My Dad and I were talking the other night about love and marriage.

He told me that he knew as early as their wedding what marriage to my mom would be like. It seems the minister asked my mom, "Do you take this man to be your husband?" and she said, "I do."

Then the minister asked my Dad, "Do you take this woman to be your wife?" and my mom said, "He does."

A family who had just moved into a new neighborhood was anxious to make a good impression. But the neighbors seemed cold and made no overtures of welcome. The mother of the brood was overjoyed when finally her youngest son ran in and announced happily,

"Mommy, the lady down the street asked my name today!"

"Oh, how nice!" exclaimed the mother enthusiastically. "And then what did she do?"

"Then she gave it to the policeman," the boy said.

There was an engineer who had an exceptional gift for fixing all things mechanical. After serving his company over 30 years, he retired. Several years later the company contacted him with a problem they were having with one of their multi-million dollar machines.

They had tried everything and everyone else to get the machine fixed, but to no avail. In desperation, they called on the retired engineer who had solved so many of their problems in the past. The engineer reluctantly took the challenge. He spent a day studying the huge machine. At the end of the day, he marked a small "x" in chalk on a particular component of the machine and proudly stated, "This is where your problem is."

The part was replaced and the machine worked perfectly again. The company received a bill for $50,000 from the engineer for his service. They demanded an itemized accounting of his charges.

The engineer responded with the following account:
Chalk: $1.00
Knowing where to put the 'X': $49,999.00

A lady with a large flowery hat was stopped at the church door by the usher.

"Are you a friend of the bride?" he asked.

"Certainly not," she snapped, "I'm the groom's mother."