Just before the Christmas holidays, a musician goes into his dentist's office because something is definitely wrong with his mouth.

After a brief examination, the dentist exclaims, "Holy Smoke! That metallic plate I implanted in your mouth about six months ago is nearly completely corroded and has to be replaced! What on earth have you been eating?"

"Well, the only thing I can think of is my wife made me some asparagus about four months ago with this stuff on it . . .

Hollandaise sauce she called it. Doc, it was DELICIOUS! I've never tasted anything like it, and ever since then I've been eating it on everything -- meat, fish, toast, eggs, vegetables, munchies, snacks, anything, you name it!"

"That's probably it," replied the dentist. "Hollandaise sauce is made with lemon juice and other ingredients, which are highly acidic and highly corrosive which could cause the metallic plate to deteriorate.

It seems I'll have to install a new plate in your mouth, but one made out of chrome this time."

"Why chrome?" the musician asked.

"Well, everyone knows that there is no plate like chrome for the Hollandaise!"

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I was depressed last night so I called Lifeline. I got a call center in Pakistan. I told them I was suicidal. They got all excited and asked if I could drive a truck.

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CNN's Christiane Amanpour heard about a very old Jewish man who had been going to the Western Wall to pray, twice a day, every day, for a long, long time.

So she went to check it out. She went to the Western Wall and there he was walking slowly up to the holy site.

She watched him pray and after about 45 minutes, when he turned to leave, using a cane in a very slow fashion, she approached him.

"Pardon me Sir, I'm Christiane Amanpour from CNN. What's your name?

"Moshe Fishbein," he replied.

"Sir, how long have you been coming to the Western Wall and praying?"

"For about 60 years."

"60 years! That's amazing! What do you pray for?"

"I pray for peace between the Christians, Jews and the Muslims. I pray for all the wars and hatred to stop, I pray for all our children to grow up safely as responsible adults and to love their fellow man."

"How do you feel after doing this for 60 years?"

"Like I'm talking to a wall."

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Have you heard that the government may ban water? Government scientists threw 78 rats in a vat of water and all of them drowned.

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From Iowa's Norwegian country, the city of Lake Mills, comes the tale by Harris Honsey about a Norwegian farmer in his area who lost a sow and all but one pig from a litter. So he fed it with a bottle and nursed it along until it became more of a pet than the usual run of pig.

It followed him around and rode in the front seat of his pickup, making quite a spectacle. One day they were going down the road and they met a highway patrolman who nearly went in the ditch at the sight of a hog sitting in the front seat. He stopped the farmer and told him he didn't think it was illegal to have a hog in the pickup but it did create a hazard with other drivers seeing this sight.

"Take that hog to the zoo," he told the farmer.

A month later the same patrolman met the farmer heading for town.

Once again he pulled him over, "I thought I told you to take that hog to the zoo," the patrolman said.

"I did," said the Norwegian. "In fact, we had such a good time at the zoo we're on our way to a ball game."

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Thirty years ago the RFD Philosopher came up with this item.

Dear Editor:

I was watching on television when the striking farmers drove their tractors around the White House in Washington. Trying to get both sides, a TV reporter first had his camera zoom in on a young farmer who got out of his tractor and explained he was there because, while he enjoyed helping feed America, he didn't enjoy going broke doing it. Then the camera switched to a bystander, obviously a well-fed city dweller, who said, when asked what he thought of the strike: "If the farmers can't make a living farming, why don't they sell out and try something else?"

A few days later I was reading a newspaper account of the president's budget which reported that city mayors were unanimously upset because the budget has reduced appropriations for cities.

"Cities are in dire financial trouble," a prominent mayor said, "and if the federal government doesn't give us more relief the whole country is in for serious trouble."

That evening on the network news I kept looking for some farmer to pop up and say: "If the cities can't make it on their own, why don't they sell out and try something else?"

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A medical student spent his summer vacation working as a butcher in the daytime and a hospital orderly evenings. Both jobs involved wearing a white smock. One evening, he was instructed to wheel a patient on a stretcher into surgery. The patient, a woman, looked up and let out an unearthly scream, "Good heavens!" she wailed, "It's my butcher!"