Posts from Fun

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A TARNISHED RECORD
January 27th, 10:05

An old friend of mine—a former KGB agent named Yuri Tarasovich—shared this story with me.
He shared it and then paused for thought, as there were far too many secret details in it.
Then followed instructions from him on what could be blabbed about and what was better left unsaid. And here is the paradox: there were more instructions than there was a story...
But I promised, so I will retell it in a "low-fat" version; I hope it won't suffer too much from this...

A bright young man, upon graduating from a certain university, headed straight to apply for a position at a modest government institution. He had the referral, the character reference, and a diploma with honors, but when it came to his personal record—he hit a brick wall...
The trouble is that this office only hires people with reputations as white as the snow on the roof of Father Frost's hut. And if some distant ancestor of yours—a Cro-Magnon—once borrowed a glowing ember from an acquaintance Pithecanthropus hailing from the Elbe River, the HR department will surely find out and reject your candidacy just in case...
And it's not surprising; someone who makes it into this outfit through a nano-hole sieve gains such a level of access to secrets that they would likely find out who actually killed Kennedy, not to mention the ability to read interrogation protocols of aliens...
But let us return to our fine young man. His record was a complete disaster. Neither a second cousin, nor a great-grandfather, nor even a half-sister—but his own biological mother had an actual criminal record. And the charge wasn't good at all: theft of state property on an especially large scale. Talk about a blow...
Of course, anyone else would have been shown the door immediately without any one word spoken, but this was a special case.
The HR officer (let's call him that) wanted to help the boy, but didn't dare risk it himself and ran to his superior. The boss listened, felt for the situation, also decided to help, and ran even higher.
And so they ran after one another like Matryoshka dolls, until the matter reached an old, fierce general who happened to be the largest same-sized doll in this office.
He was so powerful that he not only knew who killed Kennedy, but had likely fashioned a whistle from a spent shell casing from that case and given it to his grandson...
Now, a very powerful man.
The general listened to the report, asked about the boy, and found out that he had even graduated school with a gold medal at the age of 16. His health was also fine.
He quickly flipped through the mother's old criminal case and said:
- This lad should be hired, if only for his mother. If he is like her,
he will go far. And we should thank her for a valuable and
promising employee.
Process him.
The general said goodbye and left. Perhaps to interrogate a captured alien visitor, or perhaps just to the buffet to soothe an ulcer with semolina porridge.

This was the first and only case where someone with such a tarnished record was accepted into such an office.

And here is what the mother's case was about.
In 1990, her long-awaited and only six-month-old baby was found to have a heart pathology that left the infant with only a few days to live. Medicine was powerless. The doctors threw up their hands and advised the stunned mother to be strong and try to conceive again...
As a parting word, the doctor expressed sympathy that we, unfortunately, do not live in
Europe, and that we Soviet people simply do not have and will not have such money...
The mother clung to the professor's words and learned that an operation could be done in Germany, but it cost as much as Hitler's war and the surgery needed to happen today. In extreme cases, within three days...

The mother—a wonderful worker, a cashier with ten years of experience, a shock worker of communist labor who was constantly on the board of honor—went to her savings bank that same day, swept the necessary amount from the safe, and sent her husband and child to Germany the very next day.
She was arrested immediately, but during interrogations she only spoke after learning that the operation had already taken place and ended successfully.
The mother was lucky; she didn't stay in prison long. The story became public, and several large firms chipped in and covered the entire stolen amount.
Everything ended with a suspended sentence and a small spot on the record of her only son...
http://storyofgrubas.livejournal.com/
You liked it, but he doesn't write here anymore...
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An acquaintance told me; she was told by her acquaintance, who witnessed what is described. I am inclined to believe it, as I have heard many different stories (again, from an acquaintance of an acquaintance) about all living people and animals.
In our country, there are small circuses—not even circuses, but little booths—that travel around the outskirts of provinces, rent dilapidated houses of culture, and put on performances for the joy of children. There is a magician, of course a clown, a couple of gymnasts, and several animals with simple acts. Staffing is usually minimal. If there's a clown, he is also the administrator and accountant; the trainer looks after his own animals—in short, the fewer people, the more money goes to the staff after the show.
And this summer, such a circus began touring in which an acquaintance of my acquaintance performed as a snake and dog tamer, either in the
Samara or Saratov region. At the last moment, a certain Valera joined their collective with an old female bear, retired from some big circus. Unlike her kin, she was small and uncomplicated in daily life. Valera was also a pensioner, formerly a trainer. They decided to take him along because he had many old friends in those parts who could help organize the performances, and Duma the bear brought a certain flair to the shows.
He transported her in a small rusty Gazelle van, and loved her more than anything in the world!
He never stayed overnight in hotels, but remained sleeping with her in the car; he fed her only "Korovka" candies because the clumsy beast had no teeth, chewed bread for her, and fed her from his palm. She was not demanding and returned the sentiment; at performances, she did everything as required, albeit slowly. She loved fresh chicken insanely, so Valera, wherever they settled, would get her a few chickens—sometimes even live ones—kill them, chop them up very finely, and feed his favorite by hand.
In the town of Ensk, where this story took place, there were no chickens in the shops, so Valera decided to walk around private houses; maybe someone would sell him live chickens. He left toward evening and did not return after some time—not at night, then came the performance during the day, and he was gone by morning too. The phone was off. Duma looked longingly out the window—she wouldn't drink or eat the bread chewed by the magicians.
The troupe was bewildered; what to do? They had to move on; people were waiting in other settlements. They needed to start a search, but then they remembered that they didn't know
Valera's last name. Valera and Valera—he received his salary in an envelope; the director looked at his documents, but in haste, he didn't remember the surname. A bear on rollers—that was the main document! But you can't just leave him alone in the car.
They split into groups and went through the yards asking if anyone had seen a man looking for chickens. Yes, someone saw him, sent them to certain neighbors, who sent them to others. By the second day, rumors reached them that a similar little man had ended up in police custody in a village 15 km from there. An unfunny clown stayed behind to look for the missing man, while the circus moved on. The next day, the trio—Valera, the clown, and Duma—caught up with the orphaned circus and recounted what had happened to
Valera.
Despairing of buying chicken from private owners, Valera decided that as darkness fell, he would steal a couple of chickens from the greedy villagers. But he was caught red-handed and hauled off to the lockup in the nearest district center. There, they only began to figure out who, what, where, and whither at noon... Poor Valera was already on the verge of a heart attack knowing that his bear had been sitting in the car for almost a day without him—she needed to be walked, fed, and her enclosure cleaned. Attempts to explain this to the law enforcement officers led nowhere; as a man of art,
Valera's approach was all emotion—his voice cracked, his heart raced. Some bear, circus, chicken, rollers, Gazelle... he begged them to let him go, choking on his own tears; in short, the man had a psycho-emotional breakdown and started banging his head against the wall. They called an ambulance; they began processing him: "Give us your passport"—no passport, it's in the car, and there's a bear in the car—uuuuu-aaaaa, let me go...
Well now, gentlemen of the police, you are holding a man without documents; do you have any piece of paper identifying him? Valera, overjoyed that some document might free him from here, shouted happily: "I have it, I have a document for my bear!" He pulled a crumpled, four-fold piece of paper from his pants—the cops hadn't accepted it as an important document during the search due to its fragility and creases—and handed it to the chief. Then this scrap of paper passed through about ten pairs of hands, evoking various reactions: some read it and passed it to the next, leaving to call others; others scratched their heads and sighed; third parties held it up to the light; fourth parties just roared with laughter. The doctors said: "Nooo—this is your client, deal with it yourselves," and drove away. At that moment, our magician arrived (in
Valera's Gazelle with the bear in the cabin), clearly recounted Valera's story, and paid for the stolen chickens. The whole station went to look at Duma; they provided the circus folk with bread and candies and waved touchingly as they left, marveling at such mutual love and devotion.
And in the document—or rather, one could say, in the animal's passport—it was written approximately like this:
Animal – Brown Bear
Nickname – Duma (the tail of the letter "u" had been completely worn away)
Trainer – PUTIN V. V.
And there were stamps, of course; maybe other things were written there, but after those three lines, no other information on that paper was perceived.
By the way, Valera started training Duma when she was still a cub, and by the time of the story, she was about 30 years old.
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Taken from the Kinozal TV tracker:

A discussion is underway regarding another Hollywood "masterpiece" in which the plot mixes everything—ancient Rome, ancient China, and wild inconsistencies in time and names. One of the forum users, judging by the nick, a middle-aged person, writes mockingly:
- I love historical movies. I'd also like to see how Louis XIV fought
with Tukhachevsky's army for the liberation of Australia from the yoke of the Vikings.

The response was a knockout blow:
- You probably mean Austria, not Australia; go learn geography, you schoolboy.

A post by the next participant in the discussion:
- So, the person wasn't bothered that Louis XIV fought Tukhachevsky,
wasn't bothered by the Vikings, but was bothered by Australia...
Also, the word "probably" is written as one word, so go learn Russian, you schoolboy :-)
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The nineties; I make a living repairing televisions at clients' homes based on newspaper ads.
I arrive; a man has a vertical hold problem on a color tube TV
(maybe someone remembers, P210 or 217 transistors were used in the output cascade). So, the transistor is blown, but not completely, and after 2 minutes, as a result of heating up, the vertical hold disappears completely—only a horizontal line remains on the screen.
No problem, I reach into my briefcase, but the part isn't there. I'm out.
The man falls to his knees: ... master, the football match starts in 10 minutes, please, dear friend, help me somehow...
And then—eureka. I go home promising to return the next day; the man supports a team, and on the same TV, inside a soap dish filled with water with the leads facing up on 40-centimeter wires, lies the transistor.
Three years passed. A guy tugs my sleeve on the street and yells joyfully:
Hi!!! Is it okay that it's become scaled over? Maybe I should clean it??? ....
I look at him without recognizing him, and then I remember. And the guy continues: "I've gotten used to it; you just pour in some water from a pitcher and it's normal—I've just kind of gotten used to it."
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Sending a registered letter to Holland via Russian Post.
Me: Excuse me, how many stamps are needed for a registered letter to Holland?
She stubbornly searches for something on the computer, clicking... after several minutes of stubborn searching...
G (Girl-operator): Excuse me, we don't have such a country!
Me: What do you mean? Am I supposed to go get a world map and an eraser now? Fine, what do you have? Do you have the Netherlands?
G: (happily) Yes, we have the Netherlands!!!
Me: Fine, let's send it to the Netherlands.
G: And then from the Netherlands to Holland they will send it themselves later??
Unbelievable!
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Dedicated to blondes... I was fueling up at a gas station once. Just as I was about to leave, some man stopped me with a question: "How do I get to Maryino village?" I put on an intelligent look... and started explaining... Here, as they say, Ostap got carried away. ... I was overcome by a sense of admiration for myself—how incredibly, and most importantly logically, I could explain the route. All this time, the man looked at me with open mouth, followed my hand gestures and nodded... But then, apparently sated with pride, my brain switched on... And I realized that a mistake had been made... I stopped mid-sentence and asked: "And where is this Maryino village located?" To which the man, stunned by such a question, replied: "But you were just explaining it to me...." I said: "Well, actually, I meant Marishkino village... You'd probably be better off checking with someone else..." I got in the car and quickly retreated, leaving the man with much to think about...
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The story was told by my spouse's friend who works for the Beeline cellular company.
She initially worked 6-7 years ago as an operator in a call center, helping subscribers navigate and set up their "wireless jungles."

(1st person)

So I'm sitting there working; one hour left until the end of my shift. My brain hurts from all these calls and stupid questions, rude attitudes and threats. All conversations with bananas (subscribers) are recorded and checked if they complain. And this, in case the operator really didn't help or ignored them etc., means a cut in bonuses and premiums.

