A newspaper editor announces that there's enough money in the budget to install a newsroom chandelier. The reporters huddle and send a spokesman to say they're against it.

"Against it? Why?" the editor asks.

"First," the reporter says, "no one on the staff can spell 'chandelier' well enough to put it on an order form. Second, I don't believe that anybody here can play one if we had it. And third, if you got that much money, we think you should get a hanging light instead, to brighten up the office!"

Every day a peddler pulled his cart of wool from his home to the village market. It was a long trip. He had to travel around the perimeter of a large lake that was owned by the town tycoon, a modern-day scrooge.

One day during the winter the lake frozen over. The peddler realized that he could cut off two miles from his trip if he crossed over the lake. He was spotted halfway across the lake by the tycoon.

Scrooge came racing out of his mansion and screamed at the peddler, "I'll be darned if I let anyone pull the wool over my ice!"

Once upon a time there was a woman married to an annoying man. He complained about everything. One day he went to the creek with his mule and as he went, he complained so much that the mule got annoyed and kicked him to death.

At the funeral, as men walked by, the wife shook her head "yes". Every time women walked by, she shook her head "no".

The minister asked, ''Why are you shaking your head 'yes' for men and 'no' for women?''

Her response was, ''When the men walk by saying how sorry they feel for me, I respond saying, 'Yes, I'll be alright.' When the women walk by, they keep asking if the mule is for sale."

A mid-level executive was so frustrated at being passed over for promotion year after year, that, in frustration, he went to a brain-transplant center in the hope of raising his I.Q. 20 points. After a battery of physical and psychological tests, the center's director told him that he was an acceptable candidate.

"That's great!" the executive said. "But I understand that this procedure can be really expensive?"

"Yes, sir, it can," the director replied. "An ounce of accountant's brain for example, costs one thousand dollars. An ounce of an economist's brain costs two thousand. An ounce of a corporate president's is forty-five thousand. And an ounce of a politician's brain is seventy-five thousand dollars."

"Seventy-five thousand dollars for an ounce of a politicians brain? Why on earth is that?"

"Do you have any idea," the director asked, "how many politicians it takes to get an ounce of brain?"