Here's a little tip from me to you as an experienced traveler. Wake-up calls are the worst way to wake up. The phone rings, it's loud and you can't turn it down. I leave the number of the room next to me. It just rings very quietly and you hear a guy yell, "Why are you calling me?" Then I get up and take a shower. It's great.

Most of us have a bad habit we are constantly trying to break. For me, it's biting my fingernails. One day I told my husband about my latest solution: press-on nails. "Great idea, honey," he smiled. "You can eat them straight out of the box."

A taxpayer received a strongly worded "second notice" that his taxes were overdue. Hastening to the collector's office, he paid his bill, saying apologetically that he had overlooked the first notice. "Oh," confided the collector with a smile, "we don't send out first notices. We have found that the second notices are more effective."

You know you live in California when... 1. You make over $250,000 and you still can't afford to buy a house. 2. The high school quarterback calls a time-out to answer his cell phone. 3. The fastest part of your commute is going down your driveway. 4. You know how to eat an artichoke. 5. You drive to your neighborhood block party. 6. Someone asks you how far away something is; you tell them how long it will take to get there rather than how many miles away it is. You know you live in New York when... 1. You say "the city" and expect everyone to know you mean Manhattan. 2. You have never been to the Statue of Liberty. 3. You can get into a 4-hour argument about how to get

This guy loved living in Staten Island, but he wasn't crazy about the ferry. If you missed a ferry late at night, you had to spend the next hour or so wandering the deserted streets of lower Manhattan. So, when he spotted a ferry no more than fifteen feet from the dock, he decided he wouldn't subject himself to an hour's wait. He made a running leap and landed on his hands and knees, a little bruised maybe, but safe on deck. He got up, brushed himself off, and announced proudly to a bystander, "Well, I made that one, didn't I?" "Sure did," the bystander said. "But you should have waited a minute or two. The ferry is just about to dock."

Today I picked up my mother-in-law at the airport. She's getting a little up there. She's at the age where she doesn't remember things too well. So when I saw her I said, "Thanks for coming. Have a nice flight!"

A lady was picking through the frozen turkeys at the grocery store, but couldn't find one big enough for her family. She asked a stock boy, "Do these turkeys get any bigger?" The stock boy replied, "No ma'am, they're dead."

The door bell rings, and a man answers it. Here stands Little Johnny, dressed well but plainly, who says, "Trick or Treat!" The man asks Johnny what he's dressed up like that for at Halloween. Little Johnny says, "I'm an IRS agent"; then he takes 28% of the man's candy, leaves, and doesn't say Thank You.

A soldier's letter home: Dear Mom, I can't tell you where i am, but yesterday I shot a polar bear. Two weeks later, another letter home: Dear Mom, I can't tell you where I am, but yesterday i danced with a hula girl. Two weeks later another letter home: Dear Mom, I still can't tell you where I am, but yesterday the doctor told me I should have danced with the polar bear and shot the hula girl.

A woman goes to the local psychic in hopes of contacting her dearly departed grandmother. The psychic's eyelids begin fluttering, her hands float up above the table, and she begins moaning. Eventually, a coherent voice emanates saying, "Granddaughter? Are you there?" The woman, wide-eyed and on the edge of her seat, responds, "Grandmother? Is that you?" "Yes granddaughter, it's me." "It's really, really you, grandmother?" the woman repeats. "Yes, it's really me, granddaughter." The woman looks puzzled, "You're sure it's you, grandmother?" "Yes, granddaughter, I'm sure it's me." The woman pauses a moment, "Grandmother, I have just one question for you." "Anything, my child."

At long last the good-humored boss was compelled to call Fisk into his office. "It has not escaped my attention," he pointed out, "that every time there's a home game at the stadium you have to take your aunt to the doctor." "You know, you're right, sir," exclaimed Fisk. "I didn't realize it. You don't suppose she's faking it, do you?"

A minister had just finished an excellent fried chicken dinner at the home of a congregation member when he saw a rooster come strutting through the yard. "That's certainly a proud-looking rooster," the minister commented. "Yes, sir," replied the farmer. "He has reason to be proud-- one of his sons just entered the ministry."