And then a subscriber calls—a person of Caucasian nationality with a characteristic accent, asking something incomprehensibly (only words like... desk... I have... not working are clear)

Me: Excuse me, could you repeat that? What is the problem?
Sub.: Desk, saying again, it not working
Me: What is not working?
Sub.: In telephone, this... Shar... Joparez not working
Me: Excuse me, we do not deal with mobile phone games.
Sub.: What game?! This not game, this Shar Joparez! Wife wanted go to internet, say not working, say need call here they make. Make please, eh?
I'm stunned; what "shar," what "joparez"!!!
After about 5 seconds, it hits me what he means! I give him the settings for
WAP, GPRS.
The conversation was recorded and listened to with laughter by the whole center for a long time))))))

Collected some more.
A man goes to the vet:
- What are you complaining about?
- About life.
- But I'm a veterinarian, not a psychologist.
- Well, it's a dog's life.
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- You're an idiot and your jokes are stupid!
— Marry me!
— Oh, please forgive me. Are you serious?
— No, I'm joking, I'm joking :)
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In Baden-Baden, a fundraiser has started to annex one more
Baden to the city.
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Mom asks Vovochka:
- Why did you come home from school so early today?
- Because I was the only one who could answer the teacher's question.
- What a good boy! And what was the question?
- "Who threw their pencil case at the principal?"
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Using a hoop and a bald boy, an ingenious astronomy teacher showed the children the planet Saturn.
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- You won't believe it, friend, but with my unremarkable appearance, everyone constantly
forgets me; even in the mailbox, I have to enter my password every
time, even though I click the 'remember me' button.
- Listen, dude, who are you anyway?
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- Excuse me, have you seen my little dog? Small, shaggy, always
gets under everyone's feet and barks loudly.
- Is that the one that flies ten meters from a light kick? No,
haven't seen it.
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Actor Rostislav Plyatt was great at skiing until he played the role of Pastor Schlag.
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- Do you also vacuum, pick up a stuck thread and throw it back
onto the carpet, giving the vacuum CLEANER ANOTHER CHANCE?
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I started smoking with electronic cigarettes. Over time, they weren't enough for me, and I switched to regular ones.
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Today I was running after the bus; the driver stopped and waited. But I am proud… I ran right past him!
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A scary woman and a young man are traveling on a train. They travel in silence… Then the train enters a tunnel. The woman (coquettishly):
- If you kiss me, I'll scream.
The young man:
- Me too.
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1931. Memories of a former soldier.
A sergeant is conducting a lesson on electrical equipment.
- All materials are divided into conductors, insulators, and semiconductors.
- He... He (Half the soldiers from technical schools and institutes)
- Stop the giggling! Metals, water, etc., are conductors. Wood, plastic, etc.,
are insulators.
- May I ask a question?
- What is wet wood?
- My answer - a semiconductor!
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In 80 years, our descendants will accidentally find a long-forgotten
Windows in some archives, decrypt the primitive program code and panic.
According to the calendar of the extinct operating system, the end of the world will come in 2099.
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Do you also take leaflets at the metro not to find out what's inside, but to help the person handing them out?
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xxx: came across a programmer vacancy
xxx: requirements: knowledge of C++‚ C#, java script, Linux,
Virtual machines(vmware).
xxx: are they high or something?
yyy: Relax, the girl from HR probably just typed "programming" into Google
and copied the first results =)
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Went fishing for nothing: pressure is high, fish aren't biting. Maybe their heads hurt too...
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Wife to husband:
- Honey, take out the trash.
Husband:
- Nah, can't be bothered today.
Wife:
- Well, at least eat something then.
Husband:
- I wish it were always like that: if you don't want to take out the trash, the alternative is
to eat!
Mother-in-law:
- Well, the trash has to go somewhere!
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A husband was burdened with a huuuuge report that had to be done in one day.
He saved the first part of the report under a normal name, but as negative emotions grew, other parts were given working titles like
"ass2", "ass3", "appendices to the ass". He finished the report late at night and was so tired that he sent the whole folder just like that...
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Went into a store yesterday for a lighter - standing in line. An absolutely zero-//man enters with a little dog in his arms and goes straight to the seller, skipping the line - liter of vodka - 2L of beer. He turns to me (I've worn a beard for 12 years) and as if looking in a mirror, declares - "Didn't shave today, huh"
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Buried my husband. Had to go back out on the, so to speak, "dating market". Realized I'd fallen behind modern trends. Recently.
Getting to know each other. He asks: "Do you have a favorite toy?"
Me: "Yes. A Rubik's Cube"
That was the end of the conversation.
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Jedi

33-year-old David Canterbury was sentenced to 45 days in prison for attacking customers at a toy store. As reported by
Oregon Live, the man beat three people with two toy lightsabers - one in each hand. After that, he ran outside, where police tried to detain him. The man refused to comply with police demands and beat them with the lightsabers too.

David was found guilty of assault and resisting arrest.
Additionally, the court recommended a psychiatric evaluation.
The defendant, in turn, said that he had already started looking for a good psychiatrist or psychiatric clinic to improve his health. He also apologized to his accidental victims.

Furthermore, Canterbury was prohibited from approaching the toy store where the incident occurred.
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We have an intercom. And my son-in-law (sister's husband) is a prankster. Every time he comes over, he invents a new phrase. The latest:

* intercom rings, I pick up *
– Yes?!
– I'm from the Bookworm Society! ... Is there anything to eat?!
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Alcohol not only destroys the liver but also stifles beautiful impulses.
The residents of the California gold-mining town of Rough and Ready in April
1850 voted to secede from the USA. It should be noted that California had been annexed by the United States only a couple of years before, so there was quite a spirit of freedom there.
Thus appeared the "Great Republic of Rough and Ready". The citizens of the newly formed state elected their president and adopted a constitution. Everything was fine until it was time to celebrate US Independence Day on July 4th. The prospectors had waited all year for it to party hard, but it turned out that, first, it was no longer their holiday, and second, as foreigners, they were refused the sale of alcohol in the neighboring town. They had to urgently hold a referendum on reunification.
The Republic rejoined its huge neighbor. The townsfolk managed to get drunk, but they lost their independence forever.
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ENTRY IN A SCHOOL DIARY
It is known that after becoming the world chess champion, Mikhail Tal continued to work in one of the Riga schools... as a humble literature teacher.
A funny story happened during one of his lessons: he noticed that during class, on a chessboard located on the windowsill, two students were quietly playing a game. White had every chance to deliver mate in four moves; however, they not only missed this chance but also fell under a crushing attack themselves.
Teacher Tal demanded the diary of the rule-breaker, where he made a strict note for the parents' information: "Failed to find mate in four moves during literature class!".
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About the boy who, back in Soviet times, proposed a new energy-saving scheme for opening bridges in Leningrad...
I remember there was a section in the "Young Technician" magazine where young Kulibins sent their technical proposals, sometimes reasonable, sometimes not so much.
Among the "unreasonable" ones at the time was such an idea: to hang enlarged movie frames in metro tunnels in front of the windows, so that one frame corresponded to the size of one window. And then, in the young inventor's mind, while riding the metro, passengers would watch movies.
The editorial board concluded that this was technically impossible (viewing requires images to be stationary even for a short time; trains change speed on different sections of the route, i.e., movement will slow down or speed up. Again - if a passenger travels only one stop, what, will he see only three minutes of the movie?). The verdict was delivered - "no patents issued!" (that was the name of the magazine column).
What do you think? Twenty years pass, I've long forgotten that "Young Technician" magazine, and for the first time in my life, I fly to London. Imagine my surprise when from a train going from Heathrow Airport to the city railway station, I suddenly see in the windows (as the train passes through a dark tunnel) an advertising clip, which is formed exactly by images hung in the tunnel, one window - one frame!
Technically it's solved simply - the images are lit by lamp flashes (like a stroboscope), which happen exactly when the window passes before the center of the image. The clip is short, naturally, a few minutes; organizing a constant train speed for 3 minutes is no problem. Even sound is transmitted (I think via the carriage's radio network, I don't remember exactly).
Technically everything could have been done 30 years ago; the question was that in the USSR back then, nobody thought about the need for advertising clips... So much for "no patents issued"!
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Once, one of my acquaintances was completely hounded regarding taxes for
(something or other) his long-deceased father. It's unclear where and why information suddenly surfaced, but they wanted it all at once with interest. Thus this masterpiece was born.

" Dear *name*, the addressee you specified voluntarily checked out on *date* and moved to a dormitory at: *morgue address*; from where after
*number* days, celebrating housewarming with flair at *crematorium address*, he moved to a new permanent place of residence: "cemetery address", plot No.
"number", spot No. "number". Please send all subsequent correspondence directly to the addressee, at the actual location (specified above)."
An amazing thing for our country, but the "happiness" letters stopped.
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If age and lack of brains permit, then why not?
This time, a lack of brains led us to one wonderful and very talented prank.

… In the yard of the house, workers were boiling tar. Barrels were smoking, workers were swearing, black sludge was bubbling, and all this together created such a romantic atmosphere that we, little boys, simply could not pass by.

- Uncle, can you give us some tar? – two street lads with a bucket stood
before the foreman, who, having just had lunch and a drink, was in
a very good mood. One of these lads with a bucket was
me.

The uncle looked at us kindly, said something like "take it [censored], why not?", and poured half a bucket of black, hot sludge.
At first we intended to pour it into various molds and make all sorts of interesting things, but a neighbor, a creature never sober and therefore regularly beaten by his wife, meeting us on our way, muttered something like "stole something again, little bandits", and thereby predetermined his own near future.

We suddenly felt offended, especially since this time we hadn't stolen anything, but had very honestly asked for it. Textured tar products fell to the background, and the question came to the foreground – how to prank the neighbor for his unfair words that wounded tender children's souls?

The fact that almost all adult neighbors feared us in no way speaks of gaps in upbringing or coarsened spirituality. But this neighbor did not fear us. He was brave and stupid, this neighbor.

The question of how to punish the neighbor so that in the future he would not say all sorts of unfair and defaming things about us became urgent.

The proposal to pour tar into the keyhole was rejected due to its lack of aesthetics. A proposal to pee on the mat in front of the door was also not taken into account. Firstly, we didn't want to pee, and secondly, we remembered well how a boy from our yard was caught doing that. First, he was educated by the presumed victim in the form of a spherical woman, then his father educated him personally, then the woman educated his father, then the father, inspired by the woman's non-pedagogical words, educated him again, then they all went together to the woman and the boy personally scrubbed the mat in the woman's bathtub. Then the boy went home, but the father stayed. Then the mother came from work and with the virtuosity of a medieval Jesuit extracted all the events of the past day. Then he went with his mother to show the apartment where he had peed on the mat. But for some reason, the mother didn't even look at the mat. Instead, she looked with a gaze heavy as a blacksmith's hammer at the door and said – "Go home, son."
No one knows what happened there; only frightened neighbors told each other in quiet whispers how the mother rolled the spherical woman across the landing, and how the father, after the woman's moonshine, crooked as a saxaul branch, jumped around the hallway in family boxers and shouted that he was a Timurovets and helps people wash mats peed on by hooligans.

In general, remembering this tragedy, we abandoned such revenge.
We entered the hallway, looked at the neighbor's apartment… Who remembers: before, when everything was bad and stagnant, shoes were put out in the corridor. Yes, everything was bad then, but the shoes stood there. And no one stole them. Although everything was bad. Yes.
This time, his valenki (felt boots) were standing in front of the neighbor's doors. To us, still little boys then, these valenki seemed like tunnels to a smelly underworld.
I am not exaggerating about the smell one bit. The fact that the neighbor put his valenki outside the door could be determined by smell from the first floor.
Dogs, instinctively fearing to burn their olfactory organs, were afraid to enter the hallway. And in summer even flies didn't fly in for probably the same reason. Because all normal people had a horseshoe hanging over the door, and the neighbor had valenki. The fact that once he hid a bottle of vodka in them, and the valenki, unable to withstand it, fell on the painted crown of his spouse, did not deter him from the habit of hanging smelly felt works of art over the door.

But now it was winter, and two valenki, pressed against each other, smelled together while standing guard near the door.

I won't say the idea came suddenly. Before that we went through many options, but settled on this one.

For some time the valenki disappeared, and an hour later they reappeared. To look at them, everything remained as it was. Even the smell. The smell of fuel oil with which they were stained outside and the smell of dead socks mixed with the smell of wet felt inside.

The neighbor came home in the evening as usual, making such loops with his feet as if he were dragging not a scrawny body, but at least a wagon full of watermelons.

- Throw out the bucket! – sounded from his door and we pressed to the peephole,
trying to see the effect simultaneously. And there was an effect! Not for nothing did we,
showing wonders of artistic molding, spend a whole hour sculpting additional ten centimeters on the toes from pliable
tar, and then, having thrown all the shelves out of the refrigerator, cooled this smelly work
of art. The fact that the valenki became ten centimeters longer, the neighbor
didn't seem to notice, attributing it to extra moonshine in his body. We
realized this when he, unable to cope with the new size, tumbled even on
the way to the stairs. The grunting of the neighbor, collecting the contents
of a spilled bucket about "strong moonshine" and "damn, what a dinner I had"
hinted that he had no complaints about the valenki. Through the crack
of the slightly open door we watched as the neighbor, resembling a sapper who had already stepped on three mines,
crawled across the landing dragging behind him
the heavier valenki and suspecting nothing. It looked like this: - seeing
another potato peel, the neighbor, standing on his knees, stretched his
arms forward, leaned on them, then with a groan like someone giving birth to twins pulled one
leg, rested for a second, then pulled the other. The confrontation with
the valenki that had gained new strength was not easy. We felt sorry for the neighbor. One more circumstance worried us. In the process of moving the body and
pulling legs with valenki, the latter scraped their sculpted
tar noses on the floor and deformed slightly. And we had so
carefully smeared them with fuel oil that we scraped from those same valenki! The neighbor left two black tracks behind him and it gave the impression that he had slammed on the brakes and skidded, leaving tire marks.
When the neighbor stood up and looked down… In general, the bucket, falling from weakened fingers, fell again and unloaded a bit onto the floor in an untidy pile. But the neighbor didn't care; he looked with horror at the tips of the valenki, which after crawling on the floor now resembled walrus flippers, though not as proportional as those of that beautiful animal. The man smacked his lips, moved dirty fingers in the air as if weaving an invisible web and tried to find a logical explanation for what he saw.

