Proposed compromise: we put Joni in a box with a sealed vial of hydrocyanic acid, a source of radioactivity, and a Geiger counter...

I feel really wrong, but I just picture the scene from Ace Ventura where he is trying to escape from the rhino...

Once. We did it once.

Back when I smoked, I got the chance to go to a fancy conference as an intern. The only other person that smoked at this job was the executive director, and I had to walk by her desk to take a smoke break. She would insist on going out to smoke with me and it was 50/50 she would bum a cigarette off me. As a result, I…

An American colleague (relevant) tells this one about himself. He was on a plane in Japan, on final approach to Hiroshima, when he noticed how new the city’s architecture appeared from the window. His Japanese traveling companion replied, “yes, we had a fresh start in 1945.”

I don’t know if this is better or worse for being at a Renaissance Faire, but here goes!

I was working at the video desk at the library in the dark years before DVDs, blu-rays, or even streaming or digital downloads! It was a brutal time.

So there was this guy who would always sexually harass me on my way home from work. I’d get off the train and walk by this auto repair shop. This motherfucker didn’t even work at the shop — the shop owner described him as a “parasite” who loitered outside of the shop trying to buy up junkers and always hollering at…

In 1998, I was working at Paramount as a p.a. My boss was a smoker. The clean air act was in effect, so she was outside our studio, having a smoke. An “industry” type walking by said, “You know, secondhand smoke kills.” My boss arched one eyebrow, and without missing a beat replied, “Obviously not effectively.”

For some burns, context is everything.

My grandmother was the most polite person I’ve ever known. Not necessarily the ‘nicest’, but in the tradition of fine scottish-descended, church-going, tee-totalling canadians, I don’t think I ever heard her say anything harsher than a quiet ‘tut-tut’ in her whole life. She was…

Being British and studying in the US, I acquired the rather unimaginative nickname ‘England’. I was sitting in my dorm room with my new boyfriend and a (finger)blast from the past, and the blast from the past casually mentions that we banged, and looks to the boyfriend for a reaction. Boyfriend’s jaw twitches a…

In high school, the reply “your mom” was super popular where I was (possibly years after it was popular everywhere else) and people used it constantly. Because I have a super dark sense of humor, I waited and waited for the perfect time when someone would thoughtlessly say that to me and it finally happened one day…

I’ve told this story before, but here it goes again.

My sister might kill me for this, and it’s not a burn, but it’s such a great one-liner and you guys are the perfect audience and I HAVE TO SHARE.

My 16-year-old sister looks a little bit older so she occasionally gets hit on by boys in their early 20s. At one point, this one sorry fellow tried to convince her that “age is just a number,” to which she quickly retorted, “a prison cell is just a room.”

1985. I was walking into a bar with one of my more friendly friends. She helped me dress up and put on some sick make up. I dare to say that I looked HAWT! We were there to dance and maybe meet some guys. She was there to meet/stalk one in particular. I just wanted a night out.

I just remembered a great one! Last month, my friend - who is the chillest, least confrontational, most mild-mannered person in the whole world - was visiting Israel and he ran into some German lady who was like, “Why can’t there just be peace?” My friend was all, “Yeah, totally” (my friend and I are both Jewish but…

Fairly recently me, my siblings and my parents were sitting around and in a sign of how we can now all talk like adults we were sort of telling “The most fucked up I’ve ever been” stories and my sister, who had a bit of a wild adolescence, tells a pretty horrific story. My mother, who was the least enthusiastic about…

Many years ago, as I stood in line at the (University) gym to be issued gym clothes, a student in front of me told the attendant he needed a “medium jock strap with a large cup.” The attendant immediately came back with “Why? Are you trying to leave room for your hand?”

My then-roommate and I were at a bar and a guy came up to her and said in the most cheesy, oily voice you can imagine, “Hey, just to save some time: how would you like your eggs in the morning?”