If you need / like a smile, laugh or a giggle read this.

As many of my regular readers know I occasionally like to publish a hub that is purely designed to make people laugh or brighten up their day in some way. Recently I have been hubbing on some pretty serious topics, so now is one of the times I feel a more lighthearted hub is due, and as per usual this consists of a collection of funnies I have received via emails from various friends of mine in the past few months. I hope these give you the same smiles and laughs that they gave me when I first received them.

It's time again for the annual 'Stella Awards'! For those unfamiliar with these awards, they are named after 81-year-old Stella Liebeck who spilled hot coffee on herself and successfully sued the McDonald's in New Mexico , where she purchased coffee. You remember, she took the lid off the coffee and put it between her knees while she was driving. Who would ever think one could get burned doing that, right? That's right; these are awards for the most outlandish lawsuits and verdicts in the U.S. You know, the kinds of cases that make you scratch your head. So keep your head scratcher handy.


Here are the Stellas for this past year  --  2010:


*SEVENTH PLACE*

Kathleen Robertson of Austin, Texas was awarded $80,000 by a jury of her peers after breaking her ankle tripping over a toddler who was running inside a furniture store. The store owners were understandably surprised by the verdict, considering the running toddler was her own son

Start scratching!


* SIXTH PLACE *

Carl Truman, 19, of Los Angeles , California won $74,000 plus medical expenses when his neighbor ran over his hand with a Honda Accord. Truman apparently didn't notice there was someone at the wheel of the car when he was trying to steal his neighbor's hubcaps.

Scratch some more...


* FIFTH PLACE *

Terrence Dickson, of Bristol , Pennsylvania , who was leaving a house he had just burglarized by way of the garage. Unfortunately for Dickson, the automatic garage door opener malfunctioned and he could not get the garage door to open. Worse, he couldn't re-enter the house because the door connecting the garage to the house locked when Dickson pulled it shut.. Forced to sit for eight, count 'em, EIGHT days and survive on a case of Pepsi and a large bag of dry dog food, he sued the homeowner's insurance company claiming undue mental Anguish. Amazingly, the jury said the insurance company must pay Dickson $500,000 for his anguish. We should all have this kind of anguish Keep scratching. There are more...

Double hand scratching after this one..


*FOURTH PLACE*

Jerry Williams, of Little Rock, Arkansas, garnered 4th Place in the Stella's when he was awarded $14,500 plus medical expenses after being bitten on the butt by his next door neighbor's beagle - even though the beagle was on a chain in its owner's fenced yard. Williams did not get as much as he asked for because the jury believed the beagle might have been provoked at the time of the butt bite because Williams had climbed over the fence into the yard and repeatedly shot the dog with a pellet gun.

Pick a new spot to scratch, you're getting a bald spot..


* THIRD PLACE *

Amber Carson of Lancaster, Pennsylvania because a jury ordered a Philadelphia restaurant to pay her $113,500 after she slipped on a spilled soft drink and broke her tailbone. The reason the soft drink was on the floor: Ms. Carson had thrown it at her boyfriend 30 seconds earlier during an argument. What ever happened to people being responsible for their own actions?

Only two more so ease up on the scratching...


*SECOND PLACE*

Kara Walton, of Claymont , Delaware sued the owner of a nightclub in a nearby city because she fell from the bathroom window to the floor, knocking out her two front teeth. Even though Ms. Walton was trying to sneak through the ladies room window to avoid paying the $3.50 cover charge, the jury said the night club had to pay her $12,000....oh, yeah, plus dental expenses. Go figure.


Ok. Here we go!!


* FIRST PLACE *

This year's runaway First Place Stella Award winner was: Mrs. Merv Grazinski, of Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, who purchased new 32-foot Winnebago motor home. On her first trip home, from an OU football game, having driven on to the freeway, she set the cruise control at 70 mph and calmly left the driver's seat to go to the back of the Winnebago to make herself a sandwich. Not surprisingly, the motor home left the freeway, crashed and overturned. Also not surprisingly, Mrs. Grazinski sued Winnebago for not putting in the owner's manual that she couldn't actually leave the driver's seat while the cruise control was set. The Oklahoma jury awarded her, are you sitting down?
$1,750,000 PLUS a new motor home. Winnebago actually changed their manuals as a result of this suit, just in case Mrs. Grazinski has any relatives who might also buy a motor home.  

A gang of bikers were riding down a rural highway when they saw a girl about to jump off a bridge.   They pull over and the leader, a big tough, burly man, gets off his bike and says, "What are you doing?" 

"I'm going to commit a suicide," she says.

The girl is quite attractive and the biker doesn’t want to miss an opportunity, so he asked "Well, before you jump, why don't you give me a kiss?"

So, she does and it was a long, deep lingering kiss.

After she's finished, the biker says, "Wow! That was the best kiss I’ve ever had. That's a real talent you’re wasting. Why are you committing suicide?"

