Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Great Jokes played on overeducated Idiots

My wife's best friend and her husband were up fishing with us this summer. Wife's friend has a Masters in Biology. So we see a flock of geese flying somewhere and I ask her, "You know how waterfowl always fly in a "V" shape? I notice quite often that one side of the "V" is longer than the other, what causes this?" She thinks for a while and just can't come up with an intelligent answer so she finally just concedes and says, "I don't know." I then explain through her husbands thunderous laughter, "Because one side of the "V" has more geese!"

Back in the early 1980's, I was on a winter mountaineering school taught by a Swiss guide. He was a true old master of the mountains. Those days were before GoreTex was common, and the hand wear of choice was still a horse hide leather mitt with a heavy wool liner. They were comfy and warm unless you got them wet, then they froze like iron.

We were building snow caves to sleep in, and the old guide was expounding on how if you were careful, you could build one without getting your mitts wet. Try as we might, none of us managed to accomplish this. Sure enough, the old guys mitts were dry as a bone when we finished. I asked him, "Willy, how did you manage to keep your mitts dry digging around in the snow when none of us could?" He looked at me and said in his heavy Swiss accent, "I took dem off."

I was in a engineer company, we sent the newbe's to the motor pool to get already mixed camo paint, a five gal bucket of steam, or the best was a board strecher. One time a guy came back with a boad strecher. It had come alongs and hooks on it. laughed about that one for a long time.

In 1955, our district ranger hired a Swiss exchange student who'd been a timber-cruiser in Switzerland � where he knew only spruce, and the unit of measure was a cubic meter. As the district cruiser, I got Rolf as a helper.

The only way that he could help was to record the numbers that I called-out to him � but he insisted that his experience entitled him to do what I was doing. The results were a lot of groans and very few grins.

I had a dickens of a time getting him (a) to grasp the concept of a sixteen-foot log and (b) to identify the several species of timber trees by looking at the bark. Some of the common names of our western timber pines struck him as hilarious.

One day, he slapped the Biltmore stick onto a very tall western larch and called-out "Thirty-two" for the DBH, then tilted his head 'way back to look up at the soaring height of that tree to a six-inch top far above, and called-out "two!" for what was easily six or seven logs. When I asked him what species, he peered hard at the bark, thought a while, then bawled "ping-pong pine!"

That's funnier to me now than it was then.

I remember actually looking at that sentence and disliking all the various constructions... Remember considering "float-hunt"... Shoulda realized the semantics monitors would not cut me any slack.
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Y'all ever heard of the "Five Minute Manager?" I had a Sergeant once that used to like to try that out on all his platoon. I was a crusty old copper that had ten years on him. I got sick of his psychological nonsense, and I told him so, and told him that if he continued to try to play mind games with me, I'd see him in a straight jacket down at Ranger Ricky's Raisin Ranch.

He persisted with some of the guys, and I decided it was time to have some fun. I developed a thing called the "Five Minute Employee." It's like the five minute manager, but it is for an idiot boss. One evening on the night watch, I walk into Mr Wonderful's office, and aski him if I can talk to him. I close the one door, and ask if I can close the other door. He says sure -- real concerned like.

I tell him that he knows I have little faith in the promotional system and that usually "they" promote idiots that couldn't find their own rear end with instructions. Then the fun begins. I tell him that in HIS case, I believe they promoted the right guy. (I actually didn't, but it makes for more fun.) I tell him that I think he is a smart guy, and he has a lot of experience and that I expect great things from him, hold him to a high degree of respect, etc. He says, well, thanks. I try to do my job right. I lay on the praise pretty thick for a couple more minutes, and then lower the boom.

I tell him about an incident that I was pretty disappointed in his handling thereof. I told him I expected better of a man of his calibre. (Trying to keep a straight face was the hardest part.) He was DEFLATED! He was apologetict. He was repentent. He was a snivelling mess. Then I told him that I thought that a man of his bearing would be able to pick up the ball and score a bunch more touchdowns, and that he would take this thing and learn a valid lesson from it -- blah blah blah.

He bought the whole item. I got up, shook his hand and asked if I could leave, telling him I was glad that he had asked to have this talk with me. I was near to wetting myself as I walked out of the office, giving my partner the "thumbs up." Elapsed time??? 4 minutes and 50 seconds.

The poor fool still to this day doesn't know what really happened, or that I was completely unconcerned about him OR the incident I used.

Some people take themselves WAY too seriously.

Used to send the " Newbees" to the shop next door for a can of Valve clearance or a can of compression! got the teach there mad after awhile

This has to be a classic. A friend who owns a boat yard sent one of his summer help mechanics/yard jockeys out to find a master cylinder for a Cris-Craft.


Friend of mine and bar room owner has a daughter with a Ph.D in some sort of poultry related field calmy asked one the drywall finishers that stop in for a cold one how many gallons were in a five gallon bucket.

Or maybe some K9P?

I was an engine guy on 135's and B-52 H's at Fairchild AFB. I did many an engine run on both. Flightline and Test cell.

My ears are still ringing.


First time I helped jet shop hang an engine I thought there was no way them three dinky azed bolts were enough to hold an engine on a wing.

True fun is getting your Platton Leader to help you find the soft spots on the hull of your Bradley. I told him to go around the track and tap about every other 2" and listen for the sound to be different, if it was high pitched he needed to mark it with an X in chalk. Platoon Sergeat showed up about a half an hour later and asked what the hell he was doing. PL explaing to the PSG that Corporal Green had asked him to help find weak spot in the Armor. I got smoked for an hour and half, it was worth every minute.

One student in my 8th grade class (he had failed a couple of years) became irate when the teacher told him that he had ancestors.

We used to send folks to supply for "long weights", whereupon they would be told to sit while the ware house folks scrounged it up.

Electricians sent kids down for buckets of electrons to recharge generators. The buckets were filled and they were told to be very carelful and not spill any on the return. Sort of like the emperor's clothes.

We did the "prop wash" deal once and the kid actually came back with a gallon. Seems there used to be such a product for the early wooden props.

That's just a fancy name for you Hiway 20 rednecks.......lol

Convinced more than one slick sleeve he need to you-hoo check engine inlets. Only way to find cracked IGV (inlet guide vane)cases..............

Nope... I'm just a transplanted "Damn Yankee" occupying conquered territory...

$bob$

Electrician friend of mine got flashburn one night (a week before we were leaving for a CO elk hunt)when he through a disconect and the bucket (EL slang for a disconect) blew up. Good thing he was standing off to the side but he still got blown back a few feet. When our plant maintenance superintendent (degree in electrical engineering) came into the plant hospital to interview Rich he asked what happened. Rich told him he was working on a bucket when it blew up in his face. The super asked him why the heck was he standing on a bucket when we had ladders available?

We told Rich we were gonna wrap him in bubble wrap till the day we left for CO