HippyCentral

The Washington Post’s yearly contest where readers are asked to supply alternate meanings for various words — and the winners are…

1. Coffee (n.), a person who is coughed upon.

2. Flabbergasted (adj.), appalled over how much weight you have gained.

3. Abdicate (v.), to give up all hope of ever having a flat stomach.

4. Esplanade (v.), to attempt an explanation while drunk.

5. Willy-nilly (adj.), impotent.

6. Negligent (adj.), describes a condition in which you absentmindedly answer the door in your nightgown.

7. Lymph (v), to walk with a lisp.

8. Gargoyle (n.), an olive-flavored mouthwash.

9. Flatulence (n.) the emergency vehicle that picks you up after you are run over by a steamroller.

10. Balderdash (n.), a rapidly receding hairline.

11. Testicle (n.), a humorous question on an exam.

12. Rectitude (n.), the formal, dignified demeanor assumed by a proctologist immediately before he examines you.

The teacher of the geography class was lecturing on map reading.

After explaining about latitude, longitude, degrees and minutes the teacher asked, “Suppose I asked you to meet me for lunch at 23 degrees, 4 minutes north latitude and 45 degrees, 15 minutes east longitude…?”

After a confused silence, a voice volunteered, “I guess you’d be eating alone.”

The kindergarten class had settled down to its coloring books.

Willie came up to the teacher’s desk and said, “Miss Francis, I ain’t got no crayons.”

“Willie,” Miss Francis said, “you mean, ‘I don’t have any crayons.’ ‘You don’t have any crayons.’ ‘We don’t have any crayons.’ ‘They don’t have any crayons.’ Do you see what I’m getting at?”

“Not really,” Willie said, “What happened to all the f@@@ing crayons?”

The pastor’s sermon focused on how God knows which of us grows best in the sunlight and which of us needs shade.

“For example,” he said, “roses must be planted in the sun, but fuchsias thrive in the shade.”

After the service, a woman, her face beaming, approached him.

“Your sermon did me so much good,” she said.

Before he had time to ask how it had helped her personal growth, she added, “I always wondered what was wrong with my fuchsias.”

The metric system did not really catch on in the States, unless you count the increasing popularity of the nine-millimeter bullet.

—Dave Barry

Q: Why is perfume obedient?

A: Because it is scent wherever it goes!