Teamwork

A class of eight students were preparing for one final practical exercise before graduation. The top students were still vying for honors, so they had something to lose or gain by taking chances.

For this final test, everyone would pair up in teams of two. Given the choice to form their own teams, something historically not afforded to them, one would normally expect them to proceed according to friendships or previously successful pairings.

However, most of the class was not confident that everyone would graduate if they followed either traditional paradigm. Putting the group before self, the two strongest students agreed to each pair up with one of the two weakest students. The test would not allow one student per pairing to dominate every task, so the strong students would have to demonstrate leadership and coach their teammates.

The end result was that the two strongest students still graduated with honors and the two weakest students still graduated.

Young Gender Roles

Playtime with two young boys and a young girl, all about four or five years old, and an adult supervisor. The basic game that develops is that the adult pretends to chase the children around, and the children laugh as they run away. They also enjoy running up to the adult, as if to challenge him to chase them.

But the game evolves into where the girl allows herself to get trapped in a corner, and when the adult gets close she cries to the boys for help. The boys immediately run to the rescue, and try to pull the adult away. The adult allows himself to be pulled away so that the girl can escape.

The cycle repeats, and the adult is left wondering how these children developed such clearly-defined gender roles at such a young age.

Man?

An American in South Korea always ate a certain kind of green pepper and they were never spicy. Koreans would warn him not to, but they were never spicy.

One day, at lunch, he was warned yet again. This time, he pointed to himself and said the Korean word for "man."

This time, the pepper was very, very spicy....

All I need is the air that I breathe.

An airplane was waiting to take off at a nondescript airport somewhere in the United States. As they always do, the crew powered down most of the amenities in the cabin. As the passengers waited and waited, the temperature steadily rose and the air grew stuffy. As it became more and more uncomfortable to breathe, at least one passenger took note of this ironic song playing softly through the speakers.

You look great! Have you been working out?

A soldier left his weapon unguarded. This is indeed very serious. A higher ranking soldier found the weapon, and turned it over to that soldier's supervisor. To earn the weapon back, the supervisor exercised the soldier until he vomited twice. Normally, vomiting once is the standard for overexertion. Vomiting twice demonstrates the seriousness of the incident, without resorting to forms of punishment that can effect short-term income and long-term career progress.

Another soldier, a friend of the forgetful soldier, was out on a mission during all of this. Upon returning from his mission, he was informed about both the incident and its consequences. The next time he saw his friend, he went up to him and said, "you look great! Have you been working out?"

Needless to say, the forgetful soldier was unamused.

Shhh! This is a library...

Two male friends were volunteering at a library, when a third male friend walked in to check out books, DVDs, or whatever he was looking for. That part is not important to this story. At checkout time, one of the volunteers jokingly requested a ridiculous list of prerequisites, including a blood sample, a urine sample, fingerprints, and so forth. The one thing that he did not ask for, however, is the one thing that the patron offered in response.

Imagine a typically quiet library. The conversation thus far had been at an appropriate volume for inside a library. Now imagine, in this patron's excitement, that he shouted, "I can give you a semen sample!"

The two volunteers immediately started laughing, and laughing hard at that. The patron was somewhat surprised, because although he intended to be funny, his exclamation wasn't THAT funny. But, what he couldn't see behind him were three other patrons sitting quietly in the library, and the one female who looked directly at him right after he spoke.

After the female's reaction was brought to his attention, and without looking backward, this red-faced individual very quietly exited the library.