• No matter how hard you try, you can't baptize cats.
• When your Mom is mad at your Dad, don't let her brush your hair.
• If your sister hits you, don't hit her back. They always catch the second person.
• Never ask your 3-year old brother to hold a tomato.
• You can't trust dogs to watch your food.
• Don't sneeze when someone is cutting your hair.
• Never hold a Dust-Buster and a cat at the same time.
• You can't hide a piece of broccoli in a glass of milk.
• Don't wear polka-dot underwear under white shorts.
• The best place to be when you're sad is Grandpa's lap.

The Four Stages Of Life:

• You believe in Santa Claus.
• You don't believe in Santa Claus.
• You are Santa Claus.
• You look like Santa Claus.

Great Truths About Life That Adults Have Learned:

• Raising teenagers is like nailing Jell-O to a tree.
• Wrinkles don't hurt.
• Families are like fudge ... mostly sweet, with a few nuts.
• Today's mighty oak is just yesterday's nut that held its ground.
• Laughing is good exercise. It's like jogging on the inside.
• Middle age is when you choose your cereal for the fiber, not the toy.

Great Truths About Growing Old

• Growing old is mandatory; growing up is optional.
• Forget the health food. I need all the preservatives I can get.
• When you fall down, you wonder what else you can do while you're down there.
• You're getting old when you get the same sensation from a rocking chair that you once got from a roller coaster.
• It's frustrating when you know all the answers, but nobody bothers to ask you the questions.
• Time may be a great healer, but it's a lousy beautician.
• Wisdom comes with age, but sometimes age comes alone.

Here Kitty

A man who absolutely hated his wife's cat decided to get rid of him one day by driving him 20 blocks from his home and leaving him at the park. As he was getting home, the cat was walking up the driveway. The next day, he decided to drive the cat 40 blocks away and the same again. Once driving back up his driveway, there was the cat! He kept taking the cat further and further and the darn cat would always beat him home. At last, he decided to drive a few miles away, turn right, then left, past the bridge, then right again and another right until he reached what he thought was a safe distance from his home and left the cat there. Hours later, the man calls home to his wife: "Jen, is the cat there?" "Yes," the wife answers, "why do you ask?" Frustrated, the man answered: "Put him on the phone; I'm lost and need directions!"

The Shepherd and the Stranger

A shepherd was tending his flock in a remote pasture when suddenly a brand-new Jeep Cherokee appeared out of a dust cloud, advanced toward him and stopped. The driver, a 24-year-old young man wearing a Brioni suit, Gucci shoes, Ray Ban sunglasses and a YSL tie, leaned out of the window and asked our shepherd, "If I can tell you exactly how many sheep you have in your flock, will you give me one?" The shepherd looked at the young guy, then at his peacefully grazing flock, and calmly answered, "Sure." The young man parked his car, whipped out his notebook computer, connected it to a cell phone, surfed to a NASA page on the Internet where he called up a GPS satellite navigation system, scanned the area, then opened up a database and some Excel spreadsheets with complex formulas. He finally printed out a 150-page report on his hi-tech miniaturized printer, turned around to our shepherd and said, "You have here exactly 1,586 sheep!" " Amazing! That's correct! Like I agreed, you can take one of my sheep," said the shepherd. The shepherd watched the man make a selection and bundle it into his Cherokee. When he was finished the shepherd said, "If I can tell you exactly what your political persuasion is, where you're from and who you work for, will you give me my sheep back?" "Okay, why not," answered the young man. "You're a Democrat from Palm Beach and you're working for Jesse Jackson," said the shepherd. "Wow! That's correct," said the young man. "How did you ever guess that?" "Easy," answered the shepherd. "Nobody called you, but you showed up here anyway. You want to be paid for providing a solution to a question for which I already knew the answer. And, you don't have any idea what you're doing because you just took my dog."

Out of the Mouths of Children

CHILD'S EYES I was driving with my three young children one warm summer evening when a woman in the convertible ahead of us stood up and waved. She was stark naked! As I was reeling from the shock, I heard my five-year-old shout from the back seat, "Mom! That lady isn't wearing a seat belt!"

TOOTHBRUSH My son Zachary, 4, came screaming out of the bathroom to tell me he'd dropped his toothbrush in the toilet. So I fished it out and threw it in the garbage. Zachary stood there thinking for a moment, then ran to my bathroom and came out with my toothbrush. He held it up and said with a charming little smile, "We better throw this one out too then, 'cause it fell in the toilet a few days ago."

TELEPHONE A woman was trying hard to get the catsup to come out of the jar. During her struggle the phone rang so she asked her four-year old daughter to answer the phone. "It's the minister, Mommy," the child said to her mother. Then she added, "Mommy can't come to the phone to talk to you right now. She's hitting the bottle."

LOCKER ROOM A little boy got lost at the YMCA and found himself in the women's locker room. When he was spotted, the room burst into shrieks, with ladies grabbing towels and running for cover. The little boy watched in amazement and then asked, "What's the matter haven't you ever seen a little boy before?"

DEATH While walking along the sidewalk in front of his church, our minister heard the intoning of a prayer that nearly made his collar wilt. Apparently, his five-year-old son and his playmates had found a dead robin. Feeling that proper burial should be performed, they had secured a small box and cotton batting, then dug a hole and made ready for the disposal of the deceased. The minister's son was chosen to say the appropriate prayers and with sonorous dignity intoned his version of what he thought his father always said: "Glory be unto the Faaaather. and unto the Sonnn..... and into the hole he gooooes."

