli Vanilli fell in the woods, would someone else make a sound?
• Who was the first person to look at a cow and say, "I think I'll squeeze these dangly things here, and drink whatever comes out"?
• How come you press harder on a remote control when you know the battery is dead?
• Do you need a silencer if you are going to kill a mime?
• Why did kamikaze pilots wear helmets?
• Why does your nose "run" and your feet "smell"?
• Why is there an expiration date on sour cream?
• Why do banks charge a fee on "insufficient funds" when they know you don't have the money?
• Why do people keep running over a string a dozen times with their vacuum cleaner, then reach down, pick it up, examine it, then put it down to give the vacuum one more chance?
• Why do psychics have to ask you for your name? Ever notice how in the 60’s people took acid to make the world weird. Now the world is weird and the same people take Prozac to make it normal?
• Once you're in heaven, do you get stuck wearing the clothes you were buried in for eternity?
• What disease did cured ham actually have?
• If a deaf person has to go to court, is it still called a hearing?
• Why do doctors leave the room while you change? They're going to see you naked anyway!
• Why do toasters always have a setting that burns the toast to a horrible crisp, which no decent human being would eat?
• If the professor on Gilligan's Island can make a radio out of a coconut, why can't he fix a hole in a boat?
• Have you noticed since everyone has a camcorder these days no one
talks about seeing UFOs like they used to?

Final food for thought: Statistics on sanity say that one out of every four persons is suffering from some sort of mental illness. Think of your three best friends … if they're okay, then it's you.

The crisis draws ever closer

So I'm a month closer to this "crisis" than I was the last time I posted some fun stuff about age, so I thought it was time for some more humor. Someone sent this to me recently and I found it really funny. The scary part though is that I now understand it whereas at thirty I'm not sure it would have made as much sense. So here it is ... enjoy!

“When I bought my Blackberry I thought about the 30-year business I ran with 1800 employees, all without a cell phone that plays music, takes videos, pictures and communicates with Facebook and Twitter. I signed up under duress for Twitter and Facebook, so my seven kids, their spouses, 13 grandkids and 2 great grand kids could communicate with me in the modern way. I figured I could handle something as simple as Twitter with only 140 characters of space.

That was before one of my grandkids hooked me up for Tweeter, Tweetree, Twhirl, Twitterfon, Tweetie, Twittererific, Tweetdeck, Twitpix, and something that sends every message to my cell phone and every other program within the texting world.

My phone was beeping every three minutes with the details of everything except the bowel movements of the entire next generation. I am not ready to live like this. I keep my cell phone in the garage in my golf bag.

The kids bought me a GPS for my last birthday because they say I get lost every now and then going over to the grocery store or library. I keep that in a box under my tool bench with the Blue tooth [it's red] phone I am supposed to use when I drive. I wore it once and was standing in line at Barnes and Noble talking to my wife and everyone in the nearest 50 yards was glaring at me. I had to take my hearing aid out to use it, and I got a little loud.

I mean the GPS looked pretty smart on my dash board, but the lady inside that gadget was the most annoying, rudest person I had run into in a long time. Every 10 minutes, she would sarcastically say, 'Re-calc-u-lating.' You would think that she could be nicer. It was like she could barely tolerate me. She would let go with a deep sigh and then tell me to make a U-turn at the next light. Then if I made a right turn instead. Well, it was not a good relationship.

When I get really lost now, I call my wife and tell her the name of the cross streets and while she is starting to develop the same tone as Gypsy, the GPS lady, at least she loves me.

To be perfectly frank, I am still trying to learn how to use the cordless phones in our house. We have had them for 4 years, but I still haven't figured out how I can lose three phones all at once and have to run around digging under chair cushions and checking bathrooms and dirty laundry baskets when the phone rings.

The world is just getting too complex for me. They even mess me up every time I go to the grocery store. You would think they could settle on something themselves but this sudden 'Paper or Plastic?' every time I check out just knocks me for a loop. I bought some of those cloth reusable bags to avoid looking confused, but I never remember to take them in with me.

Now I toss it back to them. When they ask me, 'Paper or Plastic?' I just say, 'Doesn't matter to me. I am bi-sacksual.' Then it's their turn to stare at me with a blank look. I was recently asked if I tweet. I answered, 'No, but I do toot a lot.'”

So I, Tom, keep reminding myself that age is merely mind over matter, if I don't mind, it don't matter.