American soldier
January 7th, 2010During WW II an American soldier had been on the front lines in Europe
for three months, when he was finally given a week of R&R. He caught a
supply boat to a supply base in the south of England, then caught a
train to London. The train was extremely crowded and he could not find
a seat. He was dead on his feet and walked the length of the train
looking for any place to sit down.
Finally he found a compartment with seats facing each other; there was
room for two people on each seat. On one side sat only a proper looking,
older British lady, with a small dog sitting in the empty seat beside her.
“Could I please sit in that seat?” he asked.
The lady was insulted. “You bloody Americans are so rude”, she said,
“can’t you see my dog is sitting there”?
He walked through the train once more and still could not find a seat.
He found himself back at the same place.
“Lady I love dogs – have a couple at home – so I would be glad to hold
your dog if I can sit down”, he said.
The lady replied, “You Americans are not only rude you are arrogant”.
He leaned against the wall for a time, but was so tired he finally
said,
“Lady, I’ve been on the front lines in Europe for three months with
not a decent rest for all that time. Could I please sit there and hold your
dog?”
The lady replied, “You Americans are not only rude and arrogant, you
are also obnoxious.”
With that comment, the soldier calmly stepped in, picked up the dog,
threw it out the window, and sat down.
The lady was speechless.
An older, neatly dressed Englishman sitting across on the other seat
spoke up. “Young man, I do not know if all you Americans fit the
lady’s description of you or not. But I do know that you Americans do a lot
of things wrong. You drive on the wrong side of the road, you hold your
fork with the wrong hand, and now you have just thrown the wrong bitch out
of the window.”



This morning I got call from an ex-girlfriend who phoned me of the blue to see if I was still around.We lost track of time, chatting about the wild, sexy and romantic times we used to enjoy together.
Of course, at the other end of the range is the dreaded Verbal Warning, which usually takes the form of a rhetorical question of the nature of “Have I shown you little Drooler’s latest pictures?” Rhetorical? To be sure. There is no recorded instance of a “YES!” preventing the arrival of The Monster. And records go clear back to the beginning of practical photography; before that, only those who could afford to have an artist paint or draw the likeness of their sproggen could have such images and they weren’t something that they’d drag around to assault you with on your lunch break from the limestone quarry. But at least with the Verbal Warning, you get a few more seconds to think – to remember The Response.






