Conference thebay::joyoflex

    Asimov wrote a good SF S.D.S. 
    
    Albert Stein was a big-time jewel thief. His accomplice was a brilliant
    scientist who invented a time-machine. Anyway, the police were closing
    in on them so Albert decided to hop into the time-machine, travel
    seven years into the future and invoke the statute of limitations.
    Well the detective was determined, so he waited for Albert, and
    when the machine materialized, immediately arrested him, and brought
    him to trial. After a protracted legal battle, with the defense
    arguing that the statute of limitation had run out, and the prosecution
    arguing that Albert really hadn't experienced those 7 years, the
    judge handed down his verdict of...
    
    NOT GUILTY.
    His Reasoning?
    
    A niche in time saves Stein.
    
    sm

    Why are these called "shaggy dog" stories, anyway?
    
    Was the original a joke about a shaggy dog?
    
    MP

    re:.2
    
    Yes.
    
    Perhaps it's worthwhile to mention one written by Isaac Asimov,
    entitled "Shah Guido G."
    
    --- jerry

    In the early days of electric light, when Edison was promoting
    the commercial distribution of electric power, he had to obtain
    an easement to cross indian owned land with some of the distribution
    lines. Being a shrewd negotiator, he offered the ultimate compensation,
    one free electric light, installation included, to the indian chief
    in return for the right to put up ugly poles and wires and tromp
    all over the place. Some discussion ensued over where the best place
    was to put the light so that everyone in the tribe would get to
    use it. The tribal elders finally came up with the idea of placing
    it in the outhouse, where everybody was bound to use it at some
    point.
    
    Well, the electric power industry flourished and brought us Seabrook
    and Chernobyl, the indians were very happy with their new light
    and Edison went down in history as the first man to wire a head
    for a reservation.
    

    It seems there was this Jewish rabbi/missionary who, in looking for
a mission field, found an undiscovered island in the South Pacific.  He
met the inhabitants there, a midget race of natives who called themselves
Trids.  At noon on his first full day there, just as he was establishing
some rapport with the natives, a very strange thing happened.  He heard
the blowing of a conch shell, and saw that every Trid dropped whatever
they were doing at the time, and, en masse, started to make their way up
the central mountain of the island.  He tried to talk with some of them,
but only met with blank stares - no one responded in any way to him.
Curious, he followed. 
    When he got to the top of the mountain, he saw a big, hairy, ugly,
scary monster, with the conch shell.  He noticed, horrified, that all the
Trids were walking straight at the monster.  The monster, who had been
sitting down, saw the rabbi, stood up in surprise, and seeed about to speak.
But when the first Trid to make it to the top appeared, the monster grabbed
the Trid, and kicked him off the mountain.  The Trids appeared to awaken then
and they merely turned around and went back down the mountain to return to
their routines.
    The monster, turning to the rabbi, said, "I know, you're probably
wondering why I did this.  Well, you see, I rule this island, and the only
requirement (tax, if you will) I have is that I kick an inhabitant off this
mountain every day at noon.  With mind-control, I force everyone to come
here and kick off the first one I see."
    "But", said the rabbi, "I was the first one here.  Why didn't you kick me?"



    "Silly, rabbi, kicks are for Trids!"

   
    
    Believe it or not, God punished the snakes on Earth for Lucifer's
    actions in the Garden of Eden.  Though no humans are aware of it, God
    placed a golden lever in the Garden of Eden to control the ultimate
    destruction of snakes, eels, and sea serpents.  Should this golden
    lever (I think it's somewhere in Massapequa, NY) ever be moved,
    every snake on the face of the earth would instantly become extinct.
    
    In an effort to make the lever seem as inconspicuous as possible, the
    task of protecting the lever went to a particular family of pine snakes
    who would pass the job on from father to first-born son through the
    years.  One snake named Phil was known to have held the position longer
    than anyone else in the family.  One day, Phil decided it was time to
    train his son Nate to take over the job because he felt he didn't have
    much longer to live.  He explained the whole process to his son before
    slithering off to a pile of rocks where he died and began the ugly
    task of rotting away. 
    
    Nate found the job to be quite boring.  The novelty of catching and
    eating the bugs and small animals that approached the lever quickly
    wore off, and he found himself dozing off to sleep from time to time.
    His mother would scold him for taking his responsibility so lightly,
    but there really weren't too many animals around that were large enough
    to disturb the lever anyway.
    
    One day, Nate was awakened from his nap by a loud and violent shaking!
    The rest of the family rushed out of the nearby hole to see what
    was causing such a disturbance.  "Nate, what is that?" they cried.
    Nate stretched up as high as he could and saw a bright yellow machine
    with the word "CATERPILLAR" on the from of it, plowing away all of
    the earth and obstacles in its path.  It was heading straight for
    the mound on which the lever was placed!
    