"My parents don't like me dressing up like a girl......"

"That's very observant", said the Sergeant, "You 
worked that out from his accent?"

"No", she replied. "I worked it out because he wasn't in for very long".

A man walks into a bar, notices a very large jar on the counter, and sees that it's filled to the brim with $10  bills.  He guesses there must be at least ten thousand dollars in it. He approaches the bartender and asks, "What's with the money in the jar?"

"Well..., you pay $10, and if you pass three tests, you get all the money in the jar and the keys to a brand new Lexus."

The man certainly isn't going to pass this up, so he asks,  "What are the three tests?"

"You gotta pay first,"  says the bartender, "those are the rules."

So, after thinking it over a while, the man gives the bartender $10 which he stuffs into the jar.

"Okay," says the bartender, "here's what you need to do:  

First -  You have to drink a whole quart of tequila, in 60 seconds or less,  and you can't make a face while doing it."

"Second - There's a pit bull chained in the back with a bad tooth.  You have to remove that tooth with your bare hands."

"Third - There's a 90-year old lady upstairs who's never had sex.  You have to take care of that problem."

The man is stunned!  "I know I paid my $10  -- but I'm not an idiot!  I won't do it!  You'd have to be nuts to drink a quart of tequila and then do all those other  things!"

"Your call," says the  bartender, "but, your money stays where it is."

As time goes on, the man has a few more drinks and finally says, "Where's the damn tequila?!"

He grabs the bottle with both hands and drinks it as fast as he can. Tears stream down both cheeks -- but he doesn't make a face -- and he drinks it in 58 seconds!
Next, he staggers out the back door where he sees the pit bull chained to a pole.  Soon, the people inside the bar hear loud growling, screaming, and sounds of a terrible fight -- then nothing but silence!

Just when they think that the man surely must be dead, he staggers back into the bar.  His clothes are ripped to shreds and  he's bleeding from bites and gashes all over his body.   He drunkenly says, "Now...., where's that old woman with the bad  tooth?"

A lady goes to her priest one day and tells him, 'Father, I have a problem. I have two female parrots, but they only know to say one thing.'

'What do they say?' the priest asked.

They say, 'Hi, we're hookers! Do you want to have some fun?'

'That's obscene!' the priest exclaimed,

Then he thought for a moment.....

'You know,' he said, 'I may have a solution to your problem. I have two male talking parrots, which I have taught to pray and read the Bible...

Bring your two parrots over to my house, and we'll put them in the cage with Francis and Peter.

My parrots can teach your parrots to pray and worship, And your parrots are sure to stop saying... That phrase... In no time.'

'Thank you,' the woman responded, 'this may very well be the solution.'

The next day, She brought her female parrots to the priest's house....

As he ushered her in, she saw that his two male parrots were inside their cage holding rosary beads and praying...

Impressed, she walked over and placed her parrots in with them...

After a few minutes, the female parrots cried out in unison:

Hi, we're hookers! Do you want to have some fun?'

There was stunned silence...

Shocked, One male parrot looked over at the other male parrot and says,

'Put the beads away, Frank,
Our prayers have been answered!

Thanks to fellow hubber Quietness and Trust for sending this one to me.

"Suicide Bombers to go on Strike"

Muslim suicide bombers in Britain are set to begin a three-day strike on Monday in a dispute over the number of virgins they are entitled to in the afterlife. Emergency talks with Al Qaeda have so far failed to produce an agreement.

The unrest began last Tuesday when Al Qaeda announced that the number of virgins a suicide bomber would receive after his death will be cut by 15% this February, from 72 to only 60. The rationale for the cut was the increase in recent years of the number of suicide bombings and a subsequent shortage of virgins in the afterlife.

The suicide bomber's union, the British Organisation of Occupational Martyrs (BOOM) responded with a statement that this was unacceptable to its members and immediately balloted for strike action.

General Secretary Abdullah Amir told the press, "Our members are literally working themselves to death in the cause of Jihad. We don't ask for much in return, and to be treated like this is like a kick in the teeth."

Speaking from his shed in Tipton in the West Midlands, in which he currently resides, Al Qaeda chief executive Osama bin Laden explained, "We sympathize with our workers concerns, but Al Qaeda is simply not in a position to meet their demands. They are simply not accepting the realities of modern-day Jihad in a competitive marketplace.

"Thanks to Western depravity there is now a chronic shortage of virgins in the afterlife. It's a straight choice between reducing expenditure and laying people off. "I don't like cutting wages but I'd hate to have to tell 3,000 of my staff that they won't be able to blow themselves up."

Spokespersons for the Union in the north east of England, Ireland, Wales and the entire Australian continent & of course United States and Canada stated that the strike would not affect their operations, as "there are no virgins in their areas anyway."

