FROM MY DAD…
0800 by Jeff Hess
I could never bring myself to forward all the email jokes, cartoons and other Internet comedy that land in my inbox. But then I started posting the ones my dad sends me. Judging from my comments and emails, my dad has become one of my greatest blogging assets. So for your morning blog chuckle I present: From My Dad.
The IRS decides to audit Ralph, and summons him to the IRS office. The IRS auditor is not surprised when Ralph shows up with his attorney.
The auditor says, “Well, sir, you have an extravagant lifestyle and no full-time employment, which you explain by saying that you win money gambling. I’m not sure the IRS finds that believable.”
“I’m a great gambler, and I can prove it,” says Ralph. “How about a demonstration?”
The auditor thinks for a moment and said, “Okay. Go ahead.”
Ralph says, “I’ll bet you a thousand dollars that I can bite my own eye.”
The auditor thinks a moment and says, “No way! It’s a bet.”
Ralph removes his glass eye and bites it.
The auditor’s jaw drops. Ralph says, “Now, I’ll bet you two thousand dollars that I can bite my other eye.”
The auditor can tell Ralph isn’t blind, so he takes the bet.
Ralph removes his dentures and bites his good eye.
The stunned auditor now realizes he has wagered and lost three grand, with Ralph’s attorney as a witness. He starts to get nervous.
“Want to go double or nothing?” Ralph asks “I’ll bet you six thousand dollars that I can stand on one side of your desk, and pee into that wastebasket on the other side, and never get a drop anywhere in between.”
The auditor, twice burned, is cautious now, but he looks carefully and decides there’s no way this guy can manage that stunt, so he agrees again.
Ralph stands beside the desk and unzips his pants, but although he strains mightily, he can’t make the stream reach the wastebasket on other side, so he pretty much urinates all over the desk.
The auditor leaps with joy, realizing that he has just turned a major loss into a huge win. But Ralph’s attorney moans and puts his head in his hands.
“Are you okay?” the auditor asks.
“Not really,” says the attorney. “This morning, when Ralph told me he’d been summoned for an audit, he bet me twenty thousand dollars that he could come in here and piss all over your desk and that you’d be happy about it.”
As my dad once reminded me, Buck Owens played every weekend in the same Oakland club for 18 years before he became an overnight success. And I know John Grishom’s tale of being rejected 26 times for his fist novel. But one of my writing idols, James Lee Burke has to hold the record. 
My name is Jeff Hess and I’m a biblioholic. I own hundreds of books. Not valuable books, mostly Science Fiction paperbacks and text books, tomes rescued by the bag from library book sales. A few years ago, in the interest of not burying myself, I began reading more books from the library and taking notes. 
