Beech Tree News Network

My sister sent me an email message last week. Since she rarely emails, I quickly opened the message to find an entertaining bit of imagination.

The message was one that she had received and forwarded:

I have been in many places, but I've never been in Cahoots. Apparently, you can't go alone. You have to be in Cahoots with someone.
I've also never been in Cognito. I hear no one recognizes you there.
I have, however, been in Sane. They don't have an airport; you have to be driven there. I have made several trips there, thanks to my children, friends, family and work.
I would like to go to Conclusions, but you have to jump, and I'm not too much on physical activity anymore.
I have also been in Doubt. That is a sad place to go, and I try not to visit there too often.
I've been in Flexible, but only when it was very important to stand firm.
Sometimes I'm in Capable, and I go there more often as I'm getting older.
One of my favorite places to be is in Suspense! It really gets the adrenalin flowing and pumps up the old heart! At my age, I need all the stimuli I can get!
And, sometimes I think I am in Vincible, but life then shows me I am not.
I may have been in Continent, and I don't remember what country I was in. It's an age thing. They tell me it is very wet and damp there.
Please do your part. Send this e-mail to at least one unstable person.
My job is done!

I had to smile. Later, I found “In Cahoots” on several Internet sites, but failed to locate an author or a source.

    My late husband would have enjoyed the play on words as well as the humor. Mel Brooks described humor as a “defense against the universe.”  That may be one way to explain the saying “it’s better to laugh than to cry.” Much of our humor seems to be related to serious subjects, such as aging, marriage, communication, and government, as in the examples below:

•    At his 103rd birthday party, my grandfather was asked if he thought that he’d be around for his 104th. "I certainly do," he replied. "Statistics show that very few people die between the ages of 103 and 104."
•    A woman marries a man expecting he will change, but he doesn’t. A man marries a woman expecting that she won't change and she does.
•    A wife asked her husband, "Could you please go shopping for me and buy one carton of milk, and if they have eggs, get six."
A short time later, the husband came back with six cartons of milk. The wife asked him, "Why on earth did you buy six cartons of milk?"
He replied, "They had eggs."
•    Three boys were in the schoolyard bragging about their fathers.
The first one said: "Well, my father runs the fastest. He can fire an arrow, and start to run, and I tell you, he gets there before the arrow."
The second one said: "Ha! You think that's fast! My father is a hunter. He can shoot his gun and be there before the bullet."
The third one listened to the other two and shook his head. He then said: "You two know nothing about fast. My father is a civil servant. He stops working at 4:30 and he is home by 3:45!"

Mark Twain referred to humor as a blessing. I appreciated my sister’s message; it was entertaining – a blessing of humor.