丁蘭

Only Child

“Mom, teacher was asking me today if I have any brothers or sisters who will be coming to school.”

“Thats nice of her to take such an interest, dear. What did she say when you told her you are the only child?”

“She just said, ‘Thank goodness!”

“媽媽，今天老師問我，我還有沒有兄弟姐妹會(huì)來這所學(xué)校上學(xué)?！?

“你的老師人真好，那你告訴她你是獨(dú)生子了吧，她后來怎么說的？”

“她說‘謝天謝地！?！?/p>

Violin Practice

Little Harold was practicing the violin in the living room while his father was trying to read in the den. The family dog was lying in the den, and as the screeching sounds of little Harolds violin reached his ears, he began to howl1 loudly.

The father listened to the dog and the violin as long as he could. Then he jumped up, slammed2 his paper to the floor and yelled above the noise, “For Petes sake, cant you play something the dog doesnt know?!”

小哈羅德正在客廳練習(xí)小提琴，他的爸爸在書房讀書。他們家的狗也在書房臥著，每當(dāng)小哈羅德拉出刺耳的琴聲，這只狗就開始大聲地跟著吼叫。

狗叫和小提琴的聲音已經(jīng)讓爸爸無法忍受了，他突然跳起，把書往地上一摔，用壓過那些噪音的嗓門大叫著：“看在上帝的份上，你能不能拉一些這狗不會(huì)唱的曲子？！”

Lion

“I came face to face with a lion once. To make matters worse, I was alone and weaponless ...”

“Goodness! What did you do?”

“What could I do? First I tried looking straight into his eyeballs, but he kept crawling up3 on me. Then I thought of plunging my arm down his throat, grabbing4 him by the tail and turning him inside out, but I decided it would be too dangerous. Yet, he kept creeping up5 on me; I had to think fast...”

“How did you get away?”

“I just left him and passed on to the other cages.”

“我曾經(jīng)和獅子面對(duì)面對(duì)立過！更糟糕的是，我當(dāng)時(shí)是獨(dú)自一人，并且沒有任何武器?！?/p>

“天吶！那你當(dāng)時(shí)怎么做的呢？”

“我還能怎么做？首先，我試圖直視它的眼睛，可他還一直朝我走來。后來我想著要一手伸進(jìn)它的喉嚨，抓住它的尾巴，然后把它徹底翻過來！可是我決定不這么做，因?yàn)樘ｋU(xiǎn)了。然而它還在繼續(xù)向我走過來，我必須快速運(yùn)轉(zhuǎn)我的大腦……”

“那你后來怎么逃脫的？”

“后來我就離開了它的籠子，去看其它動(dòng)物了?！?/p>

Feeding the Pigeons

A 75-year-old woman liked sitting in the park feeding the pigeons6.

One day she brought with her a whole loaf of fresh bread just to feed her daily company. Little by little, pinch7 by pinch, she fed each pigeon with joy.

Then suddenly a man in his early 40s rained on her parade by telling her that she shouldn't throw away good food on a bunch of pigeons that can find food anywhere when there are a lot of people starving in Africa.

She replied in crazed anger and without hesitation, “I cant throw that far!”

一位75歲的老奶奶喜歡坐在公園里喂鴿子。

一天她帶了一整塊新鮮面包來喂她每天的同伴。捏一塊，喂一塊，她不亦樂乎地喂著這些鴿子。

突然一個(gè)四十出頭的男子過來告訴她，她不應(yīng)該拿好好的食物去喂鴿子，因?yàn)樗鼈冊(cè)谀亩寄茈S便找到食物，可是在非洲還有很多人正在挨餓。這話讓老奶奶非常掃興。

她毫不猶豫地極為憤怒地回答道：“我扔不了非洲那么遠(yuǎn)！”

Second Try

The insurance salesman, trying to start up a conversation with a potential customer said, “Who is the ugly lady over there?”

The man replied angrily, “Why, thats my wife!”

Trying to get out of an embarrassing situation, the salesman said, “No, not her, the other one!”

The man became more angry, “Thats my daughter!”

一個(gè)保險(xiǎn)推銷員試著和一個(gè)潛在顧客搭話，問道：“你看那邊那個(gè)丑女人是誰啊？”

那個(gè)人生氣地說道：“怎么能這樣說？她是我老婆！”

推銷員試著化解尷尬，馬上改口說：“我不是說她，我是說旁邊的那個(gè)！”

“那是我女兒！”他更生氣地說道。

[1] howl v. 吼叫；狂吠 [2] slam v. 使勁仍 [3] crawl up 爬行

[4] grab v. 攫取 [5] creep up 慢慢爬來 [6] pigeon n. 鴿子

[7] pinch v. 捏；n. 少量