June 29, 2005

Stories that make me laugh every time. Vol. 1

I'm a person who likes to tell stories--not stories that are lies, but stories of events that really happened. My favorite stories to tell are funny stories. So, I'm going to share with you some of the best stories I've collected over the years and find almost any reason to tell them to someone who hasn't yet heard them.

Try It On Your Neck
Several years ago, when my sister and her family still lived in Madison, Wis., her husband's cousin was living with them. His name is David and he was staying with them while taking pre-med courses at the University of Wisconsin, or something like that. Anyway, while David was living with my sister's family, my sister acquired a dog: a black labrador retriever they named Finley. My sister's house in Madison was kind of in the boonies on top of a hill, so she bought an invisible electric fence to keep Finley close to the house. If you don't know, an invisible electric fence is basically a system that keeps the animal within specified boundaries through the use on an electronic collar that administers electric shock when the animal crosses the line. So, through conditioning, the animal learns to stay within a certain area.

When my sister first bought the system, she wanted to test it out, so she asked David to put the dog collar on his wrist so she could see how much of a shock the collar actually gave. David obliged and wrapped the collar around his wrist. My sister pressed the button on the remote and Dave responded that it wasn't really that big of a shock and he didn't believe it would be enough to deter Finley from crossing the lines. In her brillance, my sister asked David to put the collar around his neck since that's where Finley would be wearing it.

"Maybe it will feel different on your neck," she explained to David.

"OK, sure," David agreed.

So David put the collar on his neck and my sister zapped him with the remote. The shock caused him to be thrown halfway across the kitchen, which is where they were testing the device. So, it would seem my sister's reasoning was accurate and putting it around the neck did, indeed, make a difference. The invisible fence ended up doing the job quite well with Finley...and Dave.

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