    "Quick Nate, do something!" they cried.  Nate sat and thought about how
    he could stop this thing from destroying snake civilization. The
    CATERPILLAR kept coming closer and closer to the mound.  Nate kept
    thinking until it was only ten feet away.  Seeing that his time had run
    out, and for lack of a better plan, Nate slithered up to the machine
    and smashed into the plow on the front, stopping the CATERPILLAR a foot
    away from the lever, but killing himself instantly.  The rest of
    the family breathed a mutual sigh of relief and slithered back into
    the hole to celebrate and to pick a new guardian.
    
    Now you may be wondering how they could be celebrating only moments
    after their poor Nate was killed.  But ask any snake and he'll tell
    you:  better Nate than lever.
    
    -Kevin

    I'm afraid we're getting too into "punny" shaggy dog tales to remember
    the _original_ story, which .2 inquired about and .3 mercifully
    didn't tell.  It didn't end with a pun.  It was almost as funny
    as "no soap, radio".  BUT the fun was in the _telling_.  The punch
    line was just there, pun or not.
    
    To summarize the _original_, for you to fill in the intermediate
    paragraphs with your own additions, (that's the idea, after all),
    it went something like this:
    
       An old Scotsman fancied dogs.  He particularly fancied shaggy
       ones, even shaggier than the terriers native to his land and
       the sheepdogs from England.  So he placed an ad in a dog fancier's
       magazine:  "Wanted, a very shaggy dog. Contact..."
       
       He received a reply from Edinburgh the next week, offering a
       very shaggy Pekingese.  He invited the seller to show it to him,
       and they made their way to his Highland home.  When they arrived,
       he took one look at it and said, "not shaggy enough".
       
       (insert more anecdotes about people offering shaggy dogs)
       
       Then one day a letter arrived from America.  A man had a dog
       that was the shaggiest that he'd ever seen.  Would he be interested?
        Of course, he was.  (Add story about ship voyage, quarantine,
       etc., etc.)  Finally, they arrived.  The old man answered his
       door knocker and opened the door.  The visitor spoke, "Isn't
       this the shaggiest dog you've ever seen?  Don't you love it?"
       
       To which the Scot replied, "Not _that_ shaggy!"
       
        fred

	Here is one I heard a couple of years ago. The story 
    	could be told better but since my native tongue isn't
    	english, you'll have to bear with me.
    
    	Here goes :
    
    			   The Rary
    
There was a man living in little cottage by the seaside. He was
kind of lonely and decided to get a pet to keep him company. So
off he went to the village petshop to find one. The shopkeeper
sold him a dog and the man went home satisfied. But a week later
he came back and returned his dog, complaining he didn't want to 
take the dog out twice a day, rain or shine. The shopkeeper tried 
to sell a cat instead, but the man didn't like cats ( because they
shed hairs ). He then bought a canary, but came back the next day
complaining that the bird was too noisy. The shopkeeper suggested
a turtle, which was quiet and didn't shed hairs. But the man wasn't
interested, since it was too difficult to feed ( special diet ).
For a moment the shopkeeper looked very thoughtfull, went to the
backroom and returned carrying a small, white hairy ball. "This
rary is exactly what you're looking for", he said."It doesn't make 
a sound, is clean, doesn't require taking out and eats anything".
The man bought it and took it home with him. 

The rary was just what the shopkeeper had promised and he was very 
pleased with it. It ate anything he gave it from hay to leftover 
bones or potato peels and allways grew the same amount that it ate. 
First it was nice, but soon it was getting so big that the man 
couldn't fit in the same room with it and allthough the food was 
cheap, it needed such huge amounts that he was beginning to run 
out of money. 

When the rary had grown so big that the only place left for its
master was a small closet, the man decided that he had to get rid
of his pet. He tore down a wall to get the rary out and started
to roll it towards the cliff some 700 yards from the house. It was
a hard and tedious task and it took three days to push the rary
to the cliff. Just when he was heaving his gigantic pet over the
cliff he heard a strange noise, like someone singing. He looked
around but couldn't see anyone and the singing grew louder. After
a while he noticed that the sound was coming from the rary. He 
pressed his ear against his pet and this is what he heard :


"It's a long way,
 to Tipperary,
 it's a long way to go..."

