Life Tip #46

Don't go out to sea by yourself.

If you must go out to sea by yourself, bring along a life vest.

If you must go out to sea by yourself and don't like the fashion of today's life vests, bring along a flare.

If you must go out to sea by yourself without any safety equipment, bring a strong will to live.

American Drivers

Chelsea has a problem.

Chelsea has a tooth ache.
Chelsea goes to the dentist.
The dentist tells Chelsea that her wisdom teeth will have to go.
Chelsea schedules an appointment.
The next week, Chelsea goes in for her surgery.
A nurse puts Chelsea in a special chair.
The doctor puts a needle into Chelsea's arm.
Chelsea falls asleep.
Chelsea wakes up a little later.
Four of her teeth are missing.
Chelsea is very, very groggy.
Chelsea stumbles back to her car.
After several failed attempts, Chelsea puts the key in the ignition and drives away.
Five minutes later, Chelsea feels a terrible pain in her jaw.
Chelsea tries to open her mouth.
Chelsea can't.
The pain gets worse.
Chelsea can't take it anymore.
Chelsea pulls over at a local pub.
Chelsea knocks back several shots of Jack Daniel's.
Chelsea can't remember how many.
Chelsea feels better.
Chelsea resumes the drive home.
Chelsea is too drunk to notice that she is in the wrong vehicle.
Chelsea doesn't realize she has exploited a set of keys that were left in the ignition of an old van.
Chelsea feels weak and happy.
Chelsea's foot slowly descends on the gas pedal.
Chelsea's stolen vehicle goes faster and faster.
Soon, Chelsea is rocketing down the road at a hundred miles an hour.
A police car signals for Chelsea to pull over.
Chelsea doesn't notice.
Chelsea drives faster.
Chelsea's van drifts into oncoming traffic.
Then Chelsea gets a phone call.
Chelsea fumbles for her cell phone.
Chelsea opens the phone and asks who is calling.
Seconds later, Chelsea's van slams into another car.
Chelsea is unhurt.
The other driver spends six months in therapy.
The other driver's insurance company refuses to pay.
Chelsea's insurance company refuses to pay.
Chelsea was driving under the influence of alcohol and general anesthesia.
Chelsea was resisting arrest.
Chelsea was manning a stolen vehicle.
Chelsea was speeding.
Chelsea was driving in the wrong lane.
Chelsea does doing what any red-blooded American would do.
Chelsea sues her dentist and is awarded six million dollars by a sympathetic jury.

Season's Greetings!

It's that time of year again.

It's a time for people across the nation to be consumed in a vague sense of excitement and cheeriness.

It's a time for Wal-Mart to make a quarter of it's annual sales.

It's a time for the streets around the malls to clog.

It's a time to have family reunions with people you pretend to like.

It's a time for cheery winter songs.

It's a time for sleigh rides.

It's a time for turkey.

It's a time to buy presents for everyone you know.

It's a time to get presents from people who don't know you well enough.

It's a time that gets pushed deeper and deeper into November every year.

FCN refuses to get left behind. Last year we did almost nothing for the holidays, and what we did was decidedly intolerant of those who don't recognize this rather narrow celebration. This year, we're doing it right. Uncle Wally repainted the site with generic holiday colors to highlight this festive attitude.

We're not celebrating any holiday per se. We're celebrating The Holidays. We're celebrating That Time of Year Again. We're happy to be happy. We're celebrating to celebrate. It is only in this broader sense that we can hope to appeal to everyone and offend no one.

And so, from all of us here at FCN, we want to wish you a holiday season as happy as this greeting is enigmatic.

Abidjan Cote D'Ivior in West Africa

We recently received the following email message [EDIT: No changes for spelling, grammar or content were made to this email correspondence. Proceed accordingly]:

Dearest One, Good day.

After going through your profile over your web site, I decided to contact you for your assistance in a financial transaction. My name is Miss Ujuh Tomms 16 years old, the only daughter of Late Chief Mr & Mrs Mel Tomms the Gold marchant in the captail city of Abidjan Cote d'Iviore in West Africa.

Please know that I have Eighteen Million Five hundred thousand dollars ($18.500.000) to invest in your country. This Fund was deposited by my late father in a prime bank here in my country before his sudden death on the 28th of July 2007 in a government hospital. But before his death, he made me to understand about the deposit in the bank and where to find the documents of prove of deposit and the origin of fund certificate having my names as the next of kin. Due to the cause of death of my later father which the medical doctor confirmed as food poision, I have no more confidence in my relatives because i may be the next target. This is why I decided to contact you to help me receive my inheritance on my behalf from the bank, after asuring on your cerdibility to assist me because of our relationship in the future over the investment project which we will agree together on the plans to achive sucess on lucrative investment in your country.

Please know that at my age now, I do not have a better financail education that can be sure of good managment over poor money decision that might take many years to over come. Kindly let me know if you are very serious to assist me so that we can discuss your pecentage for your kind assistance to me so that I can open up to you the contact of the bank to enable you contact them on my behalf for immedaite transfer condcut.

