Please excuse the rough language in the following story... I would have deleted them, but the story wouldn't be the same.

A young couple got married and went on their honeymoon. When they got back, the bride immediately called her mother. "Well," said her mother,"so how was the honeymoon?"

Oh, Mama," she replied, "the honeymoon was wonderful! So romantic..." Suddenly she burst out crying. "But, Mama, as soon as we returned, Sam started using the most horrible language -- things I'd never heard before! I mean, all these awful 4-letter words! You've got to take me home...,

"PLEASE MAMA!"

"Sarah, Sarah," her mother said, "calm down! You need to stay with your husband and work this out. Now, tell me, what could be so awful? WHAT 4-letter words?"

"Please don't make me tell you, Mama," wept the daughter, "I'm so embarrassed, they're just too awful! COME GET ME, PLEASE!!"

"Darling, baby, you must tell me what has you so upset. Tell your mother these horrible 4-letter words!"

Sobbing, the bride said, "Oh, Mama..., he used words like: DUST, WASH, IRON, and COOK......"

"I'll pick you up in twenty minutes," said the mother.

FOOD FOR THOUGHT - HOW LONG DO WE HAVE?

This is the most interesting thing I've read in a long time. The sad thing about it, you can see it coming. I have always heard about this democracy countdown. It is interesting to see it in print.God help us, not that we deserve it. How Long Do We Have?

About the time our original thirteen states adopted their new constitution in 1787, Alexander Tyler, a Scottish history professor at the University of Edinburgh, had this to say about the fall of the Athenian Republic some 2,000 years earlier:

"A democracy is always temporary in nature; it simply cannot exist as a permanent form of government."

"A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters discover they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury."

"From that moment on, the majority always vote for the candidates who promise the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that every democracy will finally collapse due to loose fiscal policy, which is always followed by a dictatorship."

"The average age of the world's greatest civilizations from the beginning of history, has been about 200 years."

"During those 200 years, those nations always progressed through the following sequence:

1. from bondage to spiritual faith;
2. from spiritual faith to great courage;
3. from courage to liberty;
4. from liberty to abundance;
5. from abundance to complacency;
6. from complacency to apathy;
7. from apathy to dependence;
8. from dependence back into bondage"

Professor Joseph Olson of Hemline University School of Law, St. Paul, Minnesota, points out some interesting facts concerning the 2000 Presidential election:

Number of States won by:
Gore: 19
Bush: 29

Square miles of land won by:
Gore: 580,000
Bush: 2,427,000

Population of counties won by:
Gore: 127 million
Bush: 143 million

Murder rate per 100,000 residents in counties won by:
Gore: 13.2
Bush: 2.1

Professor Olson adds: "In aggregate, the map of the territory Bush won was mostly the land owned by the taxpaying citizens of this great country. Gore's territory mostly encompassed those citizens living in government-owned tenements and living off various forms of government welfare..."

Olson believes the United States is now somewhere between the "complacency and apathy" phase of Professor Tyler's definition of democracy, with some forty percent of the nation's population already having reached the "governmental dependency" phase.

If Congress grants amnesty and citizenship to twenty million criminal invaders called illegal's and they vote, then we can say goodbye to the USA in fewer than five years.

Pass this along to help everyone realize just how much is at stake, knowing that apathy is the greatest danger to our freedom.

A woman in a hot air balloon realized she was lost.

She lowered her altitude and spotted a man in a boat below. She shouted to him, "Excuse me, can you help me? I promised a friend I would meet him an hour ago, but I don't know where I am."

The man consulted his portable GPS and replied, "You're in a hot air balloon, approximately 30 feet above a ground elevation of 2346 feet above sea level. You are at 31 degrees, 14.97 minutes north latitude and 100 degrees, 49.09 minutes west longitude."

She rolled her eyes and said, "You must be a Republican."

"I am," replied the man. "How did you know?"

"Well," answered the balloonist, "everything you told me is technically correct, but I have no idea what to do with your information, and I'm still lost. Frankly, you've not been much help to me."

The man smiled and responded, "You must be a Democrat."

"I am," replied the balloonist. "How did you know?"

"Well," said the man, "you don't know where you are or where you're going. You've risen to where you are, due to a large quantity of hot air. You made a promise that you have no idea how to keep, and you expect me to solve your problem. You're in exactly the same position you were in before we met, but, somehow, now it's my fault."

