Two and a half jokes.

So I was standing in line at the Morgantown post office today (where you always have to stand in line, because that's the way it is). Anyway, while I was waiting, one of the postal clerks behind the desk is having a chat with the old geezer standing in front of him. Suddenly, the clerk gets this gleam in his eye.

"Did you hear that FedEx and UPS are going to merge?" he asked.

"No, I didn't," said the geezer.

"Yeah, they're going to call the company FedUp!"

Smiles all around, if not outright laughter.

Anyway, as you might imagine, first thing I did when I got home was to wait around for my opportunity to work this joke into the casual conversation at the old homestead. Which I did. And Rose responded with "At least they're not shooting each other down there!" Which makes it two postal worker jokes in one day. Or at least one and a half.

Back to work on Monday.

Which reminds me of another old joke: So, once upon a time, a guy was sentenced to an eternity in Hell, and he was being given a tour of the place by Satan himself, who showed him from one room to another, and told him he could take his pick of places to stay and punishments to endure for the rest of time. In the first room, he saw a bunch of people standing on their heads on a solid wood floor, while a host of devil's crafty minions stood around making sure no one was slacking off. It looked painful and uncomfortable both.

So the devil showed him to the next room, where an even larger number of people (and a corresponding number of minions) were standing on their heads on a solid concrete floor. Even worse.

So, finally, the devil took him into the next room, where an even greater number of people were standing around, knee-deep in manure, sipping coffee out of china cups and chatting with the minions. "This is the room for me," says the guy, and the devil says, "All right, follow me: we just need to clear up some paperwork." And as they walk out the door, the guy hears the chief of the devil's minions shout out "All right, coffee break's over! Back on your heads!"

And so that's probably what I'll be thinking about when I go back to work.