It's a funny life!

It is said that life is a joke. For instance, everyone labors so hard to make it to the top-and the few who are lucky enough to reach the peak are often already too tired or too sickly to enjoy the view. Yet the life journey need not be all that grueling. Even the most serious chap will find abundant moments of real fun and hearty laughter. It only takes a keen sense and attitude for humor to enjoy life's many bloopers.
The following are a few of my own personal encounters with life's hilarity. I hope these will tickle your funny bones as much as they did mine.

The Boy with Two Fingers

My sister is a volunteer at a government day-care center. One day, after having served the kids the standard vitamin-enriched lugaw (rice porridge), she called the class to order and began a numbers exercise to practice their arithmetic.
She held her hands up for the class to follow. "Now," she told them, "let's see how many fingers we each have. Start counting with the left hand and then on to the right."
A rowdy chorus broke out. Shortly, most of the kids were triumphantly waving their hands to their teacher and yelling, "Ten! I have ten fingers!"
My sister was about to continue when a tiny scream pierced through the noise. She held her breath and quickly moved to see what was wrong, fearing that a child might have been bitten by a poisonous insect. "What's the matter, Antonio?" she asked a tiny three-year old who had just joined the class that day. "My fingers, teacher," the boy sobbed, "I have only two fingers!"
She checked the little hands and found nothing irregular. Sensing the problem, she mounted the boy onto her lap. "Now let me see. Will you count your fingers again?"
The boy couldn't stop crying, but he complied. "One, two. One, two. One, two…"
Apparently, that was as far as his arithmetic could go.

No Meat on Good Friday

My nephew's fourth birthday two years ago fell on a Good Friday. His mother, my sister, realized it too late and had to decide - regretfully - to do away with fried chicken and pork chops, the boy's favorites. We are devout Catholics and are strictly compliant with the Church-mandated abstinence from meat and poultry during Lent.
"There's nothing we can do," she explained to the boy, but promised to make up for the omissions. "I'll make the spaghetti much more delicious, instead."
On the day itself, the excited celebrant gathered his little friends early and began prodding his mother for the spaghetti. The only way to appease him was to comply. The ten or so guests chuckled in anticipation as my sister emerged from the kitchen with plates of the freshly cooked treat topped with a delicious red sauce. It was only then she realized that the canned spaghetti topping she had bought was meat sauce. Handing each child a plate of her special recipe, she announced firmly, "Listen, children! What's on the spaghetti is ground meat. You cannot eat that. It's Good Friday today." She went on to demonstrate how to shove aside the meat in the sauce.
She quickly turned back to the kitchen and reappeared with a pitcher of iced lemonade. Her birthday boy was grinning proudly, smudges of spaghetti sauce all over his face, "Mama, look! Who said we couldn't eat the meat in the sauce? I just did!"

The Haluhalo Ice Cream

Our graphic designer at the advertising agency was celebrating his birthday. Earlier in the day, he advised everyone in the office that he was treating us all to ice cream during the afternoon break. By exactly three o'clock his girlfriend came with boxes of pizza and a gallon of ice cream. The celebrant quickly began scooping ice cream into individual cups. Ma'am Bernie, the office senior, approached. "Wow, ice cream! What's the flavor, Bob?".
"Haluhalo, ma'am."
"Haluhalo?" she echoed in a somewhat dismayed tone. "I thought you said we were having ice cream." The rest of the staff looked at each other, quite amused by Ma'am Bernie's remark. She obviously didn't get what Bobby meant-that it was a haluhalo-flavor ice cream and not the actual haluhalo. Philippine ice-cream manufacturers had, at the time, just began offering ice cream of the flavor of the nation's top favorite refreshment - haluhalo - this sweet delicacy of various fruits-in-season sliced in chunks and mixed together with sweet fruit preserves, milk and crushed ice.
The clueless Ma'am Bernie was quite puzzled by the staff's particular reaction to what she thought was an innocuous comment. But as soon as she was handed her cup of the cold treat, she tried to regain her composure. Smiling impishly she announced, "Now I get it: Bobby is pulling my leg. First, he said it was ice cream. Then he said it was haluhalo. But then, it's really ice cream!" Up until now, it's never known who was pulling whose leg. (EMAIL: [email protected])