Here's A TOAST "TO ALL THE GIRLS WE'VE LOVED BEFORE"... How's This For Depressing?

Brigette Bardot 71
Stella Stevens 68
Sophia Loren 71
Gina Lollobrigida 78
Deborah Kerr 94 (WOW!)
Lena Horne 88
Kay Starr 83
Patti Page 78
Annette Funicello 63
Barbara Eden 71
Angie Dickenson 74
Doris Day 81
Joan Collins 72
Julie Christie 64
Leslie Caron 74
Carroll Baker 74
Ann-Margret 64
Debra Padget 72
Julie Andrews 70
Ursula Andress 69
Rita Moreno 74
Jean Simmons 76
Julie Newmar 72
Kim Novak 72
Jane Powell 76
Debbie Reynolds 73
Shirley Temple 77 (NO!)
Jane Russell 84
Kathryn Grayson 83
Esther Williams 82
Elke Sommer 65
Gale Storm 83
Jill St John 65
Liz Taylor 73
Mamie Van Doren 74

Summary of emails received this past year.

Now, I have to scrub the top of every can I open for the same reason.

I no longer have any savings because I gave it to a sick girl (Penny Brown) who is about to die in the hospital for the 1,387,258th time..

I no longer have any money at all, but that will change once I receive the $15,000 that Bill Gates/Microsoft and AOL are sending me for participating in their special e-mail program.

I no longer worry about my soul because I have 363,214 angels looking out for me, and St. Theresa's novena has granted my every wish.

I no longer eat at KFC because their chickens are actually horrible mutant freaks with no eyes or feathers.

I must send my thanks to whoever sent me the one about rat turds in the glue on envelopes because I now have to use a wet towel with every envelope that needs sealing.

I no longer use cancer-causing deodorants even though I smell like a water buffalo on a hot day.

Thanks to you, I have learned that my prayers only get answered if I forward an e-mail to seven of my friends and make a wish within five minutes.

Because of your concern I no longer drink Coca Cola because it can remove toilet stains.

I no longer can buy gasoline without taking a man along to watch the car so a serial killer won't crawl in my back seat when I'm pumping gas.

I no longer drink Pepsi or Dr. Pepper since the people who make these products are atheists who refuse to put "Under God" on their cans.

I no longer use Saran wrap in the microwave because it causes cancer.

And thanks for letting me know I can't boil a cup water in the microwave anymore because it will blow up in my face...disfiguring me for life.

I no longer check the coin return on pay phones because I could be pricked with a needle infected with AIDS.

I no longer go to shopping malls because someone will drug me with a perfume sample and rob me.

I no longer receive packages from UPS or FedEx since they are actually Al Qaeda in disguise.

I no longer shop at Target since they are French and don't support our American troops or the Salvation Army.

I no longer answer the phone because someone will ask me to dial a number for which I will get a phone bill with calls to Jamaica, Uganda, Singapore, and Uzbekistan.

I no longer have any sneakers -- but that will change once I receive my free replacement pair from Nike.

I no longer buy expensive cookies from Neiman Marcus since I now have their recipe.

Thanks to you, I can't use anyone's toilet but mine because a big brown African spider is lurking under the seat to cause me instant death when it bites my ass

. Thank you too for all the endless advice Andy Rooney and Maxine has given us. I can live a better life now because they've told us how to fix everything.

And thanks to your great advice, I can't ever pick up the $5.00 I found dropped in the parking lot because it probably was placed there by a sex molester waiting underneath my car to grab my leg.

If you don't send this e-mail to at least 144,000 people in the next 70 minutes, a large dove with diarrhea will land on your head at 5:00 PM this afternoon and the fleas from 12 camels will infest your back, causing you to grow a hairy hump. I know this will occur because it actually happened to a friend of my next door neighbor's ex-mother-in-law's second husband's cousin's beautician.

A South American scientist from Argentina, after a lengthy study, has discovered that people with insufficient brain and sexual activity read their e-mail with their hand on the mouse. Don't bother taking it off now, it's too late......

HAVE A WONDERFUL DAY!!

I had prepared for it like any intelligent woman would.   I went on a starvation diet the day before, knowing that all the extra weight would just melt off in 24-hours, leaving me with my sleek, trim, high-school-girl body.   The last forty years of careful cellulite collection would just be gone with a snap of a finger.

