Nelson Mandela 'Seriously Ill' In Hospital

The 94-year-old was transferred from his home in Houghton, Johannesburg, to a hospital in Pretoria in the middle of the night.

Reminded me of this:

A man left his cat with his brother while he went on vacation for a week. When he came back, he called his brother to see when he could pick the cat up. The brother hesitated, then said, "I'm so sorry, but while you were away, the cat died."

The man was very upset and yelled, "You know, you could have broken the news to me better than that. When I called today, you could have said he was on the roof and wouldn't come down. Then when I called the next day, you could have said that he had fallen off and the vet was working on patching him up. Then when I called the third day, you could have said he had passed away."

The brother thought about it and apologized.

"So how's Mom?" asked the man.

"She's on the roof and won't come down."

Since you asked, here are some real beauties, including a model with suicide doors.

I remember visiting my Grandpappy in South Dakota when I was a little kid, and going around to see Grandpappy's old cronies. All these guys were car guys. Grandpappy had a Model T and a Model A; his friends had a variety of old cars: Lincolns, Dodges and the like. One of them even had an old Auburn. Out in the weeds on the farm were more old cars, which might have interested collectors. However, I was told one of them had a case of dynamite in the trunk, and nobody was sure which one.

Grandpappy's long gone now, but my Daddy has the Model T, and I think his brother has the Model A.

By the way, I learned to drive in one of these, with a 273 V-8 and an automatic transmission. No power steering, though, so the wheel was huge!

What car did you learn in?

And I took my driver's test in Farmington Hills instead of Farmington so I wouldn't have to parallel park, which I still do not do very well.

Not my strong point, either. My car has a backup camera, though, which helps a lot.

Reference Gregg's job on the assembly line -- I interviewed at the GM assembly plant in Flint a number of years ago, and I remember one station on the line which had two workers on it, sitting in chairs. What would happen was, a pair of fenders would come by, suspended from a cable. The first worker would get up, do something to the pair of fenders, then sit back down. Shortly thereafter, a hood would come by, suspended from the same cable. The second worker would get up, do something to the hood, and sit back down again. Then the cycle would begin again, and repeat endlessly.

"She's on the roof and won't come down."

My nearest, dearest BFF/cousin and I have gotten 30 years of use from that joke. I was delighted to see it shared.
Our version is "Well, darlin', the Cat is on the Roof", ritually intoned before delivering any shocking family news.