Please treat urgently because i am no longer save where I am now. Help me please.

Awaits your urgent response and a happy love in advance.

Love and prayers.

Yours.

Ujuh Tomms.

Such a heartwarming and tear-jerking phishing request demands a response. Here's what we came up with:

Dearest Ujuh Tomms 16 years old,

Good day.

Please know that we are amazed at the naïveté you demonstrate by contacting a bunch of complete strangers and acknowledged derelicts to manage your finances. Please also know that we are honored to have been chosen for such a momentous task.

We have a few questions about your wealth and the nature of your father's demise that must be answered before we can accept your offer. First, what kind of gold merchant was your father? Not to disrespect the deceased, but even dead people can have bad business dealings. In fact, most of the business dealings dead people enter into are bad. Was he an ingot dealer or did he sell fool's gold? That's not a pejorative question; I once made a fair penny selling pyrite to grade school kids. Alas, it was lost soon after in a tragic boating scam. But that's another story.

Second, how did your father die? You said food poisoning. Does that mean Salmonella or E. Coli or something more diabolical like razor blade in his hash browns? How do you know your mother wasn't involved in the plot and that your family didn't double cross her after the fact? Hadn't thought of that one, had you?

Third, what is the nature of your family feud? If we accept this money, will your relatives come after us with the Salmonella? Should we beef up FCN security? Should we hire a few more CTU agents to stake out the FCN lab?

Fourth, if you're willing to trust us with your Eighteen Million Five hundred thousand dollars ($18.500.000), we think you might as well go the whole hog. Why not send us your social security number, banking credentials, personal addresses, contact information, mother's maiden name and the corresponding low down of your arranged husband?

Finally, what kind of religious background do you come from? The daughter of an African chieftain who offers prayers at the end of a business letter? How common is that? Are your prayers normal prayers or do they bring some kind of dark nastiness that should be avoided like your relatives? Should I be scared of your prayers? Should I be counter-praying right now to neutralize your work?

We sincerely hope your financial situation resolves itself. 18 million bucks is a lot of moola and we'd hate to see that fall into undeserving hands. We pray you get your situation resolved before the Salmonella (and/or stealth razor blades) catch you.

Sincerely,

The FCN Team

We have yet to get a reply from Ujuh Tomms 16 years old, but when we do, we'll pass it along. In the meantime, any of you who wish to get in touch with her and maybe pass a word of encouragement or advice on how to avoid food poisoning or ask for a piece of her gigantic wealth, send us an email and we will forward her message to you.

Todd's Double Entendre #1

Todd wakes up and performs the bread and butter functions of his morning routine (shower, shave and shine). Todd gets dressed in a nice suit, knowing he has a meeting with the big cheese at work. Todd's knows his boss likes to keep his finger in the pie and he doesn't want to risk upsetting the applecart. Meetings are not Todd's cup of tea and he was never very good at polishing the apple with his boss.

Downstairs, Todd grabs a fruitbar from a stash he has salted away and hurries to his car. The drive to work is slow and a traffic reporter on the radio spills the beans on an accident up the road. Some nut in a souped up truck lost control while doing something stupid. Fruitcake. Bad egg.

Todd is barely at the office ten minutes before his boss's secretary invites him into the main office. Todd sits down in one of the office's plush chairs and thinks again that his job is a gravy train. Very cushy.

His boss hasn't arrived yet, so Todd gets up to look at the family pictures on the office bookcase. One photo, positioned prominently among the rest, shows a smiling young girl with pony tails.

"Pretty, isn't she?" Todd's boss leans against the wall and smiles, adding: "She's the apple of my eye."

Todd returns to his plush chair and asks his boss how he can be of service.

"You're sure full of beans this morning," the boss says by way of humor. Seeing Todd's less than amused reaction, he adds: "Not to egg you on, or anything. I just think our approach to this new project should be as cool as a cucumber."

Inside, Todd is ecstatic. He got picked to head up the new project! And after Jack, a coworker, said he was getting the position, too. Todd knew he would make Jack eat crow. That couch potato! Jack was probably hitting the sauce right now instead of doing his job. Time for some humble pie, you conniving deceiver.

Todd makes a mental note to take a grain of salt with everything Jack says in the future.

"Our product is selling like hotcakes right now and we're getting our profits handed to us on a silver platter. Unfortunately, the market looks to be changing and unless we respond we'll have egg in our face. I know you're worth your salt, Todd, but this project is going to be a tough nut to crack. We are going to need you to put everything you have, the whole enchilada, on this and really bring home the bacon for the firm. You're the cream of the crop, but if you don't cut the cake, we'll drop you like a hot potato." The boss's short speech is delivered in an authoritative voice and Todd gets the meaning loud and clear.

"Piece of cake," Todd answer is delivered with a confident smile.

"Please don't make me make you eat those words." The boss stands up. The meeting is over.

After the meeting, Todd avoids the temptation to egg Jack on about his lie and instead lets his coworker stew in his own juices. Todd isn't happy with how he's handled Jack so far, but with the new project to worry about, he is in no position to cry over spilt milk.