From the Rock Cats article:

Martin remains single, quipping that "you can only hide this many cats for so long." She shares her modest, two-story home in Chicago's Avondale neighborhood with 20 cats, four raccoons, three groundhogs, five chickens, two kinkajous, a Chinese bear cat, one African serval, two chinchillas, one hedgehog and an alligator named Arnold Schwarzen-gator who, in the winter, lives in her basement. (Yes, she's licensed.)

I love cheesy pet names.

Exactly, Sue!!! On Chicago Bob's first visit here I told him that joke while we were walking around my neighborhood leading us to now always call a certain alley FUCK YOU, CLOWN Alley.

I always wish I could remember the "gesture debate" joke I knew in high school. It was religious.

My Sister tells it (or one very like it). Let me see if I can remember...

Next door to the great big Vatican there's a tiny little synagogue. This just looks bad. So one day the Pope goes over to ask them to leave.

Unfotunately, the Pople and the Rabbi don't speak the same language. The Pope feels, however, that he will be able to make his feelings known. He sets off for the synagogue. Half an hour later he returns looking defeated.

"What happened?" Asked one of the Cardinals?

"He is a great theologian, I cannot defeat him intellectually. They stay.

When I walked in I said "God is everywhere" (Raise your hand above your head and wave in a circle)

He replied "God is right here" (hold one palm horizontal to the ground, point into it with other hand)

Then I held up three fingers to indicate the holy trinity (hold up three fingers, palm facing self)

He held up one finger to say, "but there is only one god" (hold up middle finger)

I crossed myself in order to say "Jesus died for our sins" (cross yourself)

Then he took a bite of his apple as if to say "But we are all subject to original sin."

Everyone agreed, the Rabbi had a compelling argument and the matter was best dropped.

Meanwhile across the street, the Rabbi went back to his office and everyone was all, "What happened? What happend?"

The Rabbi replied: (and this is in a "tough" vaguely Brooklyn accent) "He said 'Get outta heah' (Raise your hand above your head and wave in a circle) I said 'I'm stayin' right heah' (hold one palm horizontal to the ground, point into it with other hand) He said, 'Ya got THREE DAYS" (hold up three fingers, palm facing self) I said, 'Fuck you' (hold up middle finger) Then he made some funny gesture (cross self) I took a bita my lunch (bite apple) an' he LEFT."

That is totally almost exactly it! I feel better now.

Lisa, that was my friend Jamie's signature joke in HS. It was a very very drawn out affair when he did it right.

That is totally almost exactly it! I feel better now.

Oh thank GOODNESS. Remembering and typing that thing was a bee-yotch.

Aroused elephant tops list of bizarre holiday grievances

One envious holidaymaker complained that his friend’s three-bedroom apartment was “clearly bigger” than his one-bedroom place, while others could not hide their frustration that it took them nine hours to fly back to England from Jamaica when it only took the American travellers a mere three hours to get home.

More complaints:

"No-one told us there would be fish in the sea. The children were startled."

"The brochure stated: 'No hairdressers at the accommodation'. We're trainee hairdressers - will we be OK staying here?"

"There are too many Spanish people. The receptionist speaks Spanish. The food is Spanish. Too many foreigners."

"We found the sand was not like the sand in the brochure. Your brochure shows the sand as yellow but it was white."

"I was bitten by a mosquito - no-one said they could bite."

"On my holiday to Goa in India, I was disgusted to find that almost every restaurant served curry. I don't like spicy food at all."

I Left My Harp in Sam Clam's Disco

I grew up in a town that was mostly populated by the descendants of Polish immigrants. One of them told me this joke.

A Polish man is walking down the road and he finds a bottle. When he opens the bottle, a genie popped out. "Thank you, kind sir! You've released me from a thousand years' captivity, so I'll give you three wishes!" The man thinks for a moment and then says, "I want to see all the soldiers in China march here and attack Poland and then go home!" The genie's confused, but he's a genie of his word, so the Chinese soldiers march over, attack Poland, and then go home. It's terrible and messy, but when the dust settles the genie finds the man and asks for his second wish. The man smiles and says, "I want the same thing to happen again!" Strange are the ways of humans, thinks the genie, but he goes and works his magic. War, death, and all the attendant horrors occur for the second time. The genie comes back to the man and asks, with a bit of trepidation, "What is your third wish?" "Oh, that's easy," says the man. "I want the same thing to happen for a third time." So once more the genie does his thing. A while later, curiosity gets the better of the genie, and he asks the man, why he'd made such a strange wish, much less three times. "Simple," said the man. Every time the Chinese army attacked here, they went through Russia twice."

Calli, that's brilliant.