MaFt's Musings

Yesterday we decided to take all the decorations down and rearrange the living room. While we were taking the tree down we realised we had not pulled any crackers! We’d put them on the tree as decorations but owing to us eating out on Christmas day (if you were about to ask, it was pretty crap) and being at various family members’ houses for the rest of the week we never had time for them.

So, in case you were wondering on the quality of the gifts and jokes that we had, here is the run down of all 12 jokes and all 12 gifts (in no particular order):

Gifts:

1. Fiddly Metal Toy Thing – one of those little things you fiddle with for hours on end and then finally manage to complete it, only to discover you can’t get the thing back together…

2. Wax Crayons – set of 4 (yellow, green, blue and red) wax crayons. Presumably for use with #10. Small, fiddly and hard to hold unless you’re a mouse.

3. ‘Purple’ Pen – a low quality, purple-plastic pen that actually writes in blue. Has a smooth click action for extraction/retraction of the nib. Good, all-round use and can also be used along side #2 with #10.

4. Whoopee Cushion – more of a ‘squeek’ than a ‘parp’ but then it’s easily portable due to it’s small size. You can’t have everything, can you?

5. Green Plastic Hair Clip – one for the girls I guess, but I find it hard to imagine an outfit that it would go with. When I do manage to imagine an outfit it may go with it’s a truly hideous one…

6. Tape Measure – A whole 60 inches / 5 foot / 150cm. Useful for measuring things less than 1.5m. Not many other uses really.

7. Set of Marbles – 6 marbles in a stunning red bag. Pretty useless really as the rules of marbles clearly state that you need 13 in the middle of the ring and then you need ones to play with… Still, it could be used to add to your marble collection (if you have one).

8. Whistle Lips – simply pop it in your mouth and blow it to make a noise like the secret Thistle Whistle only not as loud and without the Scottish Sea Dragons…

9. Playing Cards – small pack of cards for mouse-sized hands. Crackers seem to cater for very small people. I’m presuming it’s a full set as I’ve not been bothered to open them yet to check; I doubt I ever will either.

10. Notepad – small (mouse-sized?) notepad with special ‘silver reflective cover’. Contains 50 sheets (well, I got to 27 and figured I was roughly half-way through) and suitable for use with items #2 and #3.

11. Pink Water-Pistol – holds approximately 7ml of liquid and has a range of around 6 foot (180cm) depending on the Strength-of-Squeeze Factor and other GCSE Physics constants.

12. Star Pencil Sharpener – sharpen pencils and other objects of similar girth. Not suitable for use with #3 but will work with #2 (although no guarantee is given).

Now, onto the ‘jokes’. It will soon become clear why I have put the word ‘jokes’ in quotes… Each ‘joke’ had a number in the corner, presumably so the monkeys packing the crackers did not duplicate a ‘joke’ in each set of crackers.

1. What lives at the bottom of the sea and shivers?     A nervous wreck.
2. What do you call a crate of ducks?     A box of quackery.
3. Waiter, what’s this fly doing in my soup?     The breast stroke, sir.
4. Why can’t you play cards in the jungle?     There are too many cheetahs.
5. What do cannibals play at parties?     Swallow my leader.
6. How do you get down from an elephant?     You don’t, you get down from ducks.
7. What would happen if pigs could fly?     Bacon would go up.
8. How do you get two whales in a car?     Over the Severn Bridge.
9. Why does a giraffe have such a long neck?     Because its feet smell.
10. How do you start a bear race?     Readdy, teddy, go.
11. What’s sweet and swings through the jungle?     Tarzipan.
12. Why did the jelly baby go to school?     Because it wanted to be a smartie.

Boom boom! That’s the noise the writers of these ‘jokes’ will be hearing if I ever met one of them… Not that I own a gun, or condone the use of violence…

Happy 2007!

MaFt