The Mutant Animal  

  The Army   

    Miow! Miow           

  This is my ball

Treble Trouble
 
Speaking without thinking can treble your troubles as this ancient story demonstrates.
A man was caught stealing a bag of onions and taken before a judge.
The judge gave him a choice of three punishments: eat the onions he had stolen at one sitting; submit to a hundred lashes of the whip or pay a fine.
The man said he would eat the onions. He began confidently enough but after eating a few, his eyes began to burn, his nose started running and his mouth felt as if it were on fire.
“I can’t eat the onions,” he said. “Give me the lashes instead.”
But after he had received a few strokes he began to turn and twist to avoid the whip.
“I can’t bear it!” he screamed, finally. “I’ll pay the fine.”
So he paid the fine and was let off, but he became the laughing-stock of the city for having taken three punishments for the same crime.

 
War of Words
 
A king sent a message to the ruler of a neighbouring country. The message read: "Send me a blue diamond as large as a pigeon's egg or else..."
The king on getting the message wrote back:
"We don't have such a diamond and if we had..."
The first king got very angry and declared war on his neighbour. The fighting went on for several months till a third king arranged a meeting between the two warring rulers. So they met and the first king said to the other: "What did you mean when you said, 'Send me a blue diamond as large as a pigeon's egg or else...'?"
"Why," he replied, "I meant a blue diamond as large as a pigeon's egg or else... some other diamond. I love diamonds. But what did you mean when you said, 'We don't have such a diamond and if we had-'?"
"It is easy to guess my meaning," said the other man. "What I wanted to say was, if we had such a diamond we would have gladly sent it to you."
The Kings pledged to write more clearly in future communications and embraced and made peace.

The Fear of God
 
There were two brothers who were always up to some mischief. If
somebody had been locked up in his house or if somebody's dog had been painted green, one always knew who the culprits were — the brothers.
One day the boys' mother asked a priest to talk to her sons and put the fear of God in them so that they would mend their ways. The priest asked her to send her sons to him one at a time.
When the younger boy, a lad of thirteen, came, he made him sit and asked him:
"Where is God?"
The boy did not answer.
The priest asked again, in a louder voice: "Where is God?"
The boy remained silent. But when the priest asked the same question a third time, the boy jumped up and ran away.
He went straight to his brother.
"We are in big trouble!" he gasped.
"What's wrong?" asked the older boy, warily, wondering which of their sins had caught up with them.
"God is missing," said the youngster, "and they think we have something to do with it!"

Five Men in a Cart 
 
Guru Gampar had told his four disciples that they were never to do anything without his permission.
One day while they were on their way to a distant town, Guru Gampar fell asleep in the bullock cart they were travelling in. His head rolled from side to side and suddenly his turban slipped from his head and fell on to the road. But as their guru had told them never to do anything without his permission, none of the disciples made a move to get down and pick it up. When the guru woke up and was told about the loss of his turban he was furious.
"Next time anything falls off pick it up at once!" he thundered. Some time later the bullock dropped its dung and the four foolish disciples leaped down and picked it up. Guru Gampar was horrified. He made a list of the things that could fall off from a moving cart. "Pick up any of these things if they fall," he told them, handing them the list. "Don't pick up anything that is not mentioned here."
Just then the cart lurched violently and Guru Gampar was thrown headlong into a ditch.
Guru Gampar yelled to his disciples to pull him out.
"We can't, guruji," said his disciples, sadly. "Your name is not on the list you gave us." Guru Gampar pleaded with them to pull him out, but in vain.
"We know you are testing us, guruji," they told him. "But you can rest assured that we will never disobey you. You told us not pick up anything that was not mentioned in your list and we will not do so."
"Give me the list!" yelled Guru Gampar. They threw him the list and the pen and the guru hastily scrawled his name on it. Then and then only did the obedient disciples pull their beloved guru out of the ditch and put him back into the cart!