Old Folks, ducks and rats
Just came across this exercise suggested for seniors, to build muscle strength in the arms and shoulders. It seems so easy, so I thought I’d pass it on to some of my younger friends. The article suggested doing it three days a week.
Begin by standing on a comfortable surface, where you have plenty of room at each side.
With a 5-lb. potato sack in each hand, extend your arms straight out from your sides, and hold them there as long as you can. Try to reach a full minute, then relax.
Each day, you’ll find that you can hold this position for just a bit longer.
After a couple of weeks, move up to 10-lb. potato sacks.
Then 50-lb. potato sacks, and eventually try to get to where you can lift a 100-lb. potato sack in each hand and hold your arms straight for more than a full minute.
After you feel confident at that level, put a potato in each of the sacks; but be careful.
This guy walks into a quiet bar. He is carrying three ducks. One in each hand and one under his left arm. He places them on the bar. He has a few drinks and chats with the bartender.
The bartender is experienced and has learned not to ask people about the animals that they bring into the bar, so he doesn’t mention the ducks. They chat for about 30 minutes before the guy with the ducks has to go to the rest room.
The ducks are left on the bar. The bartender is alone with the ducks. There is an awkward silence. The bartender decides to try to make some conversation.
“What’s your name?” He says to the first duck.
“Huey” said the first duck.
“How’s your day been, Huey?” he asks.
“Great. Lovely day. Had a ball. Been in and out of puddles all day.”
“Oh. That’s nice,” says the bartender.
Then he says to the second duck, “Hi. And what’s your name?”
“Dewey” came the answer.
“So how’s your day been, Dewey?”
“Great. Lovely day. Had a ball. Been in and out of puddles all day. If I had the chance another day I would do the same again.”
So the bartender turns to the third duck and says, “So, you must be Louie.”
“No,” growls the third duck, “my name is Puddles. And don’t ask about my lousy day.”
(Thanks, Barabra, for this one. It quacked me up!)
My bud Jon is playing tourist in San Francisco’s Chinatown.
He wanders into a back-alley antique shop where he discovers a detailed, life-sized bronze sculpture of a rat. The sculpture is so interesting and unique that he picks it up and asks the shop owner what it costs.
“Ten dollars for the rat,” says the shop owner, “and a thousand dollars more for the story behind it.”
“You can keep the story,” Jon replies, “but I’ll take the rat.”
The transaction complete, Jon leaves the store with the bronze rat under his arm.
As he crosses the street in front of the store, two live rats emerge from a sewer drain and fall into step behind him. Nervously looking over his shoulder, he begins to walk faster, but every time he passes another sewer drain, more rats come out and follow him.
By the time he’s walked two blocks, at least a hundred rats are at his heels, and people are beginning to point and shout. He walks even faster, and soon breaks into a trot as thousands of rats swarm from sewers, basements, and vacant lots. Rats by the thousands are at his heels, and as he sees the waterfront at the bottom of the hill, he panics and starts to run full tilt. No matter how fast he runs, the rats keep up, squealing hideously, thousands and thousands of them, so that by the time he comes rushing up to the water’s edge a trail of rats twelve city blocks long is behind him.
Making a mighty leap, Jon jumps up onto a light post, grasping it with one arm while he hurls the bronze rat into San Francisco Bay with the other, as far as he can heave it. Clinging to the light post, he watches in amazement as all the rats surge over the breakwater and into the sea, where they drown.
Shaken and mumbling, he makes his way back to the antique shop. “Ah, so you’ve come back for the rest of the story,” says the owner.
“No,” says Jon, “I was wondering if you have a bronze lawyer.”
Ya’ll have a great weekend.