No logical explanation was found. We realized this when the neighbor cautiously, as if held by the balls by a rabid gorilla, left the valenki, picked them up with two fingers and carried them to the dump with outstretched arms. Barefoot.
On his face wandered… No, not a smile… Rather an expression of a person who had attained universal wisdom or discovered the source of eternal youth. Since then, no valenki were observed in front of his door.

The hallway breathed with full lungs.
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RELIABLE PARKING
I work at a firm in Kazan. I'm quitting tomorrow, so I can tell one story. In early 2011, a guy named Anton from Naberezhnye Chelny worked for us, nicknamed Gorin. He was frankly miserable with us. Firstly, he was "too smart"; he didn't show off himself, but the superiority of his brains constantly "leaked" out involuntarily, and the bosses often felt like idiots in his presence. Well, naturally, Gorin wasn't loved. Secondly, by appearance he was constantly confused with security guards: a burly man and shaved bald. And the security guards at our firm were always treated as lackeys. And this always pissed Gorin off.
And it also pissed him off that our bosses often got behind the wheel "under the influence". Well, this Gorin is such a relic of the pioneer organization.
Now for the story itself.
A delegation from abroad came to our firm one day. Either from the States or from Great Britain. Moreover, they themselves were from abroad, but arrived in
Kazan in a company "Audi" TT from Moscow. Like - a trip at the company's expense. Remember this, it's important. Such important cheapskates. Well, our department in full force was sent to organize their accommodation, cultural program, etc. And Gorin too. Well, as is fitting: booze, restaurant, sauna, hookers... Moving around the city with a drunk guest at the wheel.
At some point, already in the sauna, one of these cheapskates turns to
Gorin and throws the car keys at him with the words "You put the car in the parking lot. Just make sure it's not stolen!".
In Gorin's eyes, for a moment, flashes a desire to drown this foreign bastard in a basin, but we see he seems to have calmed down. And calmly the cheapskate asks: "You know, we have absolutely reliable parkings. But they are expensive. Are you ready to pay?" The foreigner arrogantly tells him that "price does not matter". Well, obviously, it's not his money.
Gorin and I go out into the same-room. He takes a bottle of vodka from the table, takes a glass, pours himself about 150 grams and "slams" it in one gulp. I'm shocked. But
Gorin just winked and - to the street. Returns in about forty minutes, quietly giggling, slips some piece of paper into the foreigner's pocket, goes and reports that he put the car in such a parking lot that no one, even if they wanted to, except the owner, could take it from there. And the owner was already completely gone, just waved his hand.
The joke became clear in the morning: Gorin didn't lie a word. No one could steal
the "Audi TT". And no one could take it except the owner. Because it was at an
IMPOUND LOT!
This joker, after drinking vodka, drove to the nearest traffic police post, drove past it at 140 km/h, and then, pretending to be drunk, gave the name of the foreign cheapskate. He took a copy of the report (which he stuffed into the bastard's pocket), and then returned to the sauna on his own.
In the morning, the foreigners didn't even remember how they managed to get caught by our police and just stupidly paid the fine. And our whole department, laughing secretly, kept silent about this case like partisans under interrogation until Anton quit. Anton, Gorin, brother, if you read this story, know that we remember you! Call sometime; you pest, you took everyone's numbers and left yours to no one!
-----------
It was back in the shaggy 90s. The zucchini harvest that summer exceeded all conceivable records. We fried them, steamed them, pickled them; only moonshine hadn't been brewed from them yet. It seemed a pity to throw them away too... My grandfather, thinking for a bit and scratching his head, took a wooden chair and put the zucchini goods on it outside the gate on the street, attaching a sign "FREE". After an hour or two, grandpa found all the zucchini goods in full force on the ground, and the chair was gone as if it had never been there.... Freebies, my dear, are a treacherous thing.
-------
ALIEN

Another sketch about a pug.
Walking the dog. Two schoolchildren pass by.
- Oh look, what a cool little dog!
- Yeah, there was one like that in "Men in Black". Only he was an alien
there and talked.
- And this one?
- What - this one?
- Does it talk?
- Well, go up and ask…
The boy hesitantly approaches the dog. The dog, loving children, jumps on him, hugs him with paws and says: "Wow!"
The boy recoils toward his friend:
- Damn!!! It really is a talking alien!
---------
Munich, two weeks ago.
A Russian lady is standing in a store and in extremely broken English tries to explain herself to the seller, who speaks very good
Shakespeare's language. After about five minutes, when not even understanding each other, let alone reaching a consensus, was like walking to the Moon, the irritated lady gives the seller a "brilliant" phrase: "Do you speak English?"
To which she receives a calm answer:
- It is in English that I have been talking to you all this time...
------
This is a story about how 30 years ago my friend Igor almost became a contender for the Darwin Award, which no one had heard of back then...
This is also a story about how two boys from the fourth floor caught a truck with a spinning rod and a carrot...
And it happened like this. Two ten-year-old slackers (Igorek and his friend) dreamed of learning how to fish with a spinning rod. Igorek's father was an angler, but he didn't trust the boys with the gear yet. It was kept on the balcony; the parent prudently removed the weights and hooks and hid them separately.
One day, when dad wasn't home, Igorek and his friend took out their father's spinning rod with bated breath and decided to learn how to cast independently, but in such a way that no one would guess. To the disappointment of the friends, although line was wound on the reel, this construction ended not with a weight, but with a lonely loop that didn't want to fly anywhere.
Rummaging on the balcony for a weight, the boys found nothing more suitable than a bag of carrots. A projectile of optimal size and aerodynamics was extracted from the bag, which they tied to the line.
The first casts were not distinguished by any particular distance - the carrot fell gloomily onto the lawn under the balcony. But experience came quickly, and after some time
Igorek made that very legendary cast. The carrot whistled across about twenty meters separating the house from the road and landed right in a passing truck, deftly wrapping itself around the rearview mirror. The driver, being a tough Vitebsk man, treated this fact with utter indifference, meaning he didn't even slow down. So what - something hit the windshield and attached to the mirror - is it the first time?
Thus, the truck continues on its way calmly, while
Igorek, gripping his father's spinning rod with a death grip and the reel screaming at an ultrasonic frequency, runs out of line and starts to panic. He cannot drop the spinning rod - he'll get it from his father.
The carrot does not want to untie itself from the truck. Proper fighting such a massive fishing trophy is clearly beyond a ten-year-old boy - he lacks experience. Breaking 0.5 or 0.6 mm line is also not as simple as it may seem.
Eventually, the line runs out, and a terrifying jerk pulls
Igorek off the fourth-floor balcony. Fortunately, when more than half of his body was already over the railing, two things happened: the spinning rod slipped from his hands, and his friend grabbed Igorek by the legs, so he remained on the balcony alive and unharmed, although with a bit of an adrenaline overdose. The spinning rod traveled about fifty meters behind the truck, then got stuck in the bushes and the line finally snapped.
Igorek still got it from his dad later for the missing line and the reel packed tight with sand, grass, and dog poop. But the Darwin
Award passed him by. That's a good thing - let the Americans get that one...

An American billionaire built a 100-story skyscraper and announced that whoever could carry a bucket of concrete to the 100th floor would receive $1 million. Three volunteers came forward: an American, a Ukrainian, and a Georgian. The American carried the bucket to the 25th floor and died. The doctors concluded that the vein in his penis had ruptured, and he died from blood loss. The Ukrainian carried the bucket to the 50th floor and died. The same thing happened – the vein ruptured, and he died from blood loss. The Georgian carried the bucket to the 99th floor and died. The doctors concluded that the handle on the bucket had ruptured, and he died from hitting himself in the forehead with his penis.

Epitaph on the grave of Zmey Gorynych: "He was born to fly, had a heart of fire, spoke three languages, and appreciated feminine beauty."
-------------
- Tell me, if a husband cleans his nails with a screwdriver, can you call him an idiot?
- Well, only if it's a Phillips-head!
- Another one...
---------
The first thing a Chukchi visiting Moscow couldn't understand was why everyone kept saying "however" to him while smiling slyly...
----------
A hare is walking through the forest and sees a bear selling gum:
- Bear, give me some gum.
- Answer 3 questions correctly and I will. First question: from what year to what year was the First World War?
- From 1914 to 1917.
- Who participated in the Second World War?
- Hitler and Stalin.
- How many stars are in the sky?
- Scientists don't know yet.
- Take the gum.
The hare walks through the forest and meets a wolf.
- Where did you get the gum?
- The bear is selling it beyond the same birch grove. He'll ask you 3 questions. The answer to the first is from 1914 to 1917. To the second - Hitler and Stalin. To the third - scientists don't know yet.
The wolf goes to the bear.
- Ask your questions.
- What year were you born?
- From 1914 to 1917.
- Who are your father and mother?
- Hitler and Stalin.
- Are you an idiot?
- Scientists don't know yet.
Galya.
----------
British scientists have discovered that all other scientists have long been laughing at their discoveries...
--------
You guys have jeeps, yachts, planes over there...
In our village, the one whose water hasn't frozen is the same as a big shot.
---------
The algorithm of a navigator with a "traffic" function:
1. Find a route to the nearest dead-end traffic jam.
2. Wait until the user in the dead-end jam curses, screams, cries, laughs, turns the navigator off and on several times, and starts falling asleep...
3. Suggest "cutting" 5 meters of the dead-end jam by turning into the nearest gas station.
If the user turns into an alley/U-turns and thus escapes the dead-end jam:
1. Issue a warning: You have left the route!
2. Find a route to the nearest dead-end traffic jam.
---------
Everyone has read the "Do not feed the lions" sign on the cage at the zoo. Only the janitor knows that on the other side it says "Do not eat humans."
---------
The other day in the news, they said that Deputy Zhirinovsky, speaking in the Duma, really went after one of his colleagues. "...young strong deputies gathered from both sides..." They show a Stone Head with the comment "Deputy Valuyev HUMANEly decided not to interfere in the conflict."!!!!!

He should have interfered, perhaps...
--------
Once upon a time, when trees were big and prices were small, my parents picked up a fluffy smoky kitten. There was no question about the name: Dymok (Smoky) and Dymok.

And a couple of weeks later, the author of these lines was born. Therefore, the rest is from my parents' words.

Dymok and I grew up together, and I couldn't imagine it being any other way, as his presence was beside me throughout my entire endless life, until I was three. The cat slept with me instead of a soft toy, finished my semolina porridge, and I was caught a couple of times trying to treat myself from the cat's bowl.

But cats in private houses don't live long, and eventually find adventure for their rear-end assets. Either they get caught in a trap, or poisoned somewhere, or torn apart by dogs, or shredded by own kind.
That's how Dymok disappeared one day when I was three. At first, I wailed and pestered everyone with the question "Where is Dymok?". Then I searched all the sheds, attics, and the garden (for those times—a huge unexplored territory for a three-year-old giant). Eventually, they calmed me down with a fairy tale about how he went to a land where there are many, many mice, and that he is happy now.

