1 旅行电话应答机/Traveling Answering Machine
In good weather, my friend Mark always let his yellow-naped Amazon parrot, Nicky, sit on the balcony of his tenth-floor apartment. One morning, Nicky flew away, much to Mark’s dismay. He searched and called for the bird, with no luck.
The next day when Mark returned from work, the phone rang. “Is this Mark?” The caller asked. “You’re going to think this is crazy, but there’s a bird outside on my balcony saying, ‘Hello, this is Mark.’ Then it recites this phone number and says, ‘I can’t come to the phone right now, but if you will leave a message at the tone, I will call you back.’”
Nicky’s cage had been kept in the same room as Mark’s answering machine.
在天气好的时候，我的朋友马克总是让他的黄颈亚马逊鹦鹉尼基坐在他的十层公寓的阳台上。一天早晨，尼基飞走了，这让马克感到沮丧。他找啊叫啊，但没找到。
第二天当马克下班回来时，电话响了。“是马克吗？”对方问。“你一定认为这太不靠谱了，在我的阳台外面的一只鸟说，’你好，我是马克。’然后它背诵出这个电话号码，说：’我现在不能接电话，但如果你在’滴’声后留言，我会打给你。'”
尼基的笼子跟马克的电话应答机放在同一个房间。
2 弄错的蛇/Wrong Snake
When a rattlesnake got loose in the second-floor hall of the science building at my university, it created quite a furor. Fortunately, one of the professors was an expert on snakes. An agitated student ran to fetch him, urging him to come quickly, as a dangerous snake was loose, terrorizing everyone in the building.
The professor leisurely strolled out into the hall, examined the snake from head to tail, and calmly returned to his office. “It’s not one of mine,” he said, and closed the door.
当一条响尾蛇在我校的科学楼的二楼大厅溜走，它引起了一个相当的轰动。幸运的是，教授之一是蛇的专家。一个焦虑的学生跑去找他，催他赶快来，因为一个危险的蛇在逃，吓坏了在大楼中的每一个人。
教授悠闲地踱出进入大厅，把蛇从头到尾仔细地研究了一遍，然后冷静地回到了他自己的办公室。“这不是我的，”他说，并关上了门。
3 颜色问题/Color Problems
A favorite story among color-film processors concerns the negative of a poodle which a woman sent to a photo-finishing lab. When the print was made, the dog came out looking green. Figuring that there must have been a mistake in the color balance, a problem which plagues color processors, the lab tried again and again, and finally got the dog to come out a kind of improbable tan.
The woman who sent in the negative was furious when she got the picture of the tan poodle, which, she informed the lab, she had dyed green.
在彩色胶片处理器中一个喜爱故事是有关一名女子送到照片处理实验室的狮子狗的底片。当照片出来时，狗的颜色是绿的。盘算一定有色彩平衡方面的错误，一个困扰色彩处理器的问题，实验室试了一次又一次，终于让狗的颜色成了一种不大可能的黄褐色。
那个送来底片的女人拿到黄褐色的狮子狗的照片时大怒，她告诉该实验室，她已经把狗染成了绿色。
4 猎犬/The Retriever
I’m a police officer and occasionally park my cruiser in residential areas to watch for speeders. One Sunday morning I was staked out in a driveway, when I saw a large dog trot up to my car. He stopped and sat just out of arm’s reach. No matter how much I tried to coax him to come for a pat on the head, he refused to budge. After a while I decided to move to another location. I pulled out of the driveway, looked back and learned the reason for the dog’s stubbornness. He quickly picked up the newspaper I had been parked on and dutifully ran back to his master.
我是一名警察，偶尔把我的巡逻车停在居民区查看超速者。一个星期天早上，我把车停在一个住户的车道上监视时我看到一只大狗小跑到我的车这儿。他停下来，坐在我的手臂够不到的地方。不管我多么想哄他过来拍拍他的头，他无动于衷。过了一会儿，我决定换一个地方。我开出车道，回头一看，明白狗固执的原因了。他赶紧拿起我一直停车的地方的报纸然后尽职尽责地跑回到他的主人那里。
5 给狗的/Going to the Dogs
When our client’s dog lapped up anti-freeze, the veterinarian I work for ordered a unique treatment: an IV drip mixing fluids with vodka. “Go buy the cheapest bottle you can find,” he told me.
At the liquor store, I was uneasy buying cheap booze so early in the day, and I felt compelled to explain things to the clerk.
“Believe it or not,” I said, “this is for a sick dog.”
As I was leaving, the next customer plunked down two bottles of muscatel and announced, “These are for my cats.”
当我们的客户的狗舔食了防冻液，我工作的兽医定了独特的治疗：点滴混合伏特加液体。“去买你能找到的最便宜的一瓶，”他告诉我。
这么早的时间在卖酒的商店购买便宜的酒让我忐忑不安，我觉得有必要给营业员解释一下。
“信不信由你，”我说，“这是为一条生病的狗买的。”
当我离开时，后面一个顾客毫不犹豫地拿了两瓶麝香葡萄酒，并声明，“这是给我的猫买的。”
6 一个真正的肚子笑话/A Real Gut-Buster
A woman noticed her husband standing on the bathroom scale, sucking in his stomach. “Ha! That’s not going to help,” she said.
“Sure, it does,” he said. “It’s the only way I can see the numbers.”
一名妇女注意到她的丈夫站在浴室的秤上正在收腹。“哈！这个没用，”她说。
“当然，这样有用，”他说。“这是我能看到数字的唯一办法。”