POLICE # 1 While taking a routine vandalism report at an elementary school, I was interrupted by a little girl about six years old. Looking up and down at my uniform, she asked, "Are you a cop?" "Yes," I answered and continued writing the report. "My mother said if I ever needed help I should ask the police. Is that right?" "Yes, that's right," I told her. "Well, then," she said as she! extended her foot toward me, "would you please tie my shoe?"

POLICE # 2 It was the end of the day when I parked my police van in front of the station. As I gathered my equipment, my K-9 partner, Jake, was barking, and I saw a little boy staring in at me. "Is that a dog you got back there?" he asked. "It sure is," I replied. Puzzled, the boy looked at me and then towards the back of the van. Finally he said, "What'd he do?"

ELDERLY While working for an organization that delivers lunches to elderly shut-ins, I used to take my four-year-old daughter on my afternoon rounds. She was unfailingly intrigued by the various appliances of old age, particularly the canes, walkers and wheelchairs. One day I found her staring at a pair of false teeth soaking in a glass. As I braced myself for the inevitable barrage of questions, she merely turned and whispered, "The tooth fairy will never believe this!"

DRESS UP A little girl was watching her parents dress for a party. When she saw her dad donning his tuxedo, she warned, "Daddy, you shouldn't wear that suit." "And why not, darling?" "You know that it always gives you a headache next morning."

SCHOOL #1 A little girl had just finished her first week of school. "I'm just wasting my time," she said to her mother. ! "I can't read, I can't write and they won't let me talk!"

SCHOOL #2 On the first day of school, a first grader handed his teacher a note from his mother. The note read, "The opinions expressed by this child are not necessarily those of his parents."

An X-Files Christmas Story

Mulder: We’re too late. It’s already been here.

Scully: Mulder, I hope you know what you are doing.

Mulder: Look, Scully, just like the other homes: Douglas fir, truncated, mounted, transformed into some sort of shrine; halls decked with boughs of holly, stockings hung by the chimney, with care.

Scully: You really think someone’s been here?

Mulder: Someone . . . or some THING.

Scully: Mulder, over here – it’s fruitcake.

Mulder: Don’t touch it! Those things can be lethal.

Scully: It’s O.K. There’s a note attached: “Gonna find out who’s naughty and nice.”

Mulder: It’s judging them, Scully. It’s making a list.

Scully: Who? What are you talking about?

Mulder: Ancient mythology tells of an obese humanoid entity who could travel at great speed in a craft powered by antlered servants. Once each year, near the winter solstice, this creature is said to descend from the heavens to reward its followers and punish its disbelievers with jagged chunks of anthracite.

Scully: But that’s legend, Mulder – a story told by parents to frighten children. Surely, you don’t believe it?

Mulder: Something was here tonight, Scully. Check out the bite marks on this gingerbread man. Whatever tore through this plate of cookies was massive – and in a hurry.

Scully: It left crumbs everywhere. And look, Mulder, this milk glass has been completely drained.

Mulder: It gorged itself, Scully. It fed without remorse.

Scully: But why would they leave it milk and cookies?

Mulder: Appeasement. Tonight is the Eve, and nothing can stop its wilding.

Scully: But if this thing does exist, how did it get in? The doors and windows were locked. There’s no sign of forced entry.

Mulder: Unless I miss my guess, it came through the fireplace.

Scully: Wait a minute, Mulder. If you are saying some huge creature landed on the roof and came down the chimney, you’re crazy. The flue is barely six inches wide. Nothing could get through there.

Mulder: But what if it could alter its shape, move in all directions.

Scully: You mean, like a bowl full of jelly?

Mulder: Exactly. Scully, I’ve never told anyone this, but when I was a child my home was visited. I saw the creature. It had long white strips of fur surrounding its ruddy, misshapen head. Its bloated torso was red and white. I’ll never forget the horror. I turned away, and when I looked back it had somehow taken on the facial features of my father.

Scully: Impossible.

Mulder: I know what I saw. And that night it read my mind. It brought me a Mr. Potato Head, Scully. IT KNEW I WANTED A MR. POTATO HEAD.

Scully: I’m sorry, Mulder, but you’re asking me to disregard the laws of physics. You want me to believe in some supernatural being who soars across the skies and brings gifts to good little girls and boys. Listen to what you are saying. Do you understand the repercussions? If this gets out, they’ll close the X-files.

Mulder: Scully, listen to me: It knows when you are sleeping. It knows when you’re awake.

Scully: But we have no proof.

Mulder: Last year, on this exact date, S.E.T.I. radio telescopes detected bogeys in the airspace over twenty-seven states. The White House ordered a Condition Red.

Scully: But that was a meteor shower.

Mulder: Officially. Two days ago, eight prized Scandinavian reindeer vanished from the National Zoo in Washington, D.C. Nobody – not even the zookeeper – was told about it. The government doesn’t want people to know about Project Kringle. They fear that if this thing is proved to exist, then the public would stop spending half its annual income in a holiday shopping frenzy. Retail markets will collapse. Scully,they cannot let the world believe this creature lives. There’s too much at stake. They’ll do whatever it takes to insure another silent night.

Scully: Mulder, I –

Mulder: Sh-h-h! Do you hear what I hear?

Scully: On the roof. It sounds like . . . a clatter.

Mulder: The truth is up there. Let’s see what’s the matter.