A few months passed. Late autumn, first frosts (in the 60s, frosts still occurred in November). Mom is getting ready for work, putting on her warm coat and gray fur hat for the first time this year. Suddenly someone tugs at her coat and, looking intently from her eyes to her hat, asks in a sly voice:

"Mom. Where is Dymok?"
-----------
The biggest lottery win for me was my life.
It went like this: my parents already had two daughters, but my father desperately wanted a son. And so Mom was pregnant for the third time and planning to have an abortion, because moving around military towns in Soviet times following the officer ranks of a beloved husband with three children is more costly than with two.
But Dad bet that this time a boy would definitely be born and he would teach him football and billiards, and take him fishing. He starts begging Mom, saying he'll do anything in the world if she just has the third child.
And she happens to blurt out: "Win a Volga in the lottery with one ticket—then I'll have it."
Dad rushes to the nearest kiosk, buys one instant lottery ticket and... jumps for joy with wild screams - VOLGA!!!
Mom had to give birth to me :) Though, I turned out to be a girl after all. Oh well, but I still play billiards pretty well.
-----------
In the Polar Urals, many trailers (called "balks") remained after geological surveys; they can be found in many valleys and even on passes. Since windows and doors were broken long ago, balks fill with snow in winter, sometimes the snow inside doesn't melt all summer. The dream of a skier exhausted by wind, cold, and this whole Ural region is to find an intact balk in livable condition. Or at least bring it to that state by shoveling out the snow. And so we found a whole mini-settlement of such houses right on the pass. Plenty of snow inside. But in one of the balks, there was still a gap between the snow and the ceiling. And a stove pipe stuck out—all signs pointed toward an upcoming warm night's sleep. But first, several cubic meters of snow had to be moved, and beforehand, it had to be determined if this made sense. And so one of my friends, a highly rational man, lay on his stomach and crawled into the darkness. It was very narrow. He courageously pushed forward. Suddenly something stopped him. Since in childhood my friend spent a long time and productively doing caving, this was nothing new to him. He exhaled properly and tried to push forward. In vain! Stuck! Another attempt—no way! He lay there, recovered his breath, started freezing. No panic! Another attempt—no!
Stuck!!! It took another 15 minutes before it dawned on him.
Later he recalled that the thought was killingly simple.
"Skis! My God, I forgot to take off my skis!"
--------------
Pieced together from many memoirs. October '41, five of our armies were surrounded near Vyazma. Summoned from Leningrad, Zhukov searches among the Moscow marshes for the front commander Marshal Budyonny. The road to Moscow is open; a column of German armored vehicles rushes along the Warsaw highway. A company of cadets from the Yukhnovskoye school placed several anti-aircraft guns across the highway and fired direct fire. The German column grumbled and rushed around via a forest path. At first they were doing well, but then a sleepy light rain started. They were only a couple of kilometers away from the highway with their clever maneuver. A German tanker managed to write in his diary - "stuck up to our ears in mud. We aren't driving, we're digging. If only the frosts would come!" When the tanks were buried up to the turret, the frosts hit...
-------------
About Anfiska

In our kindergarten there is one little thing, Anfiska; our lockers are next to each other. Well, it doesn't stop at lockers; they also sleep side by side. In short, such bed-and-locker relations.
Anyway, that's not what this is about. Not about the relations.
So, this little thing, Anfiska, she has two dads. Papa Erik and Papa Vitalik. They take her to the garden in turns. That's exactly how she calls them: Papa Erik and Papa Vitalik.
Fine. The more dads, the better. After all, it directly affects the number of gifts. Some have none, but Anfiska has two. Let her be.
The distribution of dads across the planet is generally quite uneven. Sometimes thick, sometimes thin. It often happens that there are two dads. Or none. Anfiska has two, so what's the big deal?
Another thing is that Anfiska also has two moms. On one hand, with two dads, this seems perfectly normal. On the other hand—quite atypical. Their names are Mama Sveta and Mama Lena. They also take turns in the watch of delivering Anfiska along with the dads. They have some kind of complex sliding schedule, maybe twenty-four hours on three off. Moreover, if Anfiska's dads differ sharply from each other (one is dark-haired, the other red), and don't cause identification problems, then Anfiska's moms are like two drops of water, and I still get confused about who the duty mom is today until Anfiska says her name.
But most often, Anfiska is brought to the garden by her grandmother. Don't be scared, the grandmother is always the same one. Although with the number of parents God endowed Anfiska with, I can't even realistically imagine the number of grandmothers and grandfathers.
And least often, Anfiska is brought by Uncle Seryozha. Uncle Seryozha is either a friend or a driver for one of the dads. I don't know which one specifically. "Driver-of-another" says Anfiska. Uncle Seryozha is a big silent type. In all these years, I haven't heard a single word from Uncle Seryozha. He communicates with Anfiska using his head and ears.
He greets her upon meeting with his whole body. Once he returned to give back a toy Anfiska had forgotten. He stood in the doorway of the group. Well, finally, I thought. Now Uncle Seryozha will say his first word. And what did he do? He just clapped loudly. All the children, including Anfiska of course, immediately turned around.
At the same time, he is definitely not mute. I once clearly heard him cursing the driver of a car that blocked his exit.

Everyone has long grown used to this number of Anfiska's close relatives; no problems.
Actually, no. It happened once. When a new teacher came to our group, Anna Borisovna. They searched for her so long and were so happy when they found her that in their joy they simply forgot to mention the number of Anfiska's parents. And so for two weeks we enjoyed watching how her face gradually lengthened with the appearance of each new Anfiska dad or mom. When Mama Lena picked up Anfiska in the evening, but Uncle Seryozha brought her in the morning, Anna Borisovna's left eye would start to twitch. (Later it was fine, it passed)

In short, that's how it is.
Anyway, this isn't about moms and dads after all, it's about Anfiska.
You know, there's an expression—the tail wags the dog.
Well, this tail, Anfiska, she doesn't just wag the dog. No. She mocks this "dog" in every way, torments her, shreds nerves, bossy-boots her, and vilely ridicules her.
This little booger has mastered all the techniques of the most disgusting manipulation.
Apparently, despite the apparent well-being of the relations, there is a hidden competition between families for Anfiska's attention. And she makes great use of this.
Mama Lena dresses her, for example, and then Anfiska screams indignantly.
- Why did you tie the scarf under the jacket!!! Mama Sveta always ties mine on top! Otherwise I could easily catch a cold!
Mama Lena's eyes become big and frightened, and she starts frantically re-tying the scarf. After that, you can do whatever you want with Mama Lena; she is completely demoralized. I, observing this, know perfectly well that, first of all, Anfiska doesn't give a damn how her scarf is tied. And secondly, I remember perfectly that she said exactly the same thing to Mama Sveta yesterday.
Or for example, Papa Vitalik ties bows for her in the morning. He puffs and sweats, trying with his palms to handle each of Anfiska's head's thin webs of hair and ribbons.
- Blue on the left, pink on the right! - Anfiska ridicules joyfully after waiting until the bows are finally tied. - And how did you tie them?! Re-tie them now! Why are you dawdling? Do you know how Papa Erik ties bows? Zip, and that's it! And he hangs the jacket on that hook over there, not this one! What, are you just clueless?
Papa Vitalik shrivels up and starts to fuss. His hands and chin tremble; it's unpleasant to look at him. Well, I don't look. When I observe all these Anfiska jumps and affectations, my hands start to itch. Little monster. I simply can't imagine how one can tolerate such a thing. If it were up to me, this little scrap would be marching in formation and saluting by the third day. Now if anything, putting small vile blots in their place—I wouldn't need any other food, just give me the chance.
The mockery usually ends the same way. Nina Palna appears.
- Anfiska?! You'll get it from me, you little brat! Now move it to the group!
Anfiska tucks her tail and all her arrogance flies off her like dandelions in the wind. You can't fool Nina Palna.
We had many teachers change, but the nanny Nina Palna is as immovable as New Year's. Nina Palna doesn't coddle anyone for long. Everyone is afraid of her. Even lumpy porridge and fish soup are eaten with pleasure to the bottom (everyone-everyone, including, I think, even the kindergarten director). For Anfiska's numerous parents, the appearance of Nina Palna is like a lifebuoy for a drowning person. They sigh in relief and wipe sweat from their foreheads. I think in their souls they simply idolize Nina Palna. I don't know what they do at home without her, how they deal with this little monster.

So that's the way the same-kitten-pies go. That's the kind of curious friend the kid has.
And then, just before New Year's, we gathered for a New Year's performance at the ice palace.
For company, we invited a buddy, Genka. So it wouldn't be boring.
We agreed with his parents.
Well, everything was discussed, and I was just about to go get the tickets. And suddenly the kid says - why doesn't Anfiska come with us too?
- No!!! - I said quickly. - No, in no case!
The kid got upset. That is, he didn't say anything of course; if not, then not. But he was saddened.
I don't like it when the kid gets saddened. More accurately how? Most of all in life I don't like it when the kid gets saddened.
And I thought. Yes, maybe I am not courageous enough, and even somewhere a faint-hearted person. But I've lived, tasted everything, I served in the army after all, stood on the parade ground in thirty-degree frost, and once I was even actually killed. Do I really fear staying for three hours with some little slip of a girl? That would be shameful.
And I said - damn it, fine. Let Anfiska come!
- Hurray! - shouted the kid. This reconciled me to the inevitable for a while.
Besides, in my soul I still hoped that one of her parents would go with us. Two adults are better than one. I am a naive person, raised on Soviet principles of kindness and justice. I didn't think that Anfiska's parents were significantly younger and raised on completely different principles.
- Great! - they said. - Just wonderful! Will you pick her up from home, or should we bring her somewhere?
Unfeigned joy rang in the voice at the possibility of getting rid of the domestic tyrannosaurus for even three hours. I realized there was no help to be expected.

At night, on the eve of the performance, I had a nightmare. As if I, driven to despair by Anfiska's twists and turns, take her by the hands and feet, spin her over my head, and let go. She flies over the stadium arena, over the heads of the spectators, and lands like a rag doll in the opposite stands. "My God! What have I done!" I think. And meanwhile over the arena, on those huge screens, Anfiska's mocking face appears, and from the loudspeakers throughout the stadium her vile "Ha-ha-ha! Who throws like that? Now Mama Sveta..." blares out.
I woke up in a cold sweat.
And we started getting ready.

Mama Lena brought Anfiska to the stadium. They stood by the car, and Anfiska was habitually telling her off about something. Regarding her hairstyle, as I understood it.
- Is it warm in your car? - I asked.
- Yes, normal...
- Then maybe you'll change her here? In the foyer there is god-knows-what going on. And you can't get into the cloakroom at all.
- Of course! - said Mama Lena and looked at Anfiska.
- I don't want to change in the car! - she squeaked defiantly and pouted her lip.
Then I sat down and said quietly.
- Did I ask what you want? You have four and a half minutes. If you don't make it, you go home. That's it, time starts now.
Anfiska dove into the car, and Mama Lena stood there looking at me like I was a yeti.
- Four and a half minutes. - I repeated
- Oh, sorry! - she realized and dove after Anfiska.
Then I wrapped the changed child in my jacket, took her under my arm, and marched into the building. The performance was starting.

You know what? I've seen all kinds of children. And I love observing various little scraps.
But listen! I have never, ever in my life encountered such an obedient and calm child.
She didn't throw tantrums, didn't grumble, and didn't talk back. She ate sweet popcorn, although she asked for salted. She drank mineral water instead of cola silently.
She watched the boys while I stepped away for snacks, and quietly recounted the missed events on stage to me. And during the break...
Listen, during the break, when the kid was rolling like mercury through the foyer, she just stuck like gum to my leg and didn't peel off for a second. Which greatly simplified my life, since I only have two eyes.
In short, this was anyone but that Anfiska I knew.
The one who every morning sawed at the nerves of those around her with a rusty chisel "And I will NOOOOT wear these pink tiiiights! I already said, I'll only weaaar blue ones! Is it really so hard to remember?!"
I didn't like all this; I was waiting for a catch. I was focused, tense, and ready at any moment, at the slightest attempt to test my authority, to flatten this little slip with a couple of pre-prepared sharp phrases.
Alas. She didn't give me a single chance. Didn't give the slightest reason.

Then she asked to go to the bathroom; we walked through empty echoing passages and chatted about this and that. And while washing hands, she suddenly asked.
- Doesn't Nikita have a mom?
- What makes you think so? - I laughed. - Of course he does!
- It's just that she never comes to the garden.
- Well, she has other things to do. That's why I always take Nikita.
- Lucky him! - she sighed.
- How is it lucky? - I laughed again.
- No one argues about who takes the child to the garden tomorrow.
Then she looked at me in the mirror, thought and thought, and added.
- Because of that, they forgot to pick me up three times. And the teacher took me home with her. Just don't tell anyone.
- I won't. Did you cry?
- Only the first time. After that, I already became an adult.

* * *
After the New Year holidays, the first thing we saw entering the dressing room was Anfiska. She stood on a stool at attention, and opposite her, also at attention, stood Papa Vitalya with a phone in his hand.
- Ready? - asked Anfiska.
- Ready! - answered Papa Vitalya.
Then she commanded loudly.
- Four and a half minutes! Time starts now! Whoever doesn't make it goes home!
And she started undressing very quickly.
Sad Papa Vitalya obediently stared at the timer.

* * *
I remembered this story yesterday when picking up the kid from kindergarten.
The group under the guidance of an art teacher sat and were finishing drawing cards for February 23rd.
Then we were dressing, and the kid said.
- I have just a little bit left there, to finish coloring the tank.
- And I've finished everything! - boasted Anfiska, who was spinning around nearby.
- Wow! - I said. - You already drew two cards?
- Why two? - she wondered.
- Well how many? You have two dads. You need two cards.
Anfiska thought for a moment, pouted her lip, and said in a vile screeching voice.
- My goooood! With you men, there are always suuuuch prooooblemss!
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I'm playing the computer game "Akinator". The program guesses the word you thought of by asking various questions. So, at one point in the game I was asked: "Does your character have a brain?". I answered: "No" (since I had thought of the word "jack") and immediately received the next question: "Does your character wear a bra?"...

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A Story About a Cat
ru-cats.livejournal.com/19218540.html

Dear fellow cat owners, I've come to you for advice.

There is a cat. The cat weighs ten kilograms.
There is a bed. The bed has a high soft headboard 10-15 centimeters wide.
And there are the cat's owners, who sleep in this bed.

At night, the cat jumps onto the headboard and walks along it. The cat has a nightly promenade. But since the cat was a cow in a past life and carried some characteristics into its current incarnation, on the fourth or fifth lap, it loses its balance and splats downward.
If I'm lucky, the cat falls nearby. If not, ten kilograms of cat land on my head, and for some reason, always backside first.


Question: how do I break the cat of this habit?

