A boy was crossing a road one day when a frog called out to him and said, "If you kiss me, I'll turn into a beautiful princess." He bent over, picked up the frog and put it in his pocket.

The frog spoke up again and said, "If you kiss me and turn me back into a beautiful Princess, I will stay with you for one week." The boy took the frog out of his pocket, smiled at it and returned it to the pocket.

The frog then cried out, "If you kiss me and turn me back into a Princess, I'll stay with you and do *Anything* you want." Again the boy took the frog out, smiled at it and put it back into his pocket.

Finally the frog asked, "What is it? I've told you I'm a beautiful Princess, that I'll stay with you for a week and do *Anything* you want. Why won't you kiss me?"

The boy said, "Look, I'm a computer programmer. I don't have time for girlfriends, but a talking frog is really cool."

A guy dials his home phone number from work. A strange woman answers. The guy says, "Who is this?"

"This is the maid.", answered the woman.

"We don't have a maid!"

"I was just hired this morning by the lady of the house."

"Well, this is her husband. Is she there?"

"Ummm...she's upstairs in the bedroom with someone who I just figured was her husband."

The guy is fuming. He says to the maid, "Listen, would you like to make $50,000?"

"What do I have to do?"

"I want you to get my gun from my desk in the den and shoot that witch and the jerk she's with."

The maid puts down the phone. The guy hears footsteps, followed by a couple of gunshots.

The maid comes back to the phone. "What should I do with the bodies?"

"Throw them in the swimming pool!"

"What pool?"

"Uh.. is this 832-4821?"

Do you think saying "Ooops" would be enuff to cover up this blunder?

At the 1994 annual awards dinner given by the American Association for Forensic Science, AAFS President Don Harper Mills astounded his audience in San Diego with the legal complications of a bizarre death. Here is the story.

"On 23 March 1994, the medical examiner viewed the body of Ronald Opus and concluded that he died from a shotgun wound of the head. The decedent had jumped from the top of a ten-story building intending to commit suicide (he left a note indicating his despondency). As he fell past the ninth floor, his life was interrupted by a shotgun blast through a window, which killed him instantly. Neither the shooter nor the decedent was aware that a safety net had been erected at the eighth floor level to protect some window washers and that Opus would not have been able to complete his suicide anyway because of this."

"Ordinarily," Dr. Mills continued, "a person who sets out to commit suicide ultimately succeeds, even though the mechanism might not be what he intended."

That Opus was shot on the way to certain death nine stories below probably would not have changed his mode of death from suicide to homicide. But the fact that his suicidal intent would not have been successful caused the medical examiner to feel that he had homicide on his hands.

"The room on the ninth floor whence the shotgun blast emanated was occupied by an elderly man and his wife. They were arguing and he was threatening her with the shotgun. He was so upset that, when he pulled the trigger, he completely missed his wife and the pellets went through the window striking Opus."

"When one intends to kill subject A but kills subject B in the attempt, one is guilty of the murder of subject B. When confronted with this charge, the old man and his wife were both adamant that neither knew that the shotgun was loaded. The old man said it was his long-standing habit to threaten his wife with the unloaded shotgun. He had no intention to murder her - therefore, the killing of Opus appeared to be an accident. That is, the gun had been accidentally loaded."

"The continuing investigation turned up a witness who saw the old couple's son loading the shotgun approximately six weeks prior to the fatal incident. It transpired that the old lady had cut off her son's financial support and the son, knowing the propensity of his father to use the shotgun threateningly, loaded the gun with the expectation that his father would shoot his mother.

The case now becomes one of murder on the part of the son for the death of Ronald Opus.

There was an exquisite twist.

"Further investigation revealed that the son [Ronald Opus] had become increasingly despondent over the failure of his attempt to engineer his mother's murder. This led him to jump off the ten-story building on March 23, only to be killed by a shotgun blast through a ninth story window.

"The medical examiner closed the case as a suicide."

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Actual radio conversation released by the Chief of Naval Operations,

10-10-95.

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#1: Please divert your course 15 degrees to the North to avoid a collision.

#2: Recommend you divert YOUR course 15 degrees to South to avoid a collision.

#1: This is the Captain of a US Navy ship. I say again, divert YOUR course.

#2: No. I say again, you divert YOUR course.

#1: THIS IS THE AIRCRAFT CARRIER ENTERPRISE, WE ARE A LARGE WARSHIPOF THE US NAVY. DIVERT YOUR COURSE NOW!

#2: This is a lighthouse. Your call.

HelpLine: "General Motors HelpLine, how can I help you?" Customer: "I can get in through the driver's side door just fine, but I can't open the passenger's side." HelpLine: "How did you try to open the passenger's side?" Customer: "I pulled up on the handle, just like on the other side." HelpLine: "People are always making that mistake. You have to push on the passenger's side. Remember, you're always moving the handle toward the left of the car. It's more consistent that way."