Apparently the drop in the number of suicide bombings has been put down to the emergence of Scottish singing star Susan Boyle - now that Muslims know what an actual virgin looks like they are not so keen on going to paradise.

Well, folks, it's that time of the year again, (make the sound of a drum roll on your computer desk.) Once a year the best of the best are weeded out of the ordinary to receive the coveted Darwin Award. Here are this year’s contestants and the winner:


Nominee No. 1

(San Jose Mercury News): An unidentified man, using a shotgun like a club to break a former girlfriend's windshield, accidentally shot himself to death when the gun discharged, blowing a hole in his gut.

Nominee No. 2 (Kalamazoo Gazette): James Burns, 34, a mechanic, of Alamo, MI, was killed in March as he was trying to repair what police describe as a "farm-type truck." Burns got a friend to drive the truck on a highway while Burns hung underneath so that he could ascertain the source of a troubling noise. Burns' clothes caught on something, however, and the other man found Burns "wrapped in the drive shaft."

Nominee No. 3 (Hickory Daily Record): Ken Charles Barger, 47, accidentally shot himself to death in December in Newton, NC. Awakening to the sound of a ringing telephone beside his bed, he reached for the phone but grabbed instead a Smith & Wesson .38 Special, which discharged when he drew it to his ear.

Nominee No. 4 (UPI, Toronto): Police said a lawyer demonstrating the safety of windows in a downtown Toronto skyscraper crashed through a pane with his shoulder and plunged 24 floors to his death. A police spokesman said Garry Hoy, 39, fell into the courtyard of the Toronto Dominion Bank Tower early Friday evening as he was explaining the strength of the building’s windows to visiting law students. Hoy previously has conducted demonstrations of window strength, according to police reports. Peter Lawson, managing partner of the firm Holden Day Wilson, told the Toronto Sun newspaper that Hoy was "one of the best and brightest" members of the 200-man association.

Nominee No. 5 (The News of the Weird): Michael Anderson Godwin made News of the Weird posthumously. He had spent several years awaiting South Carolina's electric chair on a murder conviction before having his sentence reduced to life in prison. While sitting on a metal toilet in his cell attempting to fix his small TV set, he bit into a wire and was electrocuted.

Nominee No. 6 (The Indianapolis Star): A cigarette lighter may have triggered a fatal explosion in Dunkirk, IN. A Jay County man, using a cigarette lighter to check the barrel of a muzzle loader, was killed Monday night when the weapon discharged in his face, sheriff's investigators said. Gregory David Pryor, 19, died in his parents' rural Dunkirk home at about 11:30 PM. Investigators said Pryor was cleaning a .54 caliber muzzle loader that had not been firing properly. He was using the lighter to look into the barrel when the gunpowder ignited.

Nominee No. 7 (Reuters, Mississauga, Ontario): A man cleaning a bird feeder on the balcony of his condominium apartment in this Toronto suburb slipped and fell 23 stories to his death. "Stefan Macko, 55, was standing on a wheelchair when the accident occurred," said Inspector Darcy Honer of the Peel Regional Police. "It appears that the chair moved and he went over the balcony," Honer said.

And finally, THE WINNER! (Arkansas Democrat Gazette): Two local men were injured when their pickup truck left the road and struck a tree near Cotton Patch on State Highway 38 early Monday. Woodruff County deputy Dovey Snyder reported the accident shortly after midnight Monday. Thurston Poole, 33, of Des Arc, and Billy Ray Wallis, 38, of Little Rock, were returning to Des Arc after a frog-catching trip. On an overcast Sunday night, Poole's pickup truck headlights malfunctioned. The two men concluded that the headlight fuse on the older model truck had burned out. As a replacement fuse was not available, Wallis noticed that the .22 caliber bullets from his pistol fit perfectly into the fuse box next to the steering wheel column. Upon inserting the bullet, the headlights again began to operate properly and the two men proceeded on eastbound toward the White River Bridge. After traveling approximately 20 miles and just before crossing the river, the bullet apparently overheated, discharged and struck Poole in the testicles. The vehicle swerved sharply right, exited the pavement and struck a tree. Poole suffered only minor cuts and abrasions from the accident but will require extensive surgery to repair the damage to his testicles, which will never operate as intended. Wallis sustained a broken clavicle and was treated and released. "Thank God we weren't on that bridge when Thurston shot his b---s off or we might be dead," stated Wallis.

"I've been a trooper for 10 years in this part of the world, but this is a first for me. I can't believe that those two would admit how this accident happened," said Snyder.

Upon being notified of the wreck, Lavinia (Poole's wife) asked how many frogs the boys had caught and did anyone get them from the truck? Though Poole and Wallis did not die as a result of their misadventure, as normally required by Darwin Award Official Rules, it can be argued that Poole did in fact effectively remove himself from the gene pool.

Thanks to fellow hubber Quietness and Trust for sending this one to me.