The following have been tried:
- sticky tapes laid out on the headboard. (In the end, we spent half the night peeling them off a frantic cat; we almost left him without a scalp).
- ylang-ylang scent, which the cat dislikes. (The cat didn't give a damn that it was a scent he disliked).
- large amounts of tangerine peels (The cat disdainfully knocked the peels onto my head, and in the process, fell down after them himself).

What else can be done? I've already tried sleeping with a spray bottle under my pillow. The cat bolts, then returns.

ru-cats.livejournal.com/19238701.html
Two days ago, I posted a cry for help in the community.
I received many responses. Two were put into action immediately.
As promised, here is the report.

I love simple and easy-to-implement ideas. Therefore, suggestions to nail a shelf to the bed, to the cat, or to my own head so that it would be convenient for him to fall on, were postponed for later.

To start, I took six balloons from my child, blew them up, and wedged the knots between the wall and the bed. It looked very beautiful. My husband and I admired them and went to sleep.

In the middle of the night, a shot rang out. Half-asleep, I decided that my husband had shot the cat (although the only weapon in our house is a water pistol).
When we turned on the light, the cat was sitting on the floor surrounded by shreds of a blue balloon, squinting discontentedly. He was given a kick, the balloons were shifted, and we went back to sleep. This was our strategic error, proving how little we know about cats.

He popped the second and third balloons about twenty minutes later and scampered off, laughing mockingly. My husband insistently asked me to clear everything away and end the experiments for today. While I was hiding the balloons in the closet, the cat crept up to the largest one and swiped it with his paw.

The bottom line: minus four balloons, minus two hours of sleep, minus eight meters of nervous fibers between two adults. Plus entertainment for the cat.

Then we moved to plan B. The entire headboard was lined with several layers of foil so that it would crinkle louder. I assured my husband that he could now sleep peacefully: the cat definitely wouldn't go near the foil—he'd be afraid.

Well, that's almost what happened. The cat came a couple of hours later after we fell asleep. He jumped from the closet onto the foil. The foil crinkled, the cat got terrified, shot up into the air, and landed on my husband.

The bottom line: minus ten meters of foil, minus forty drops of motherwort for two adults. Plus entertainment for the cat.

ru-cats.livejournal.com/19428775.html
So, I had a problem that I brought to the community.

After the foil and balloons failed, I started thinking in another direction: how to keep the cat out of the bedroom at night.

First, a cat repeller was used. Unfortunately, the cat didn't understand it was a repeller. My husband, however, did; he grimaced, sniffed around, and eventually asked me to air out the room. So now I have a husband repeller—if anyone needs one, I can give it away.

A basin of water turned out to be roughly the same kind of stupidity. We put it there with the calculation that the cat would splash around and forget about the bed (he loves water).
The calculation was half-correct: the cat splashed, but he didn't forget the bed.
At night he came galloping to us, shaking wet paws. Half-asleep, it seemed to me that he had twenty-two of them. With ten of them, he stepped on my face; with the rest, he ran across the blanket and sheet. Finally, he gave my husband a loud kiss on the nose, poking him with a wet muzzle that was dripping water.

After that, my husband said to hell with the interior, he agreed to the shelf.

In the evening, he brought a varnished board with a lip, fussed over it for two hours, cursed the innocent bed, and finally attached it. I wanted to say that it's better for a cat to fall on us than this contraption (no one would have come out of under it alive). But I looked at my husband's face and decided to stay silent. Fine, I thought, we'll sleep one night—and then I'll take it down just to be safe.

Additionally, before bed, the child ran in and piled his toys on it. I waved it off and didn't start an argument because I was wondering which relative would raise the child if we were buried under the shelf.

(It must be said that my worry was unnecessary: as it turned out, my husband had nailed it for good).

At night, the cat came to the shelf. He strolled leisurely to the middle of the shelf and touched one of the toys with his paw.
This happened to be an interactive "Zhu-Zhu Pets" hamster.

At the touch of a cat's paw, the hamster switched on. It exclaimed invitingly:
"Abuzyuuuu-zy!" and ran at the cat, glowing with love.

I would gladly tell you what happened next. But I won't lie: we didn't see it. And in general, we didn't see the cat again until morning. The hamster reached the edge of the shelf and committed suicide like a lemming, jumping from the cliff into the basin of water.

Result: we took down the shelf.
A guard hamster now sits on the headboard.
The cat doesn't enter the room. And if he happens to see the hamster through the open door, he puffs up to the size of a manul and retreats in terror.
------------
They installed a barrier at the entrance to our territory. The system there is tricky and complicated! A SIM card is inserted into the corresponding block of the barrier, which in terms of functional capabilities corresponds to a mobile phone. You call this number, and if your phone is registered in its contact database, the barrier opens. No key fobs are needed, and the possibilities are wider—for example, a friend arrives, has no fob, and cannot get into the parking lot on the territory. He calls you, you call back the SIM number (even from another city!), and the barrier opens. But the SIM's memory isn't infinite; a hundred contacts and that's it! It was filled to the brim with new contacts. And people continue to demand new phone numbers from which they can open the barrier. Some for a driver, some for a translator or a lover.
And the residents are mostly foreigners, every other one an employee of foreign companies and consulates! And everyone is eager to start an international scandal, especially the journalists. I received instructions—take readings (compile a list of existing contacts on the SIM), determine who is who, delete the unnecessary ones, and add new, particularly persistent ones in their place.
I took out the SIM, put it in my own phone, tasked the security guard with opening and closing the barrier manually, and began to compile the list with great difficulty. Meanwhile, I was chatting with our drinkers—basically, I got distracted. A call, I answer, silence in response. An unfamiliar number. Shrugging, I hang up.
And so it happened twice more. It's getting irritating! I go to the bathroom, and at the most inconvenient moment, the mobile rings again. I thought something very bad about the person who was pestering me like this. At that moment, it didn't occur to me that the SIM in the phone wasn't mine at all. I think: what kind of asshole is calling from an unknown number?
I've had enough! I pick up the mobile—"GO [CENSORED]!!!" and in response, with a distinct Asian accent—"Slagbauma? How go to [censored]???????" Apparently, the guy finally decided once more to hear what answer comes to his unsuccessful calls.
The story didn't end there. After laughing it off somewhat, I finally finished the list and, conducting investigative actions with the help of other office employees, managed to establish the ownership of half the phones. There was nothing for it—the rest had to be called, and from that same SIM.
Of course, people were stunned at first! Almost everyone had this number saved in "contacts" as "barrier," and people were genuinely baffled, trying to figure out how a dumb piece of iron could call them and what questions it had for them???? On the other hand, after hearing the essence of the matter, they talked about themselves without hesitation—since I was calling from this number, it meant I really was doing this for official reasons. During one more call, I didn't have time to say anything. I only heard—"Eeee... Slagbauma? You yourself are fool, [censored] and... eee.. [censored]!!!" I don't know how much longer the poor Asian's Russian vocabulary would have lasted, but I doubled over, wiping away tears of silent laughter. I came to my senses only when my colleagues started shaking me by the shoulders and asking where I got such potent weed.
-----------
Children sometimes knock you for a loop.
My daughter (7 years old) asks: Mom, what are the paints made of that they used to color the world?
Me: ???? I don't understand, explain.
Her: Well, look, before, when you were little, everything was black and white: the grass, the trees, the people, and everything-everything... I know, I saw it in photos, grandma showed me... And then they colored everything, and everything became colorful.
So, what are those paints made of?
I'm floored—imagine that, looking at old black-and-white photos and thinking the whole world was like that! And then it was colored.
---------
Arriving in a northern hole in 1997, I found out that there was no hint of internet there, so I thought, Fido users must definitely be around. A week's search showed that "FIDO" was a very unfamiliar word there, because it really is an exceptional hole. In desperation, I put this ad in the local newspaper: "Looking for a node that will take a point."

I thought whoever knows—will understand; whoever doesn't—doesn't need to. But I was deeply mistaken. Judging by the onslaught of calls that followed, all of eastern Yakutia consisted of Fido users. And at that time, I was sent on a business trip. My wife answered the calls, and I had explained the basics of Fidonet to her. While relaying the content of the calls, she cried. And I cried. Very many people wanted to "take" (the ad said "take," therefore it's free!) this very "point." They asked what size it was, if it was fluffy or not, what it ate, etc. And MOST IMPORTANTLY, no one asked: what on earth is a POINT?
I got the impression that everyone had once kept such a "point" at home, fed it, pampered it, and played with it in the evenings. And they probably considered themselves "nodes":)) Not a single call to the point. There was no Fidonet there.

Petka and Vasily Ivanovich are running away from the Whites. They come to a high and very long fence. Petka says: - Vasily Ivanovich, let me lift you up, and you run away. - No, let me lift you up, and you run away. They argued, and Vasily Ivanovich gave in. He lifted Petka up, and he himself ran along the fence. He ran to the village, and there were only women there. And all of them were pregnant. Vasily Ivanovich dressed up, made a belly out of pillows. The Whites arrived. They lined everyone up on the street. The senior one approaches the first one and asks: - Who are you waiting for? - A boy. - Execute her. He will be a partisan. To the second one: - Who are you waiting for? - A girl. - Execute her. She will be a partisan. It's Vasily Ivanovich's turn: - Who are you waiting for? - An elephant. Want to see its trunk?

SaintFox posted several funny hero-themed pictures on the portal:
http://vk.com/album-3472742_152517913

If something is missing somewhere, it means something else exists somewhere.

Stupid advertising is not made by stupid people – it is made for stupid people.

Not every piece of crap becomes noble guano with age (S.E. Lets).

There are few decent people left – sometimes you lie with all your might, and almost no one believes you.

If people remember the talented artist Savil and his toucans, here are some more of his sketches, quite amusing:
New – Matrix.
Several old short drawings.

anekdot.ru:
A passenger who tried to fly away by his own means was detained at one of the airports in Holland.
------------
In an Odessa school:
- Monya, what do you know about Archimedes' principle?
- My Uncle Fima drowned for violating that law.
-------
The sign "Do not enter, it will kill!", understood literally in all the world's languages, simply means to a Russian person: "Just be careful there once you get in!"
------
The Tsar is holding a military review. At the end, he asks the soldiers if they are satisfied with everything. Recruit Rabinovich complains:
- Your Majesty, I am Jewish, and therefore I am forbidden from living where I want, attending university, and my family is starving.
The Tsar says:
- And you think it's easy for me? The ministers steal, anarchists throw bombs at me...
- Your Majesty, let's just bolt to America together!
----------
- It's a good thing I wasn't born in the 17th century.
- Why?
- I would have kicked the bucket long ago.
---------
In one of the foreign screen adaptations of "War and Peace," Napoleon surveys Moscow from a hill and sees the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour, built in the 1830s to commemorate the victory over himself.
--------
Two Odessa residents meet:
- Semyon Markovich, my dear, you haven't forgotten that you owe me fifty dollars?
- Not yet, Lazar Solomonovich, but give me a little more time, and I will indeed forget about it.
--------
A Mercedes pulls up to a hardware store. A distinguished man gets out and approaches the seller:
- Do you have plastic crosses for laying floor tiles?
- Yes, of course.
- Give me 20-30 thousand...
- Why do you need so many?
- Well, the boss's bees died—he ordered them to be buried in a Christian manner.
---------
The year 2008. The newly elected President of the RF, Dmitry Medvedev, caught a Golden Fish and made three wishes: Bilan's victory at Eurovision, victory over the Canadians in hockey, and victory over the Dutch in football. The fish granted everything and asked: "Why are your wishes so strange? Usually, tsars and presidents ask to win a war, build a new capital, or make their state great." Medvedev: "Wait, that was an option?!!!"
---------
Did you know that superstitious surgeons leave a coin in the patient's stomach at the end of an operation so that they will return again?...
--------
- Dad, if you fill an animal skin with something, does it become a stuffed animal?
The father, glancing at his wife in a fur coat:
- Correct, son, a stuffed animal.
----------
- The Serpent regretted tempting Adam and Eve.
- Why?
- When Eve ate the apple, she saw in the Serpent not only an animal, but also a belt, a wallet, and a handbag.
---------
Labor? It turned a monkey (!) into a human?
Laziness turned a human into a monkey.
A hardworking monkey climbed a tree for a banana.
But a lazy one took a stick and knocked the hardworking one down. Along with the bananas.
Having eaten her fill of bananas, she thought—it's good to be human.
-------
A visitor climbed into the enclosure to feed the tiger, and it must be admitted, he succeeded.
---------
An acquaintance told me this situation; he said it happened back in his student days. In their pedagogical institute's dean's office, there was a secretary—a lady with a temperament of medium rat-like own—named Galina Gavrilovna. A struggling student on the verge of expulsion was running around the institute like a madman, trying to "pass" everything he could in a short time, as he really didn't want to be expelled. And so, in a rush, he bursts into the dean's office for another exam sheet and loudly calls out to the secretary: "GORILLA GOVNILOVNA!!..." The secretary's huge sad eyes and the stifled laughter of the entire dean's office signaled to the poor student that he had made a mistake. Deciding to fix the situation in one go, he blurted out: "Oh, I mean, GOVNILA GORILLOVNA..." The dean's office collapsed.
The student, by the way, finished the institute normally, but he still remembers the secretary's eyes with deep remorse...
-------
A FOURTH-year student at an industry university solved a physics problem poorly.
They started analyzing it... - is this the volume of the cylinder? - well, yes...
- And what does the volume of a cylinder equal?
- "two-pi-r"
(pause due to some confusion) - That's the circumference...
- Then it's "two-pi-r-squared"
- ...
FURSENKA!, this "specialist" will be running a nuclear reactor at the control panel in two years (because there is simply no one else) — do you think your family will manage to move far enough away?!
:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D
---------
An acquaintance told me this at work today. From the first person:

I bought a "Far Eastern" salad in a plastic box. I came home, dressed it with mayonnaise, and was about to eat. Then my cat approaches me, clearly wanting to smell this masterpiece of culinary art.

