“This hotel is terrible!” a guest complained when he checked out.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

“I got no sleep. Every 15 minutes this loud banging sound woke me up!”

I apologised for the noise and checked him out. A few minutes later, a couple showed up. Again, I asked how their stay was.

“Terrible!” they said. “The guy in the next room was snoring so loudly that we had to bang on the wall every 15 minutes to wake him up!”           

Keith Melcher

 Chalk one up to quick thinking. My first job was wrapping hams at a meat-packing factory. One day, after my shift, I was heading out the main gate right behind a woman who was rather rotund. Or so I thought. Just as she passed the security check, a big ham dropped from under her skirt. Before the guard could react, the woman wheeled around, shouting, “All right! Who threw that ham at me?”

Roger Schoen

Finding a job after prison is tough but I refused to run from my past. So while filling out an application for a video wholesaler, I answered questions honestly. When it asked about previous employer, I wrote: Department of Justice. Job description? Barber/inmate. Earnings? A dollar an hour. How long? Six years. Why did you leave? They let me.

I got the job.                       

Tony Degges

A homeowner on my postal route dug up his front lawn and reseeded. Once finished, he put up a sign, one that Greta Garbo no doubt would have approved of: “Keep off! I want to be a lawn.”

Roman Rogaczewski