I knew if I didn't eat a morsel on Friday, that I could probably fit into my senior formal on Saturday.   Trotting up to the attic, I pulled the gown out of the garment bag, carried it lovingly downstairs, ran my hand over the fabric, and hung it on the door.

I stripped naked, looked in the mirror, sighed, and thought, "Well, okay, maybe if I shift it all to the back..." bodies never have pockets where you need them.

Bravely, I took the gown off the hanger, unzipped the shimmering dress and stepped gingerly into it. I struggled, twisted, turned, and pulled and I got the formal all the way up to my knees... before the zipper gave out. I was disappointed.   I wanted to wear that dress with those silver sandals again and dance the night away.

Okay, one setback was not going to spoil my mood for this affair. No way! Rolling the dress into a ball and tossing it into the corner, I turned to Plan B: the black crepe caftan.

I gathered up all the goodies that I had purchased at Saks: the scented shower gel; the body building and highlighting shampoo & conditioner, and the split-end killer and shine enhancer. Soon my hair would look like that girl's in the Pantene ads.

Then the makeup --the under eye "ain't no lines here" firming cream, the all-day face-lifting gravity-fighting moisturizer with wrinkle filler spackle; the all day" kiss me till my lips bleed, and see if this gloss will come off" lipstick, the bronzing face powder for that special glow.

But first, the roll-on facial hair remover. I could feel the wrinkles shuddering in fear.

OK, time to get ready! I jumped into the steaming shower, soaped, lathered, rinsed, shaved, tweezed, buffed, scrubbed and scoured my body to a tingling pink.

I plastered my freshly scrubbed face with the anti-wrinkle, gravity fighting "your face will look like a baby's posterior" face cream. I set my hair on hot rollers.

I felt wonderful. Ready to take on the world. Or in this instance, my underwear. With the towel firmly wrapped around my glistening body, I pulled out the black lace, tummy-tucking, cellulite-pushing, hamhock-rounding girdle, and the matching "lifting those bosoms like they re filled with helium bra.

" I greased my body with the scented body lotion and began the plunge. I pulled, stretched, tugged, hiked, folded, tucked, twisted, shimmied, hopped, pushed, wiggled, snapped, shook, caterpillar crawled and kicked. Sweat poured off my forehead but I was done. And it didn't look bad. So I rested.

A well deserved rest, too.

The girdle was on my body. Bounce a quarter off my behind? It was tighter than a trampoline. Can you say, "Rubber baby buggy bumper buns?" Okay, so I had to take baby steps, and walk sideways, and I couldn't move from my buns to my knees. But I was firm!

Oh no...I had to go to the bathroom. And there wasn't a snap crotch. From now on, undies gotta have a snap crotch. I was ready to rip it open and re-stitch the crotch with Velcro, but the pain factor from past experiments was still fresh in my mind. I quickly sidestepped to the bathroom.

An hour later, I had answered nature's call and repeated the struggle into the girdle. I was ready for the bra. I remembered what the saleslady said to do. I could see her glossed lips mouthing, "Do not fasten the bra in the front, and twist it around. Put the bra on the way it should be worn--straps over the shoulders. Then bend over and gently place both breasts inside the cups." Easy if you have four hands. But, with confidence, I put my arms into the holsters, bent over and pulled the bra down...but the boobs weren't cooperating. I'd no sooner tuck one in a cup, and while placing the other, the first would slip out. I needed a strategy. I bounced up and down a few times, tried to dribble them in with short bunny hops, but that didn't work.

So, while bent over, I began rocking gently back and forth on my heel and toes and I set 'em to swinging. Finally, on the fourth swing, pause, and lift, I captured the gliding glands. Quickly fastening the back of the bra, I stood up for examination. Back straight, slightly arched, I turned and faced the mirror, turning front, and then sideways. I smiled. Yes, Houston, we have lift up! My breasts were high, firm and there was cleavage! I was happy until I tried to look down. I had a chin rest. And I couldn't see my feet.

I still had to put on my pantyhose, and shoes. Oh...why did I buy heels with buckles? Then I had to pee again.

I put on my sweats, fixed myself a drink, ordered pizza, and skipped the reunion.

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