HelpLine: "General Motors HelpLine, how can I help you?" Customer: "How do I turn my windshield wipers on?" HelpLine: "There's a little button on the radio console . . ." Customer: "Radio console??" HelpLine: "Yes, it's more efficient to have all the controls in one central position. Look for the one with a shape like a piece of pie on it." Customer: "And that's the windshield wiper button? I was always wondering what that did." HelpLine: "People are always asking that. You'd think they'd be more familiar with the principles of graphic design."

HelpLine: "General Motors HelpLine, how can I help you?" Customer: "My car will go forward, but when I put it in reverse, nothing happens." HelpLine: "What model do you have?" Customer: "It's a brand new 1994 Mongoose." HelpLine: "Yes, but it is a 1994R with a big R or 1994r with a small r?" Customer: "I don't know. Let me find out and I'll call you back." HelpLine: "Alright, but let me tell you you've probably got the small r model. You'll need to upgrade to the big R version to go in reverse."

HelpLine: "General Motors HelpLine, how can I help you?" Customer: "I just called about the car that wouldn't go in reverse." HelpLine: "Well, yes, we get a lot of calls about that." Customer: "It turns out I have the small r model. But I bought the one with the 'Reverse gear option'." HelpLine: "Yes, that's the option to upgrade to a reverse gear." Customer: "Why don't they all just come with a reverse gear in the first place?" HelpLine: "Well, that's very difficult to do, even for our world-class engineers, and not everyone may want it. Also, it makes the car more complicated to drive. So we offer it as an option to our 'power drivers'." Customer: "How come all the Jupiters have had it standard since 1974?" HelpLine" "Ahem. Well, yes, they're not a market leader, they're just for people who really like working on cars. If you really want to get involved in those kind complicated details, go right ahead . . ."

But really, we're leaving out an important part:

HelpLine: "General Motors HelpLine, how can I help you?" Customer: "My car just caught fire." HelpLine: "I see. And what model was it?" Customer: "1994r Mongoose." HelpLine: "Big or small . . ." Customer: " . . . small r." HelpLine: "And your registration number?" Customer: "426917-woof-271828-arf-314159-spam." HelpLine: "And where did you buy your car?" Customer: "Fast Eddie's Sports-o-rama in Glendale." HelpLine: "And what was the name of the salesman?" Customer: "I don't remember." HelpLine: "I see. Are you sure you didn't steal this car?" Customer: "Of course I didn't steal it!" HelpLine: "And would you be interested in purchasing our extended service contract?" -- Selected by Maddi Hausmann Sojourner. MAIL your joke to funny@clarinet.com.

Three men were standing in line to get into heaven one day. Apparently it had been a pretty busy day, though, so Peter had to tell the first one, "Heaven's getting pretty close to full today, and I've been asked to admit only people who have had particularly horrible deaths.So what's your story?" So the first man replies: "Well, for a while I've suspected my wife has been cheating on me, so today I came home early to try to catch her red-handed.As I came into my 25th floor apartment, I could tell something was wrong, but all my searching around didn't reveal where this other guy could have been hiding.Finally, I went out to the balcony, and sure enough, there was this man hanging off the railing, 25 floors above ground!By now I was really mad, so I started beating on him and kicking him, but wouldn't you know it, he wouldn't fall off. So finally I went back into my apartment and got a hammer and starting hammering on his fingers.Of course, he couldn't stand that for long, so he let go and fell -- but even after 25 stories, he fell into the bushes, stunned but okay.I couldn't stand it anymore, so I ran into the kitchen, grabbed the fridge and threw it over the edge where it landed on him, killing him instantly.But all the stress and anger got to me, and I had a heart attack and died there on the balcony." "That sounds like a pretty bad day to me," said Peter, and let the man in. The second man comes up and Peter explains to him about heaven being full, and again asks for his story. "It's been a very strange day.You see, I live on the 26th floor of my apartment building, and every morning I do my exercises out on my balcony.Well, this morning I must have slipped or something, because I fell over the edge.But I got lucky, and caught the railing of the balcony on the floor below me.I knew I couldn't hang on for very long, when suddenly this man burst out onto the balcony.I thought for sure I was saved, when he started beating on me and kicking me.I held on the best I could until he ran into the apartment and grabbed a hammer and started pounding on my hands.Finally I just let go, but again I got lucky and fell into the bushes below, stunned but all right.Just when I was thinking I was going to be okay, this refrigerator comes falling out of the sky and crushes me instantly, and now I'm here." Once again, Peter had to concede that that sounded like a pretty horrible death. The third man came to the front of the line, and again the whole process was repeated.Peter explained that heaven was full and asked for his story. "Picture this," says the third man, "I'm hiding naked inside a refrigerator..."