Max Banner

Here's an old joke for you. What's black and white and red all over? Give up? “Plague of the North, they shall devour human flesh and snakes, women and little children.”

I once watched William Faulkner's second cousin play underwater table tennis against Aunt Jemima's neighbor. I won fifty bucks when Faulkner's cousin swallowed the ball by mistake and ended up in the hospital.

Back then, fisticuffs didn't actually mean you hit the other guy – it was really a mustache contest. You'd stand there with your arms outstretched so your mustache would twirl better, which was what the judges were looking for.

If you have trouble showing your emotions, there's a “why” or “Y” to explain you (or “whyou” as we're supposed to spell it now). Same if you have a bad temper, or withhold love from your kids, or have a compulsion to fall off moving buses while singing the theme to the Partridge Family.

One of the fish was a delinquent and just wanted to mess with everybody. He would always turn his back during story hour, or swim away from the class so he could challenge the angel fish in the next tank to fights.