Chinese Puzzle

On a recent
excursion to San Francisco, a Hollywood press party with TV executive
Ted Galenter as host went to a Chinese restaurant. The food was
wonderful but a writer named Jim didn’t eat. He said he wasn’t hungry.

Afterward
the party went to a Chinese nightclub and in the swirl of music and
dancing Galenter observed that an incredible repast, enough for half a
dozen persons, had been placed in front of Jim at the far end of the
table and he was eating.

Galenter called the waiter and asked
who had ordered it. The waiter shrugged. Galenter asked him to inquire
if Jim had ordered it.

THE WAITER WENT to the end of the table, said something, and Jim nodded in approval.

Next
day, still puzzled, Galenter asked Jim, "How come you didn’t eat that
fine food at the first place and you ordered all that stuff at the
second place?"

"I didn’t order it," Jim replied, "I thought you did."

"No," Galenter said, "I sent the waiter over to ask and you shook your head."

"Now wait a minute," Jim said. "All he asked was ‘Are you enjoying the show?’"

Inscrutable, those fellows.

DURING THE recent American Physical Society meeting at UCLA
a man came into the press room, announced he was a physicist from
Greece and said, "I want an interview."

Tom Tugend, handling
press arrangements, started to introduce him to reporters but the
newcomer said, "No, no, I don’t want to be interviewed — I want an
interview, for a job!"

Thud.  

THE LAST LAUGH

AT THE ANNUAL carpenters’ picnic a man named Joe was
having phenomenal luck at the games of chance, knocking down prize
after prize — until he came to the booth where the prize was a wooden
hammer. Try as he might, he couldn’t ring one with the hoops. The
disappointment showed on his face so much that the booth attendant
tried to comfort him by saying, "Just remember, Joe, you can’t win a
mall."

JAPAN HAS its problems with drunks, too, Newsweek reports,
and to curb them Mayor Takayama of Kyoto has devised a diabolical
punishment. Tape recorders are being placed in jail cells and
inebriates will be forced to listen to their own wild ravings the next
morning.

Mike Molony, the Socrates of Spring Street, came upon
an even more fiendish torture the other day in a downtown bar. Two gay
blades were working on a friend who had overindulged.

"The best thing for a hangover," one said authoritatively, "is a hot buttered muscatel on the rocks."

"Only," the other put in, "if you add a cold pork gravy float."

A COPY BOY, discussing the SC ban, made a man on the copy desk starkly aware that he was getting old.

"I’ve followed the Trojans all my life," the young boy said. "Even as a little boy I watched them on TV."

FOOTNOTES — The space-saving apartment-for-rent ads in
another paper were lively the other day. One was, "$95, if decorate 3
crummy rooms w/character." Another, "$57.50. Clean Single Child" . . .
Whenever Mattie Rae sees them bury another corpse on "Gunsmoke" she
wonders if Marshal Dillon and Chester consider it duty of the beyond
call . . . Bill Crago has to watch himself whenever he has to say
"Internal Revenue" or it will come out "External." Mental block,
aggravated by tax consciousness, he figures . . . Revised smile: As
certain as death and taxes and automobile insurance going up.