I put him on the table and pushed the container closer – here, look. I don't mind.
The cat approached, started smelling, and then suddenly and sharply went "Buuuuuueeeeeeee" right into the salad.

I sit there thinking, maybe it wasn't fresh, and it's a good thing the cat threw up in there?
----------
TRANSLATION PECULIARITIES.
Israel. Driving to work. A cop on a motorcycle is ahead. Everything is standard, siren in place. There is a large inscription on the big black luggage rack. I read it. Literally: "Stay away from me!"
Correctly — KEEP YOUR DISTANCE!

I wish every Russian traffic cop's car had such an inscription!
---------
I remember my first husband had a friend—a miserable young man, his mother died early... they lived together with his father in a large three-room apartment in Mnevniki. The son was into "politics"—fighting the regime—while the dad was a big boss... rarely appeared at home... and only hung out when he was on a binge. And so we visit him, and jumping around the apartment is... a wild hare. A big one, damn it. We say to him: oh, wow! Cool! How long have you had a hare?
- About six months already!
- Do you take him for walks?
- Why? The apartment is large, there's room to jump..
- And what do you feed him?
- I get rabbit food at the pet store, and also carrots-beets type of thing...
He takes it himself...
- And where does he shit in your place?
- Why? Does he have to? Ahhhh... well, he shits somewhere... I haven't stepped in any crap yet... probably DIGS somewhere...
--------
Once, an elderly professor from our department was given a large gas pistol for his birthday, skillfully made to look like a .45 caliber Colt. We were all slightly tipsy after the departmental feast—the department is predominantly male—and this Colt started passing from hand to hand. My turn came to play with it. They gave it to me for half an hour. I examined it, turned it over, clicked it—well, that was about it, my imagination ran dry... not like I'm going to scare the cleaners with it. But returning it before the time was up also felt kind of a pity. In short, I tucked it into my belt, under my jacket—and went about my business.

And in the corridor, the head of the neighboring department stops me. He leads me into his office. We sat down and discussed some pressing matters. Then the conversation drifted to more general topics. And then he asks me: tell me, what is the secret of your popularity among students, eh? Tell me!

And suddenly I see that his facial expression changes slightly, and his eyes slowly widen and focus somewhere around my waist. Naively deciding that my fly was open, I looked down—and immediately understood the cause of his confusion. The flaps of my unbuttoned uniform jacket had gradually parted, and from behind the trouser belt, accordingly, a huge Colt handle protruded. And then the head of department said gloomily:

- Uh... well, okay, you don't have to answer. It's clear enough.
-----------
I live in Tel Aviv. The local people are wild, zero upbringing, which I was convinced of once again. My daughter and I went for a bike ride through the park. The park is huge; we rode along the paths from our house all the way to the sea, the weather was great, the views magnificent. On the way back, there's a place where the bike path comes right up to a parking lot; on the path itself are bollards, quite close to each other, and the path between them is half asphalt, half dirt, with a small curb. The ground is wet after a light rain. From the side of the parking lot, some own-faced scumbag comes riding straight at us on a scooter, first to my daughter, asking something without any ceremonies like "excuse me" or "please," but she ignored him, and this scumbag pushes straight toward me... for me, passing between the bollards is a whole other story, and here it's wet, narrow, and this scumbag is cruising... well, I tumbled off my bike...... I fell on my hands, stood up, but!! This scumbag still reached me, and still asked his question while I was lying on the ground... what is that, some nonsense, while someone is lying on the ground, it's the perfect time to ask questions...
--------
A story about "Do a good deed and it will catch up with you." Once upon a time, long ago, I happened to work as a welder in a large organization. There was piecework pay there. The rates were such that if you worked honestly, you'd be guaranteed to starve to death within 2 months. Therefore, everyone engaged in padding the numbers, but they slogged away without even lifting their masks from their faces. Now for the story itself: Since it was during the communist era, all production sites had student interns who simply had to be taught the trade. We had such a student. And the most interesting thing is that he really wanted to learn welding—he passionately desired it. But piecework... No one wanted to waste time training the poor student; everyone drove him away, shouting—"don't get in the way of work, you radish." I felt sorry for him, especially since not so long ago I was a student myself. So I gave him some advice. Listen, student, during lunch you aren't in anyone's way; take the holder, electrodes, and go to the scrap metal pile—weld as much as you want there and you won't be in anyone's way. Fortunately, back then no one counted either electrodes or energy. From then on, everything settled; the student sparkled with his welder on the scrap pile, didn't bother anyone, and thanked me at every convenient opportunity. Everyone was happy. The idyll continued until it came time to load the scrap metal for smelting. In short, they set up wagons for loading, brought in a crane, slung the load, started lifting... but no luck, the pile doesn't even think about moving. What the hell, maybe it got caught on something. They go to check and are quietly stunned. The whole pile is WELDED together, moreover, every single piece is welded to another. The management isn't just indignant; they simply cannot understand who, and more importantly WHY, did this. A scandal brews, arguments begin, and it turns out that this was the work of the student, who immediately and without any remorse says that I practically forced him to do it. In short, the result: All the workers are laughing and teasing at every opportunity, and I "die" with a gasoline cutter on that ill-fated pile, cursing both the student and my own kindness with the foulest words. Damn, I spent three days cutting it into pieces, the damn conscientious student. Well, at least they didn't charge us for the wagon downtime. So much for a good deed....
--------
ABOUT FEFA THE LAMB

Muskoxen are lambs that are the size of an ox. The last major remnant of the Ice Age. Back then, many things around were very large, fierce, horned, and toothy. These lambs got used to defending themselves against creatures compared to which a saber-toothed tiger is a small kitten. They would still fight back now, but all their nightmares died out long ago, except for the smallest one—man. The defense method is apparently inherited genetically, because it's quite absurd. Upon the appearance of a hunter, muskoxen instantly form a tight circle; the horns of the most powerful rams protrude outward as a solid palisade, thick and curved. The spirited youth invariably end up inside this ring along with the ewes, even if they try to poke their heads out. Those who are stronger push all the little ones back and hold the front as best they can. A proven method, but a blessing for the hunter. They shot the muskoxen calmly, one by one, for as many cartridges as they had. The rams held out steadfastly, even until the end. Muskox herds were wiped out across Canada in their time, then they began to be restored from surviving Russian ones. In our country, it's sometimes just great that nothing is ever properly brought to an end.

But that's just the prologue; the tale is ahead. One day my son requested one. Children love scary tales. It's as if they feel what kind of planet they were born on. I don't know what advanced pedagogical thought thinks about this, but my childhood company grew up on unadapted texts of Andersen's fairy tales. They are creepy even for an adult to read, and easier for a child. Girls perhaps need to be protected from a young age with pink nonsense—they will become all-knowing by youth anyway. But it's better to explain to a boy earlier that there are the stupidest situations in life when you need to stand where you stand, even if you are capable of running away faster than those around you.

I told my son then about muskoxen, and about the beasts that surrounded them, and about the people who wiped them out. But a tale should still embellish reality. Into my narrative, a lamb named Fefa crept in on its own. He was the smallest in this herd, but already very large, shaggy, and clumsy. Fefa ended up in the center of the shot-down herd and survived under the bodies—there must be some kind of meaning in this ram's stubbornness.

I told that tale many years ago and long forgot about it. And before New Year's, I was sorting through my son's childhood drawings with him and came across a strange comic—a huge graceful beast with thick horns is tracking hunters, lifts their tents on its horns, and stomps their guns into splinters. The faces of the hunters are distorted with terror; they all run for their lives as far away as possible. And a large threatening inscription in uneven letters: "FEFA HAS GROWN UP!"
---------
Yesterday I stopped near a grocery store, parked right by the entrance. Trash had accumulated in my pockets—some receipts, a cigarette pack—I gathered it and threw it in the bin.
I noticed that a 5000 ruble note had stuck to the empty cigarette pack flying into the bin. Nothing you can do; I had to climb in.
At that moment, a mother comes out of the store with a boy aged 6-7; the mother is delivering a monologue: "What will happen if you don't listen to me."
- .... and if you don't listen to me, you'll eat from the bin, like this uncle here.

The uncle pulled 5000 rubles out of the bin, straightened them, looked at them against the light, and said:
- Don't believe her, boy; a couple of months in the bins and you'll save up for a BMW.
He got into his BMW and drove away.
--------
Essay

I want to become a programmer when I grow up big, because it is a cool job and simple. That's why there are so many programmers in our time and they keep increasing.

Programmers don't need to go to school; they need to learn to read in computer language so that they can talk with the computer. I think they should be able to read too, so they know what's going on when everyone is in a panic.

Programmers must be brave so as not to be afraid when everything gets mixed up so much that no one can figure it out, or if they have to speak English in a foreign way, so they know what needs to be done.

Programmers should have good eyesight so they can see through clothes and not be afraid of secretaries, because they have to work with them. I also like the salary that programmers get. They get so much money that they don't have time to spend it all. This happens because everyone considers a programmer's job difficult, except for programmers, who know how simple it is.

There is nothing that I don't like, except that girls like programmers and everyone wants to marry them, and therefore women must be driven away so they don't interfere with work.

I hope I don't have an allergy to office dust, because I have an allergy to our dog. If I have an allergy to office dust, I won't become a programmer and will have to find a real job.
----------
An acquaintance of mine—a visiting student girl—bought herself a pretty decent smartphone. In the phone book for the contact "Dad," she set a photo of the city's chief of criminal police in uniform. For the contact "Uncle" — a photo of the district prosecutor. For the contact "Brother" — a huge OMON officer.
This phone has been stolen from her three times already, but all three times it was dropped back.
----------
A man went into the forest to relieve himself—he saw a bear...

There is no other way to start our story. My friends and I were driving to the dacha to steam in the sauna. We were traveling along the Cherlak tract of the Omsk region. I was behind the wheel, and my friends had already opened some beer. We had driven not far from the post, about 12 kilometers, when my friends needed "to relieve themselves." To my suggestion to go near the roadside, the answer given was "What are we? Completely wild?" Well yes, of course, programmers, the elite of society. In short, we turned at the nearest junction. While they dispersed for their "business," I decided to examine a pile of car tires (to take to the dacha and decorate the paths). In short, I lingered. After a few minutes, I heard a wild crash; rushing to the car, I froze.
From around the bend, at full speed, in a cloud of dust, a tank flies out and rushes toward the car. In the last meter, sacrificing a couple of birch trees, it swerves and flies past.
Apparently, it warned the column, because the following ones drove slower and turned in advance.
Five steel monsters passed by; the sixth was a BTR. A red sergeant-major rolled out of it.
First, he asked about our condition using profanity, then he asked via radio using profanity who was responsible for installing signs and barriers, cursed the first tank for speeding, and apologized using profanity. He got into the BTR and drove away.

The first word from my friends I heard only in the sauna. And somehow they no longer want to go to my dacha.

And generally, "gifts" regularly fly in from the firing range—either a blank crashes into the lake or trees in the grove fall. And that's not counting the constant roar of bursts and explosions. That's how we live...

