By Jim Aylward

It’s always the little things.The “check engine”

light flashes, and you don’twant to check the engine.You’re not even sure wherethe engine is.

The security systembeeps, and beeps, andbeeps, and it’s not “on.”Alarming.

You’re waiting for avery important phone call,so you turn off the answer-ing machine. When thephone finally rings, it’s abored telemarketer, mis-pronouncing your name.

The automatic bankteller is temporarily out ofservice. An old man tapshis cane on your passengerwindow and shouts“thanks!” because yourshopping cart rolled upagainst his door. You havea new prescription bottleof expensive pills and theold empty bottle, and youvery carefully toss the newbottle into the trash. Littlethings.

My friend, you’re more than ready for some“Things No One Ever TellsYou,” funny bits of life andhumanity sure to bring asmile to your grim-filledface.

No, not all little thingsare agonizing. These littlethings are joyful!

A convict working in the box-folding section of the Waldeckprison in eastern Germany wasgiven a large cardboard box toassemble. He did. Then, heclimbed inside and waited. Adriver came along, loaded thebox into his truck, and droveout of the prison.

I wonder if the convict’sname was Jack?

A Belgian woman tried to smuggle her Kurdishboyfriend into Italy byputting him into her suit-case. Customs officialsnoted she was struggling to carry the case, so theylooked inside.

“Yes, officer, he’stiny...but, oh, my!”

A rock-radio deejay, who spent 15 years broadcasting as “Weird Old Uncle Frank,”wants to return to the air inSan Jose, California, after hissex-change operation.

“Although I sound justlike Uncle Frank, you may nowcall me Aunt Fran!”

A man who had been growingmarijuana at a vacant house inCanton, Ohio, dug it up totake it to his own place. As hewas heading there, he said to apasserby, “Would you believeI’m walking down the street inthe middle of the day with thispot plant?”

The passerby said,“Would you believe I’m a cop?”and then arrested him.

The economic situation is so tough now in Argentina that the people of Junin arelending their cars to police to patrol the streets. The cops say they don’t haveenough vehicles or money for gas.

“Have it back by mid-night, and leave the radio onClassic Tango!”

A man in Sweden gave hisgenetic material to two les-bians as a favor so they couldhave children. They had three, then they broke up.After losing his final appeal,the man now must pay childsupport.

“And this is the thanks I get?”

A Canadian college student is trying to make a little school money by standing on a Kelowna, British Colombia,street corner, offering peoplehis advice. Trevor Dame wears a sign around his neck,reading “Mediocre Advice: 25 cents!”

Excellent advice is not yet available in Kelowna.

Telia, a large mobile-phonecompany in Sweden, ap-pointed Anders Igel as its chief executive officer, thencut off his mobile phonebecause he hadn’t paid his bill.

“Anders, we don’t carehow they do it at WorldCom.This is Telia.”

Traffic cops in Chennai, India,are taking dance lessons tohelp them direct traffic moregracefully. Authorities alsohope the dancing will allowthem to feel more motivatedand relaxed.

“I think Sanjay is relaxedenough now…but that tutuhas got to go!”

The trick lighting failed duringa play in Oldham, England,making it impossible to see themain character. The play’s title?

“The Invisible Man”

Many Mongolians are refusinggovernment requests to moveinto permanent housing, pre-ferring to live in yurts –portable, circular tents usedsince the time of GenghisKhan. These former nomadsdon’t like modern ways andpeople. Munhbasatar Jalchintold of friends who “marriedgirls who live in apartments…they were useless; they didn’teven know how to light a fire!”

“She won’t live in a yurt;she can’t light my fire. Whatgood is she?”

A new survey finds that nearlyone in four Americans dealswith stress by getting drunk.

They’ll drink to that!

Ulf Buck, a blind, German psy-chic, predicts people’s futuresby running his hands overtheir naked buttocks.

Ah, yes…the old blind,German psychic routine!

If you dine at the Cafe Noir Barand Lounge in Los Angeles,you get free French fries withyour caviar burger. However,each burger, made with twoounces of Beluga, is $150.

We’ll make reservationswhen they have the “Buy One,Get One Free” sale.

VOLUME 26, NUMBER 2 LEADERS 137POSTED WITH PERMISSION. COPYRIGHT © LEADERS MAGAZINE, INC.

THINGSN o O n e E v e r Te l l s Y o u

138 LEADERS VOLUME 26, NUMBER 2POSTED WITH PERMISSION. COPYRIGHT © LEADERS MAGAZINE, INC.

A London man told police hewoke up and saw a chim-panzee stealing his cell phoneand bolting out his bedroomwindow. A few days later, po-lice got a report of a chimpstealing a stereo from a homenearby. Police believe the bur-glaries are related.