OmiT
~~~~

[forwards removed]

There was once a very influential farmer in an obscure part of China.
He had a problem, for which he sought the counsel of the two wise men in
town.  He summoned the two wise men, Hing, a scientist, and Ming, a sorcerer,
and requested that they find a cure for his chickens who were losing their
feathers and dying.

Hing decided to pay a visit to his mentor at the Agricultural Extension
of the local Community College, under whom he had studied many years ago.
The mentor recommended the book "Everything You Always Wanted to Know
About Diseases of Chickens, But Were Afraid to Ask".  Hing went to the local
library, borrowed the book, and found inside the report of a study indicating
that feeding the chickens with an infusion of gum tree leaves is often a cure
for chickens losing their feathers.

Meanwhile back at the ranch, Ming reads obscure writings of ancient wise
men, he meditates, and he reads tarot cards.  He also tries to read the
entrails of a fetal pig.  Getting no inspiration, he uses his old
standby, reading tea leaves.  In a spark of intuition, he decides that
an infusion of gum tree leaves is the cure.

On the appointed day, at the appointed time, and at the appointed place,
the two wise men reported back to the influential Chinese farmer.  Ming
stood up first and announced to the farmer,  "As gum sticks to tables and
chairs, so shall an infusion of gum tree leaves make feathers stick to
chickens."  Hing agreed, saying "Four out of five ornithologists recommend a
sugarless infusion of gum tree leaves for their chickens who lose their
feathers."  The influential Chinese farmer is ecstatic, for the two wisest men
in town are of a single mind.

He decided to carry out their advice, but it did not succeed. The moral of
this story is:




"All of Hing's courses and all of Ming's ken
    couldn't get gum tea to feather a hen."

     Boooooo!   Hisss!   

     (I liked it.)

                 Terza

    ...whence I will resurrect some and post this evening.
    
    New BLOOD!!  Yay!
    
    SOMEbody hadda start things off again.  Thanks!  Dan

    OK, here's one from our bottomless pool of ancestral "shaggy-dog
    stories..."
    
    Seems that there was this championship roan pony that not only was the
    fastest horse on 4 feet, but was also valuable around the stable as a
    barber.  Yep, _mirabile dictu_ he would while away the time between
    races and training runs by shaving all the other horses, plus his groom
    and the trainer staff and the jockeys too.  And he never charged a
    penny, or a sack of oats, for his trouble.  Yes ineed, he was a boon in
    the paddock.  No one minded the occasional expense of shaving cream.
    
    One morning, tragedy struck -- when the trainers opened his stall, they
    found that he'd been kidnapped (or is that roan-napped).  All they
    found in the stall was a short, proverbial note that read:
    
    "A Stolen Roan Lathers No Hoss"
    
    Yeh I know it isn't a complete spoonerism but what the hey...
    
    And the following is only for those who've read and loved William
    Goldman's "The Princess Bride."
    
    Seems there was this little purple Japanese car that was riding down
    the highway with his daddy Japanese car, when the elder car was
    totalled by a wayward Mack truck.  The little purple Japanese car
    couldn't defend his father; he had to sit by while his parental unit
    was killed.  Very sad.  The little purple Japanese car vowed then and
    there to wait until he was fully-growed and then to seek out and
    destroy the Mack truck.
    
    Years passed.
    
    The little purple Japanese car matured and became a truck-killer.  He
    never lost sight of his goal.
    
    Finally he cornered that same Mack truck, by now grizzled with age and
    rusted with the guilty knowledge of his former crime.  
    
    The Purple Japanese Car lined up the Mack truck in his hood ornament's 
    sights and said:
    
    "My Name is Indigo Toyota; you killed my father; prepare to die!!"
    
                       (-: insert groans here :-)

    Uhhmm.  Well...
    
    Never one to let a little embarrassment interfere with a good laugh
    (or in this case a likely groan), would somebody please mail me an
    exnaplation?

    Re Indigo Toyota and William Goldman

    (In ::MOVIES parlance, the following could be considered a spoiler)



    William Goldman's classic _The Princess Bride_ has a character whose
    father was a Wizard-class swordmaker.  Enter villainous swordsman
    demanding a wonderful sword.  Sword gets made, villain returns to
    collect it, but offers to pay only 1/10 the promised price.  Father
    refuses to sell, villain murders father in front of 11-year old son. 

    Son vows revenge, grows up, studies swordplay and becomes one of the
    greatest swordsmen alive.  Finally finds villain and, as planned, takes
    revenge.  The refrain in this scene is "Hello, my name is Inigo
    Montoya, you killed my father, prepare to die."

    See also the wonderful Rob Reiner film....

    -- Cathy

    HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH
    HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH
    HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH
    HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH
    HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH
    HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH
    HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH
    HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH
    HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH
    HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH
    HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH
    HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH
    HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH
    HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH
    HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH
    HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH
    HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH
    HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH

    ... to tell you that therefore your repsonse in .16 shoudl have read
    
    AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH
    
    ect.
    
    Your CP Freidn, Dna

    The U.S. national science fiction last year was held in San Diego
    last year.  It's name was ConDiego, and it was a disaster.  People
    walked around with buttons inscribed,
    
    	Hello.  My name is ConDiego Montoya.
    	You killed my weekend.  Prepare to die.
    
    							Ann B.

There was a smart yet smarmy lawyer named Benjamin.  Ben was a real ladies' man.
Women fell all over him wherever he went.  He would spend significant time in
the mirror every morning just gazing rapturously at his gorgeous visage.  One
day, as Ben was shutting the medicine cabinet door, he noticed someone in the
corner of the mirror.  He was startled as he turned to see it was the devil.
The devil, having watched Ben from afar for so long, was pleased to finally meet
someone with as much potential as Ben had.  The devil made Ben an offer that
Ben just couldn't refuse.  "Ben!" said the Prince of Darkness, "Ben, I have a
deal I'd like to make with you".   Ben, thinking that outsmarting the devil 
would be all in day's work replied, "Go ahead, I'm listening".  "Ben, I am will-
ing to give you a gift that many people like yourself would (ha ha) die for.
I will give you the gift of perpetual youth - yes, your face, your body will
remain exactly as they are now.... for eternity.  Imagine it Ben: women through-
out the ages will find you irresistible."  Now Ben, being the shrewd lawyer
immediately asks, "What's they catch Red?"  "Well", the devil replied, "really
nothing at all.  Some minor detail that you should hardly trouble yourself
about. The only catch is that you must grow a beard and never, ever, ever, I
mean NEVER, get rid of it.  If you do, you will undergo immediate spontaneous
combustion and your soul will be mine..... FOREVER!"  Ben pondered this 
opportunity only momentarily and readily aquiesced.  "Sure!" he said.
**********
Time passed.  For hundreds of years woman after woman after woman threw them-
selves at Ben.  He liked it.  He liked it alot.  Ben's beard grew longer and
longer but the women never stopped falling madly in love with Ben.
**********
There came a day when Ben met The Woman.  The woman to end all women.  The most
gorgeous woman he had ever seen in his entire supernatural life.  He dug her.
This woman was the first woman Ben had ever met that didn't collapse at his
feet, breathlessly waiting to do Ben's bidding.  Ben really dug her.  There
was one tiny, tiny problem.  The Woman did NOT like beards.  Facial hirsuteness
did NOT rock her world.  And so our Ben, our long-lived, sleazy, womanizing Ben,
made his fatal error - he began to remove his diabolical beard. The moment the
blades of the scissors cut the first hair Ben was consumed by flame and a pile
of ashes was all that was left.  The Woman, as disconsolate as she was, wept
lightly at the loss of her latest would-be conquest, gathered up Ben's ashes
and put them in a container she had received from her last suitor, a funeral
home director and part-time stand-up comedian.
**********
The moral is:  A BENNY SHAVED IS A BENNY URNED.

	At the end of WW II a GI was strolling through Paris when he
	came upon a couple making love in a car. He passed by the car and 	
	happended to over hear the lady expressing herself..em, well vigorously,
	in French.  

	She repeated the same phrase over and over again. With every repetition
	her lover's antics became wilder and wilder. "Hm", the GI thought,
	"this sounds just the thing to try on any french lady friends
	that I might encounter". Having memorised the the phrase he went to
	find someone who could explain what it meant. 

	Down the street he sat himself down in a sidewalk cafe and called
	the waitress over. He repeated the phrase to her and inquired as to 
	to its meaning. Whereupon the waitress blushed profusely, slapped
	the lad on the face and ejected him from the cafe.

	A 100 metres down the street our hero encountered a gendarme. "This cop
 	will not be embarrassed", says he, "I will ask him". He procedes to 
	do so, only to eventually find himself deported from the country.

	Ruefully ruminating on his ruinous condition, this upstanding example
	of American persistance discovers that the captain of the vessel is
	a Frenchman. A light bulb turns on! "An old salt will be sure to
	know what the phrase means, and would certainly not be embarrassed",
	he reasons. 

	The soldier approached the captain and explained his problem. The 
	captain stopped. After a minute he said, "I will tell you only under
	the following conditions: - I will write the translation on a piece of
	paper and seal it in an envelope. I will then give it to you and put
	you over the side in a small boat with enough provisions for two weeks.
	You are not allowed to open the envelope until the ship has
	disappeared over the horizon. Do you accept?"

	By this time our hero is extremely interested in learning the
	translation. He agrees to the conditions the captain has put forward. 

	He sits in the small boat rocking on the sea waiting for the ship to 
	disappear. Soon only the funnel is to seen, then just a wisp of smoke,
	finally the boat disappears completely.

	Quickly the lad pulls the envelope out of his pocket. He rips open
	the envelope and pulls out the paper with the phrase on it. He holds 
	the paper up to the sun to read it... and the wind blew it away.