Here are a few funny poems about my nickname: http://sir-drake-ii.livejournal.com/25202.html

anekdot.ru:
A sleeping child is not only cute, but finally!
------
I signed up for online courses for private detectives. I transferred the money to them—and never heard from them again. Now I'm thinking: either I was robbed, or this is my first case.
----
How can you teach children good manners when Tarzan walks around naked, Cinderella comes home after midnight, Batman speeds at 450 km/hour, and Snow White actually lives with seven dwarfs?
-----
Hunters on a break.
- So we once went duck hunting. Before starting, we had a few drinks. I'm standing chest-deep in water, ducks fly by, so I take them from the knee...
------
A medical student asks his chess-player friend if he thinks talent is hereditary.
- Unlikely, - the latter answers. - Take Capablanca, for example. Have you heard anything about his father?
- Absolutely nothing.
- And about his mother?
- None either.
- Well, there you see.
- To be honest, I've never heard of Capablanca either.
--------
A husband is bathing the baby and shouts from the bathroom:
- Katya, he's eating the foam!
A couple of minutes later:..
- Katya, it actually tastes good!
--------
I'm standing on the balcony at night, smoking. I hear "meow-meow" from below. Well, I thought I'd answer: meow!
- meow I -meow
- Come on, man, stop it! I'm looking for my cat!
- o_O
-------
Never say: "I made a mistake," better say: "My, how interesting that turned out..."
-----
Do you also scream at the things you stub your toe on?
-------
Dad is putting his daughter to sleep. Half an hour later, Mom looks into the room:
— Well? Is she asleep?
— Yes, Mom, she's asleep.
------
A deer that got its antlers caught in wires in the city started running along route 17.
--------
I decided to boil some pelmeni for lunch. To add aroma, I thought of adding a bay leaf.
Searching on the shelf, I found some dried leaves. Deciding it was what I needed, I threw them into the pot.
As a result, the pelmeni tasted like eucalyptus.
I ate and cried, gentlemen, I ate, cried, and felt like a koala!
------
- Dad, buy me a chocolate bar!
- You're too old for sweets now.
- Really? Does that mean I can drink, smoke, and bring boys home?
- Which one do you want, dark or milk?
-------
An exam. The professor:
- Now, let's begin. Who knows enough for a 5?
A few timid hands go up; the professor takes their gradebooks and marks
EXC.
- Well, who knows enough for a 4? - more hands now; satisfied students get GOOD
and leave. The same happens with SATs. As a result, several students remain in the room,
tearing their hair out over their indecision.
- So, you know enough for a 2. That means you want a retake.... Well then,
a retake. Who knows enough for a 5?
-------
Silly laws of California, USA

Animals are prohibited from having sex in public view within 500 meters of the nearest tavern, school, or church.

Baths and saunas are prohibited by law in this state.

Women are prohibited from driving a car while wearing only a housecoat.

Driverless cars are prohibited from exceeding speeds over 60 mph (approximately 90 km/h).

Alhambra
Local law prohibits leaving cars on the street overnight unless the owner has a special permit for it.

Arcadia
The law states that peacocks have right-of-way on all streets and even on highways. If a peacock decides to cross a busy highway, all cars must let it pass.

Baldwin Park
It is prohibited to enter a pool on a bicycle.

Belvedere
Local law prohibits dogs from appearing in public places if they are not leading their owner on a leash.

Despite the fact that similar laws exist in other states, the wording here is interesting.

Blythe
Cowboy boots may only be worn by citizens who actually have at least two cows on their farm.

Cathedral City
It is prohibited to sleep in a parked car.

No one is allowed to enter the "Fountain of Life" on a bicycle.

Chico
Anyone who wants to throw hay into a street trash can must first obtain a license from the city for this.

It is prohibited to store untreated animal skins that emit an unpleasant odor in one's home.

Playing bowling on city sidewalks is prohibited.

Driving a herd of cattle through the streets of this city is prohibited.

City residents are prohibited from creating gardens or growing vegetables on municipal streets and public roads.

The law prohibits anyone from detonating any nuclear charges within city limits. Violators, should any ever appear, face a fine of $500.

Dana Point
It is prohibited to use the toilet if the window in that toilet is open.

El Monte
The law prohibits using children's sandboxes as ashtrays.

Eureka
It is prohibited to sleep on the road.

The law prohibits mustachioed men from kissing women.
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In the central Norwegian newspaper "Aftenposten" dated March 7, 2012, on page 13, a small article was printed with the following content:
"The State Nature Administration informed the head of the Oslo-Akershus district (the capital and nearest suburb) that on Monday, within city limits, a wolf killed a dog—a laika, one of those used for moose hunting (there is probably a more correct name for the breed, but I don't remember it now). The Storting (local parliament, like our Duma) recognized Oslo and most of its suburbs as a habitat for wolves. That is, the Storting decided that wolves can exist and reproduce in this area since there isn't too much conflict between grazing sheep and wolves. Wolves usually do not pose a threat to people and dogs, but in some cases they may attack dogs. The district head's environmental protection department will monitor the situation. (I don't know, maybe we should chip in for the funeral of the prematurely eaten dog?)"
Yeah, it makes you think. My 3 kilograms of dog love to be walked at odd hours. I repeat, we are talking about the capital of Norway. However, during these walks, I have personally seen a doe with two calves, a fox (repeatedly, and she stood there looking from the dog to me—as if saying, won't you give it up? Why do you even need it?), and some deer my own height. A happy family of badgers lives peacefully in my garden behind the house—I'm just waiting for them to wake up soon after winter hibernation. By the way, if anyone doesn't know—these are cute fluffy animals almost knee-high and 40 centimeters wide, who tend to attack rather than run away in case of an unexpected encounter. And now wolves too...
They'll write in the newspaper later: "Wolves ate a dog along with its owner. Usually they don't eat them. But sometimes they can. We will monitor the situation."
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LUCKY TICKET

What I want to tell you now is something I observed back in those distant years when a bus fare cost five kopecks, and conductors in public transport were unheard of. I was traveling somewhere in a half-empty bus, and at one of the stops, a little man entered the cabin. He looked—to put it mildly—quite simple. But he attracted the passengers' attention with his luggage: a large bayan hung from his neck. Of course, maybe it wasn't a bayan but some kind of accordion, I can't say for sure since my knowledge in this matter is very limited, but I will call it a bayan.
The man dropped a nickel into the fare box, tore off a ticket, and sat in a free seat. For several stops, looking at his ticket, he performed some complex calculations—sometimes bending fingers, sometimes raising his eyes to the ceiling, apparently hoping to see the ready answer there. Finally, the thought process ended, and the man's face lit up—the result of the calculation pleased him greatly. So much so that he even stood up from his seat, and having victoriously surveyed the cabin, announced to everyone present: - "My ticket is just the thing! It's a lucky one!"
The bus was standing at a stop with the door open at that moment. And then the little man looks carefully out the window, then at the wide-open door, and from the expression on his face, it becomes clear that this is his stop. To the hiss of the closing door, he lunges forward. And, God knows, he would have jumped out if not for the bayan hanging on him. As a result, the man was slammed by the door around the chest. But this desperate man had no intention of giving up: he braced his feet against the steps and, puffing like a hedgehog, began to struggle with effort toward freedom. At that very instant, the driver opened the door…
A champagne cork—that's what came to mind when I saw this unusual flight. Like a human rocket, the little man with the bayan flew out of the bus. Only the soles of his boots flashed in the air. The sound of the body hitting the asphalt was terrible. Looking through the window of the departing bus, I saw that the poor fellow sat on the ground with a bewildered look, rubbing his bruised head, while the bayan lay about three meters away from him.
If this misfortune had happened today, it can be said with certainty that half of the bus passengers, savoring the details, would have been filming him on mobile phones, anticipating posting the "juicy" video on the internet. And the others would have laughed like hyenas. But that time there was silence in the bus. And only an elderly fat man in glasses philosophically suggested: - "He probably made a mistake in his calculations..."
---------
An acquaintance of mine told me this over Skype.

My boyfriend went to work in America and went to a local cell phone store to buy a SIM for an iPhone (for those who might not know, it's smaller than a regular one). There they informed him that a SIM for an iPhone costs 50 dollars, while for regular phones it's 15. They argued for about 20 minutes.
- Well why??? - my beloved was straining. - What the hell is the point???!!!
- Excuse me, sir! - the American replied imperturbably, - those are our rules, sir.
- Fine, - mine sighed, - give me a regular one for 15.
The manager was somewhat surprised but sold him the SIM.
- And scissors too, please!
The American was even more surprised but asked no questions (democracy in the country, after all :)), and handed my dear one the scissors.
My beloved imperturbably, before the eyes of the stunned American, cut the SIM without even measuring it carefully and inserted it into his iPhone. And... voila, everything works!
The other was in shock: - What, it works?!!!!
Mine imperturbably: - Of course! Why wouldn't it work..
I still respect Russian people..:)))

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– At one time, starting pistols were banned in theaters. It was strictly mandated to use prop weapons on stage and to trigger the shots from behind the wings.
In one theater, a bound Komsomol member stands at the edge of a quarry, while a fascist aims a pistol at him.
The stage manager behind the scenes hesitated. The shot didn't come. The fascist waited and waited, and in confusion, scratched his temple with the barrel of the gun.
At that very moment, the stage manager's clapper snapped! Being an artist of the realistic school, the "fascunist" dropped dead.
Then the Komsomol member, realizing all responsibility for the finale now rested on him, shouted "I won't be taken alive!" and threw himself into the shaft.
Curtain.
------
Some welders decided to celebrate a colleague's birthday. To avoid getting caught during the workday, they stuffed their overalls with rags, tied the welding torch to the hand, and left the dummy up high to create the appearance of work in progress. The wind blew, the electrode holder swayed, the dummy pretended to weld—while the welders were drinking. The bosses came out of the cafeteria; everything looked normal, everyone was busy. And then a gust of wind blew the dummy off from a height of 70 meters. All the bosses clutched their hearts and ran toward it. A welder, seeing this scene, climbed down, threw the dummy away, and lay down in its place. The bosses arrived and saw the welder stand up, dust himself off, and say: [censored] I'm never going back up there!!!!
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For the collection on rats.
An acquaintance told me this. It was back in the 70s—of the last century now—he was working as a blaster on road construction. Many things were simpler in those years, but that's not the point. It was a warm summer day, and there was an occasion, so a company of blasters settled in the shade of a warehouse. The warehouse, naturally, contained everything a "blast-gang" is supposed to have. How much they had drunk doesn't matter; they spoke quietly so as not to attract attention. Then someone noticed a rat crawl out from under the warehouse wall. Every man has at least a drop of hunter in him, and there were actual hunters here; in short, they caught the creature. Professional blasters, while tipsy, couldn't think of anything better than to douse it in diesel fuel and set it on fire. The rat first ran in circles around the clearing and then dove into the warehouse. They sobered up instantly. First everyone jumped up, then they flopped back onto the grass. As my acquaintance told it, the first thought was—run. Then each of them mentally calculated the amount of explosives stored there, and it turned out the blast would be slightly smaller than in Hiroshima, so there was no point in running. No one knows how long they sat there—time seemed to stop. Glancing at each other, they all rushed to the warehouse doors, tore off the lock somehow, and burst inside. It smelled of burnt fur, but nothing had exploded or caught fire. They searched the entire warehouse thoroughly but found no rat anywhere. An engineer ran up:
- What are you doing! Why did you tear off the lock? What are you doing here?
- Well, we're just sitting here; we smell something burning from the warehouse, and by the time you run for the key or explain things, it might blow.
The engineer sniffed the air and started running through the warehouse himself. In short, as you can imagine, no one confessed then.
------
I had something similar in Denmark.
Around 3 a.m. on the main street of a provincial town, my son (19 years old, tall—important) and I came across a hedgehog. We thought it would be crushed [censored], so my son took off his t-shirt and wrapped it up (a big, prickly hedgehog). We brought it home. And then what? We decided to take it to the police station. We took a plastic basin with handles, put it inside, and carried it. The station was at the end of a dead-end street, and the lighting was poor. We saw the silhouettes of two uniformed men by the door. My son held the basin out at arm's length. I acted as the one for negotiations with authority. But I didn't know the language, let alone "hedgehog," especially in Danish. As we approached, I said something loudly, pretending it was English. The policemen got spooked and followed protocol: an Esperanto-style shout of "stop!" and they stepped aside. We stopped. "What do you have in your hands?" - "A basin" - "And in the basin?" -"Who [censored] knows what this is called?" - "Put the basin on the ground, step aside, and don't move!" - "OK". One cop stayed on guard, while the other cautiously, almost on tiptoes, approached and looked into the basin. Catharsis. Everyone who was in the station came out—about five people.
They laughed for a long time. They gave us a city map with a marked spot where we should release the hedgehog and drew a route. They expressed gratitude orally on behalf of the Queen, but finally told us not to touch hedgehogs anymore. Let them be crushed, because there are too many of them now.
-------
Told by a man who gave me a ride home.

About 2 years ago in St. Petersburg, they were relaying asphalt on Grazhdansky Avenue. Naturally, no one thought about logistical flows, so the unimaginable was happening—not even just in terms of traffic jams, but in the sense that it was unclear how to get around at all. I'm driving home around 10 p.m. and realize that all the temporary signs are sending me as far from my destination as possible, and then, as luck would have it, a patrol car tails me... Well, I think: bastards—they're waiting for me to break a rule so they can shake me down for money. So after another unsuccessful attempt to turn where I needed to, I stop and get out of the car... The patrol officers stopped too... I gather my courage, approach them, and say:
- Do you know how to get out of here?
I get the answer:
- Listen—we've been driving around for 20 minutes ourselves; we thought you were a local and followed you—hoping you'd lead us out!
------------
A true story, but not mine; an acquaintance told it about her son.
In their Akademgorodok, there was an astronomical site in the summer—anyone could come by and look through a telescope at the celestial bodies for free, and even get a consultation from the student astronomers on duty. Well, as it started to get dark, a small crowd of people wanting to see through the telescope formed, mostly parents with children. A full moon rose over the horizon. Five-year-old Ilyusha commented:
- The moon has risen; it's round, like a cat's eye.
Well—he wasn't the only child from an intellectual family here, this is Akademgorodok after all, and another boy, slightly older, authoritatively declared in response:
- A cat's eye isn't round at all.
But Ilyusha isn't so easily swayed; his mother is a physiologist, and she never refuses to answer his childhood questions, so regarding the structure of eyes and various other organs, he's better equipped than some ten-year-olds.
He calmly replied:
- If you pull it out—it's round.
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I have a friend, a guy who is 100% restless and reckless—preamble.