As do I.

To attract voters’ attention at a rally in the Czech Republictown of Valasske Mezirici,Christian Democrats wereoffering free shots of plumbrandy in the town square.Communist-party officialsnoted this and countered bygetting five women to handout campaign literature nakedfrom the waist up.

Which gets your vote:plum brandy or plumb naked?

The police station in Mareeba,Australia, is so crowded thatofficers are being forced to de-tain prisoners by telling themnot to move from a squarepainted on the jailhouse floor.

“Dis is mine, man. Getyur own square!”

Cell-phone engineers in En-gland say they have invented a tooth implant that’s a fullyfunctional telephone. TheTooth Phone receives radiosignals, and the user hears viasound transferred to the innerear by bone resonance.

Yes, but I hate to dial thething.

LaFlora Williams, a 58-year-oldCalifornia woman, has just in-vented the “Secret Bra Pouch,”which lets a woman hide cashand credit cards inside her bra.She’s currently working on amen’s version that fits insidehis trousers.

I have a Mae West-likepunch line here, but then youprobably know what it is.

A Colombian mountainclimber, freezing in a blizzardin the South American Andes,tried to call for help on his cellphone, but discovered he hadused up all his prepaid min-utes. He thought he wasdoomed, when the phonerang. It was a telephone-com-pany salesperson asking if hewanted to buy more time.

“Wait a minute now...you offered me a better ratelast time!”

A man showed up at theAzteca pastry shop inMexico City at 8 A.M.,pulled a knife, and de-manded a chocolate cake.He came back the next dayat the same time and didthe same thing. And thenext day. And the next. Atthis point, employees de-cided to call the police incase he did it again. He did,and he was arrested.

“Your honor, the knifewas just to slice the cake,and I assumed they wereputting it on my tab!”

Lucia Fernanda Flores, a 17-year-old student, is gettingnational attention as a “perfor-mance artist” in Santiago,Chile, by walking around thestreets without clothes. Shestrolls the city wearing onlysunglasses and a backpack, asphotographers jockey to getthe best shots of her “visual-arts project.”

Don’t you just love mod-ern art?

The Guinness Book of WorldRecords has declared a 116-year-old woman in Beijing,China, the world’s oldest per-son. Du Pinhua says she haslived so long because shedidn’t start eating meat untilshe was 110.

Let me get this right,now... if I don’t start anythinguntil I’m 110, I live longer?

With a password belonging to his friend’s mother, a 13-year-old boy bought a heli-copter, a jet airplane, motor-cycles, and a pickup truck,using a computer at his junior-high-school science class inOhio. The total cost was $2 million.

Yes, but on his Dad’s easy credit-card plan, the mini-mum monthly payment is only$22.50!

A man in Portugal who wantedto see some nude womencalled several and offeredthem free mammograms via asatellite that he said was pass-ing overhead. All they had todo was stand at their front win-dows naked. Five of thewomen did it.

Hey, a free mammogram?You know how much thosethings cost?

A woman in England returneda parrot to the pet shop whereshe bought it because the pre-vious owners had kept the birdin their bedroom, where itlearned to imitate the soundsof sexual passion.

Tough enough to hear itfrom the next apartment, letalone from a yellow bird with abig beak.

A 78-year-old former Ohiopreacher was sent to jail forswindling 800 people out of$2.3 million in a phony stockscam. The attorney for thevictims told the court the mandidn’t display the humility onemight expect from a man ofthe cloth, saying he once “in-formed me that he was God.”

In Ohio?

The shaman and spiritualleader of the Camaiura tribe in the Amazon jungle said heunderwent plastic surgery be-cause a spirit came to him in adream and “told me to changemy face.”

Well…if you’d seen himbefore…

Temple authorities say 70Buddhist monks at the NorthTaing Kosang pogoda inPhnom Pehn, Cambodia, havebeen gambling, watchingporno flicks, visiting houses of prostitution, and stealingchickens from homes in theneighborhood.

So much for serenity.

A bunch of people convictedof driving while intoxicated inIowa were ordered to attend a48-hour retreat at which theywere to learn the virtues of ab-staining from booze. Some-how the stuff was smuggled in, and everyone got roaringdrunk.

“I think I missed thepoint, but it was a hell of aparty!”

There’s a shortage of “buxomwenches” at a CanterburyTales tourist exhibit inEngland, and bosses arethinking of hiring men to do the job.

“Hi, I’m Rod! I’ll be yourbuxom wench tonight!”

Five guards were oversee-ing 31 convicts on a workdetail in northeasternUganda when a rabbit ranby. All the guards chasedafter it.

All the prisonersimmediately escaped.