These tidbits are all true.

WHY...

would someone bring their pet chicken to the Washington Monument? I kid you not. My sweetie was visiting when he overheard the conversation. The guards said it was ok, as long as it (the chicken) was clean.

Seeds Are Cheap

See Jane. Jane spent $3.50 for a pot of beautiful pansies. See Suzy. Suzy spent $1.50 for a packet of seeds.

My mom (Sue) decided to grow her own flowers instead of buying them. What a great idea! She could have twice as many flowers for half the money.

She bought the pot - $2.99 (not off to a great start here) and almost carved a hole in her upper arm ($1.99 for bandaids and $2.50 for antibiotic ointment) trying to make a drainage opening in the cheap plastic pot.

Dirt cost $4 and a saucer was an additional $2 - but necessary to hold all the overflowing soil that fell out of the bottom.

All that, and the ungrateful wretches never grew! So tack on another $3.50 for real, live pansies!

The World of Work:

I used to work at a newspaper that decreed one couldn't have any suspicious days off. This meant you couldn't be absent on a monday or friday no matter what, because they coincided with the weekend. No one would believe you were sick and you would probably get canned. But it just so happens that I worked in the 4 day workweek department, and I had wednesdays off. If I took off on a Monday or Friday, That coincided with the weekend. If I took off a Tuesday or Thursday, that coincided with my day off!

Although this company treated me very well, the job made me nuts. I used to place classified ads- you know, when you sell your car, rent an apartment or look for a job? Some of the phone calls were amazing:

Calls at dinnertime demanding that the ad get in today's paper (believe it or not, this happened at least 4 times a day).
I know the ad is a giant secret, but I can't give you a price on it if you won't tell me anything about it! At least read it to me and let me see how many lines it will be!
I used to hate this. People would call and ask for "John" In a company with thousands of employees, they never knew what building, department, division, job the guy had or even his last name. Of course the name was always the most common name in the U.S.
Everyone was trying to hire me. I was never so successful in the job market. After employers realized how much it would cost to run their ad, there would be silence. Then, "So, are you looking for a job?"
This is not really anyone's fault. People are paranoid about giving out their personal info, and rightly so. However, we needed to know who was placing an ad in our paper. You can't just call up, "Camaro for sale. Call Fizer".
If you call the CLASSIFIED department, and they ask you what kind of ad you want to place, the correct answer is NOT "classified." We KNOW that. Are you selling your home? Car? Hiring someone? Will clean gutters for money or what? That's what we need to know.
Please do not spill your guts to the operator. I spent one agonizing hour on the phone trying to get off gracefully the entire time. In between wording an ad, this quite sociable person found many enlightening subjects to talk about. I was sweating bullets the whole time because my boss can listen in anytime and I won't even know it, and also because we make a commission on how much we sell and you can't sell anything if you're not taking new calls!
Not all newspapers do this, but ours did require a payment before the ad were to run. Can I just say... if you mail the check tomorrow, it will NOT be in tomorrow's paper. We'll print your ad when we get your check.

**Did you know that there's a Golden Grave Hospital in Miami?**

My $0.25

This used to be an embarrassing story. But, who doesn't enjoy saving money? Plus, I love garage sales and if they have something I can use, great!

A few years ago, I needed to get a white, button-down shirt as part of a uniform I would only need to wear twice for school. So, I'm driving down the street and I see a bunch of junk lying on someone's lawn, along with a clothesrack with some white shirts on it. They were in good shape too! I picked one out, handed over a quarter and left. I completely forgot to remove the price tag, and was sitting in this meeting when a friend asked about my $ 0.25 shirt. I was so surprised that she knew! Then I looked down and saw the tag. How embarrassing! Since they all knew, I might as well publish it on the web.

Luckily, I'm not the first person this ever happened to. Check out Todd's story... (under "the very funny.... saga of job search").