We are driving in my car through Kharkiv looking for a house with a specific number; we are traveling along Poltavsky Shlyakh (those who know, know). After the bridge, there are cops. I think I'll park and ask where house number so-and-so is... I slow down near a young cop, while another one slightly to the side further up the street is chatting actively on his mobile... well, I opened the passenger window and asked through Drulya something like: Where is this street, where is this house... he tries to explain something but deflects, saying the senior knows better... the one who's talking on the phone... we roll up to him, and before I can ask, my buddy shouts out the window—listen, Captain, the young guy has no change from his cell, give us fifty [kopeks/rubles], the other looked in his pockets without stopping his conversation, pulled out a fifty, unclipped it, Drulya took it, and we drove off... then I avoided that road for a week...

I don't even know if that's a good thing or not.
-------
Today, before my eyes, a pack of dogs decided to cross the avenue.
They had some chance, but the avenue is very wide. The lead dog, the most determined, waited for a gap and shot through it like a bullet. The others tried to follow but hesitated. And so they scrambled in the middle of the road under the wheels, like a flock of sheep. Screeching brakes, drivers swearing—horror. The last dog, the largest, was an indeterminate breed based on a German Shepherd. He stayed on the shoulder, barked strictly at everyone, and trotted perpendicularly—along the sidewalk. Into the pedestrian underpass...
-------
About teeth and heredity

Yesterday, after some fussing here and there, I went with the kid to the dentist.
This was as part of the medical exam before school.
Checking teeth before school is priority one. Everyone knows you can't do anything in school without good teeth. The kid has very good teeth (knock on wood). Unlike his father. Well, he doesn't chug liters of coffee at night and doesn't smoke three packs. So his teeth evoke healthy envy. I didn't even have such teeth at his age. And no holes.
The most important thing, of course—no holes.
The gaps between the teeth come from his mother. Good teeth from Grandpa Vitya, but gaps from mom. (From me—two crowns, for those who understand)
I don't even know what's more important for a boy. In my childhood, I had no gaps, and I always envied those who did. With a gap, you can make a good clicking sound and spit long and satisfyingly. While making a contemptuous face. Especially when it hurts. It comes off as quite manly. Otherwise, no matter how hard you try, if it hurts—your face looks sour anyway. But if you have a gap, you click, spit contemptuously, and suddenly the look is different. Brave, slightly foolish, and dashing. People with such an expression were always respected, in all times and in any company.
The kid doesn't know how to click and spit yet, well, he's not even going to school yet. When he goes—they'll teach him. That's what school is for.

So, we go to the dentist, and the kid is so curious about where-what-why.
I explain.
They'll check your teeth to see if everything is okay. If it is—they'll give you a certificate. If not—they'll take you behind the clinic and shoot you.
He laughs. He asks—and how will they check? How exactly will they check?
I say—they'll give you a special copper wire. If you can bite through it, everything is okay. If not—pack your things.
He laughs again. But now, not very confidently. You can tell that while he's laughing, he's mentally calculating whether he can bite through it or not?

This is a kind of test for a sense of humor. Because God forbid he inherited his sense of humor from his grandmother. Then being shot behind the clinic would be the most humane option. Because living with such a sense of humor is just torture.
I've already told you about his grandma's sense of humor, Tatyana Ivanovna. And possibly more than once. Because well, one could write a book about it. A veeeery thick one. Before, when they didn't tape my mouth shut before visiting the mother-in-law, I didn't pay much attention to this. And I used to joke. Yes, there is such a predicament—my jokes aren't always and not entirely understood (for some reason). But with Tatyana Ivanovna, I always tried to joke in a gentle mode, even trying to emphasize with my face that "right now I am indeed joking." Until I was told that Tatyana Ivanovna is a person who lacks a sense of humor as such. Like an appendix, for example. An appendix is either there or it isn't. That's how Tatyana Ivanovna's sense of humor is. No matter what face you make, it's not there, and that's it. No intermediate options.

Due to ignorance of this simple fact, various troubles occurred at first, and there were even victims.
Take Jack, for example.
Tatyana Ivanovna had a dog, a shepherd named Jack. Also without a sense of humor, by the way. He died later, fortunately. Why fortunately? Because if there is a doggy heaven in the skies, Jack got in directly, without limits and out of turn. For that, it was enough for him to simply say—I'm from Tatyana Ivanovna. And that's it.

Anyway, I once came back from fishing, sitting in the kitchen having lunch.
Three of us at home: me, Tatyana Ivanovna, and Jack.
So I'm eating lunch, Tatyana Ivanovna is by the stove, and Jack is in the hallway. He's also eating, for company. Not so much hungry as he's afraid I might swap plates. Because our food is basically the same, but there's significantly more meat in his bowl. For some reason. And always!
So we're sitting, eating, and Jack occasionally scratches himself. It was apparent that Tatyana Ivanovna felt awkward about this uncultured behavior during a meal, about these scratchings.
And she says:
- Oh, what haven't I tried with these fleas. I bought one medicine, then another... Nothing helps! He just keeps scratching and scratching.
I say:
- Tatyana Ivanovna, for heaven's sake! What medicines?! That's all a complete scam!
- Really? But how then?...
- Simple! You take the vacuum cleaner...
- Oh, come on! - Tatyana Ivanovna waves her hand and giggles just in case. Just like the kid did recently when I mentioned the wire.
- Well, laugh, laugh. And keep giving your money to charlatans. Have you seen Syoma scratch?
- No... - she thinks. - I haven't!
- Exactly! And Syoma's fur is nothing like your big lug's. Eh?
Tatyana Ivanovna makes an interested face. She trusts the black terrier Syoma significantly more than me. And not without reason.
- Well, go on?... - she says hopefully.
At this point, I realize the hook is already behind the lip; it's time to set and calmly reel in. And as I finish my soup, slowly, with a sense of self-//dignity and appropriate pauses, I share the secrets of dog breeding.
- Well? Vacuum cleaner on full power and go for it. Morning, evening, and after walks. Especially thoroughly here and here. Three days—and not a single flea. The main thing is don't forget to clean the dust bag after each procedure. Only when you shake out the bag, don't shake it immediately; let it lie. So the fleas can jump out. Otherwise they'll all jump on you, and you'll bring them right back.

It's a good thing we left the next day, and I only know the rest from Grandpa's stories. In telling it, Grandpa peppered his emotional speech with swear words like dumplings with pepper. So I'll put it in my own words.
At first, Jack snapped and tried to bite. First the brush, then the owner. But against Tatyana Ivanovna with a vacuum cleaner, even a Bengal tiger is a tiny bug. Cornered, Jack whimpered, shrieked, and peed himself. With the apparatus running at maximum power, none of this was audible. During the execution, Grandpa simply plugged his ears and ran to the garage, swearing loudly. It all ended abruptly on the third day. Left alone at home, Jack entered the bedroom where the torture device was stored under the bed, and... Nothing remained of the hose. Only the plug remained of the cord. Mangled remains of brushes lay across the room. The vacuum cleaner as such no longer existed. And for another week, Jack shat plastic fragments. Strangely, but nonetheless, his fleas disappeared too! Apparently, dog blood spoiled so much from the vacuum torture that it became unfit for food.

Understand me correctly, I didn't expect such a resolution at all. The thing is that phlegmatic Syoma reacted to the vacuum completely differently. As soon as he heard the humming, he would sprawl on the carpet and stick out his belly, rolling under the brush like shashlik on a skewer. He liked this procedure very much. To vacuum the room, I had to kick him into the kitchen. So I had no malicious intent whatsoever. A joke was just a joke. Who knew Jack would turn out to be such a nervous pesticide?
We bought them a new vacuum later, of course, no problem. But the scar in Tatyana Ivanovna's soul, as they say, remained for life.
Now, I hope you understand even a little bit why I'm so concerned about the child having a sense of humor? With such heredity.

We reached the clinic.
In the office were two old ladies. Well, ladies clearly of retirement age: the doctor and the nurse.
It's clear all the youth have run off to private clinics. I wonder if these will last until they retire, who will be left?
I handed them the kid and said:
- May I... wait in the hallway?
- Why is that?
- Well, I have this...
- What "THIS"? - one asks sternly over her glasses, looking up from filling out a chart.
- This... how do you call it... abstinence syndrome! - I say with a smart look, using the first medical term that came to mind. - Basically, your machines make me nauseous.
- Ah! - looking respectfully and softening her face, she nods understandingly. - Abstinence, that's understandable. Of course! Sit in the hallway then. Maybe you need a pill? How are you feeling?
People with abstinence syndrome—I noticed long ago—especially those who know and can articulately pronounce this term, for some reason enjoy the understanding and sympathy of elderly medical workers.
- No, thank you! - I say and slip out the door.

Seven minutes later, they returned the kid to me safe and sound, and even with all his teeth.
- What are you teaching the child, father! - the doctor shouted at me, holding the kid by the shoulder.
- What's wrong? - I wondered.
- What on earth is this copper wire?
- I was joking. - I said meekly, making a guilty face.
- "Joking," he says! We know such jokers! A father brings in his child, and all the incisors are chipped. We ask—what happened? And he says—Ah! That's how I open beer for daddy when we watch football!
- I don't drink beer. - I say.
- Watch me! - the doctor threatens with a finger. - The boy has very good teeth; such teeth must be preserved.
- Thank you, we will preserve them.

When we passed the security guard, tossed the shoe covers into the ashtray, and finally stepped out into the fresh air, I grabbed the kid by the scruff of his neck, shook him well, and asked threateningly:
- Why did you tell the grandma-doctor about the wire, you little pig, eh?
The kid didn't answer, but his face spread into a wide, satisfied smile, and a neat little hole appeared in the gap between two incisors.
- You need to learn how to click.
- How do you click?
- I'll show you at home. Just don't tell your mother.
- I won't.

He won't. He said "I won't," and he won't. He wouldn't have anyway. You can't squeeze an extra word out of him. I haven't yet figured out who he inherited this secretive nature from. Perhaps from the late Great-Grandmother Nina. We'll figure it out; there's time.
---------
My father had a good friend—Uncle Gena. I don't know how they met, but they were friends for a long time. Unremarkable in appearance, Uncle Gena was a remarkable unlucky man. In the sense that he had bad luck. Not always, but exclusively during fishing trips.
He had bad luck with water—for example, when men walk across a frozen river—everyone gets through, Uncle Gena falls into a hole; he wants to show off a new Chinese thermos—he pours hot tea on himself and drops the thermos on the ice—goodbye mirror flask...
He had bad luck with fire too—once, just before returning to the car from a distant river, the men warmed themselves by the campfire one last time. It was about seven kilometers (oh, fans of winter fishing...) along the wind-swept riverbed. Everyone was frozen through, except Gena, who walked at the rear and smirked—why are you all so cold?!... Gennady's heat resistance was simply explained—his new padded jacket was quietly smoldering on his back. The stronger the wind, the warmer he got... Or take this: he decided to show everyone that the new Polish tent bought through connections was fireproof—the result was a puddle of melted plastic where the tent had been. Naturally, everywhere and always, the catalyst for all events was vodka, which Gena loved dearly in nature (in the city, he didn't even drink on holidays).
The most significant streak of bad luck made him give up fishing for about five years: one day the following happened: during the day he fell out of a rubber boat, tore a new net, was scalded by hot broth from an exploding can of stew that he had put to warm over the coals and forgot to poke a hole in... in the evening he burned his boots in the campfire; somehow, inexplicably, dirt got into a can of navy-style pasta brought from home, but he really wanted to eat—or rather, have a snack—and Gena winced at the gritty crunch of soil, but he finished the can... in the morning it turned out that the pasta was untouched—in his intoxication and lack of lighting, the poor fellow had eaten a can of worms...
Rushing to brush his teeth, Uncle Gena, in haste and with a hangover, squeezed not toothpaste onto the brush, but a wonderful mosquito repellent—"Deta" (anyone remember that?). In an attempt to rinse his mouth, he poured a full mug from the pot of leftovers of tea brewed the evening before and drunk by him yesterday, and discovered at the bottom of the pot the lost socks from his burned boots.... The man's shock lasted about two hours....
As I already said, after this Uncle Gena quit fishing and vodka for a long time...
...He was a good guy. And he left on a good note—during one week he visited all his friends, paid off his debts, went to the sauna, put on his best suit, came home, kissed his wife, lay down on the sofa, and died...
Well... It's kind of sad...

I have sclerosis, I don't remember how I found it, maybe someone here gave me the link, but I decided to share it again here, it's a collection of cool graphs.